Day 12 - Wadsworth, OH to Oshkosh, WI
As always, today was an exciting day with all sorts of unexpected twists.
I woke up to find that airfield where I was staying was completely fogged in, which was unexpected. Fortunately, during the hour that it took me to get up and around, the fog burned off so that when I arrived at the airport where my airplane was located, about 2 miles from the house where I stayed, I was able to get in the plane and takeoff off right away.
A foggy runway
Interestingly, as we were driving down the foggy roads towards the airport, out of the gloom ahead of us emerged a big black shape with no lights. We slowed down and saw that it was an Amish horse and buggy just trotting along the road with no lights. Certainly not something that I see every day.
After taking off, I did a left 270° turn and flyby down the short runway so that Chris, Lisa and Lewis could all watch me go by. It’s the first time I’ve gotten to do that in many years.
My destination for today was to get to Oshkosh, which for about 10 days every year is home to the world’s largest airshow and busiest airport. Approximately 12,000 to 15,000 airplanes of all sorts, from Homebuilts to Cessna’s, jets to World War II bombers and fighters congregate. Although I’ve been many times before, I always approach it with both excitement and trepidation for a number of reasons.
Somewhere under those clouds is Chicago
In many ways, going to Oshkosh is a pilgrimage for those who subscribe to the religion of aviation. It’s like making the Haj to Mecca: every pilot should do it at least once in their life.
My route had me going from my starting point south of Cleveland due west to the far side of Chicago, and then make a right hand turn and head north to Oshkosh. Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t look at my flight plan and had plans of her own. She put a large storm system just on the far side of Chicago, forcing me to make an alternative plan. As I approached Chicago, I suddenly remembered the old Blues Brothers movie. The film had one quote that seemed especially apt:
“It’s 106 miles to Chicago. We've got half a tank of gas, a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.”
Except for the bit about cigarettes, it pretty much described me in my flight today.
I turned north out over Lake Michigan and flew about 20 miles off the shore of Chicago up high, then dropped down into Wisconsin. At 10,500 feet, the outside air temperature was only about 40° so since I was in shorts and a T-shirt, I was actually quite cold.
While doing this, I was monitoring the situation at Oshkosh and saw that the field was closed due to bad weather. As a result, I decided to land and get some gas. Lucky for me, there was an airport with very cheap gas near my route of flight. Ironically, the name of the airport was Troy, which given all of the other Greek and Roman allusions of the earlier parts of my trip, was too good to ignore.
By the time I finished getting gas, the Oshkosh opened up, starting a scramble with pilots from all directions racing to try and get in. With the newer technology that allows us to see where other planes are, making it much safer than in years past, but still quite challenging.
The FAA has established a hybrid of instrument procedures, new technology to show where we are on various computer screens, and good old-fashioned eyes on the ground communicating with us to keep us all safe and sequence thousands of pilots into an airport.
Low ceilings going into Oshkosh
Normally, there are two arrival procedures, the standard one with everybody flying at 1800 feet and 90 knots, and a higher altitude, high-speed one 500 feet above at 130 knots. Because of the handling characteristics of the Long-EZ, doing the lower arrival is actually quite dangerous because it has you just barely above the stall, especially if the people in front of you do not do a good job maintaining their airspeed.
Due to the weather, especially the low ceilings, I was only able to do the lower arrival with everybody else. I often found myself just barely above the stall, which was very uncomfortable. I successfully flew the arrival and landed on runway 27 which unfortunately then had me sequence the long way around for taxi. From the time I touched down until the time I shut down was 55 minutes. My engine would’ve normally overheated after about 10, but I was in line right behind a whole bunch of other airplanes whose prop wash was just enough to keep my engine cool.
As soon as I got parked, I set up my tent under the wing of my plane and tied down the plane. Most pilots do this by putting large corkscrew attachments into the ground, and then tying down the wings. Tying down planes is the norm anytime we leave them outside, but especially important at Oshkosh, as they often see some very strong, thunderstorms, and high winds come tearing through usually in the middle of the night.
Housekeeping taken care of, it was time to get myself some lunch. Unfortunately, everything at Oshkosh is insanely expensive. My wife, sausage sandwich, a soda and some fries. Cheese curds sent me back $30!!!
Next stop was registration, which is required for all of us bringing airplanes in. They do it in a very strange fashion in that they charge you the full amount is if you were staying for a week and if you choose to leave before then then you have to go back and get a refund. I guess it makes sure they get plenty of money, but it’s a real pain for the rest of us.
All of that behind me, I was able to sit out and start walking around the show. The quantity of exhibits, airplanes, and booths is overwhelming to say the least. As I walked around, I kept bumping into people I knew from a young engineer and his father used to work for me and, Jim Price, who I had stayed with my first night of this fly about.
A B-29 Superfortress
The ubiquitous shuttle bus line
Formation flyby of a supermarine Spitfire, Hawker Hurricane, and a North American Mustang
A C-47 dropping World War II reenactors
The Central Square of the show featuring military hardware
Bomb bay of the Lancaster bomber, which could drop the largest single munition of World War II
The only known C4 still flying actually participated in the D-Day invasion
F 35 lightning and its fighter pilot
Airplanes as far as the eye can see
I swung by a booth, where my friends from DarkArrow were hanging out. The dark arrow is a new design all composite aircraft that I have a reservation for one of the very first kits so that I can build it. They are just about to do the first flight of the airplane so I am waiting to see how it works out. I hope it works out well Because I’m very excited about it. If you’re curious, you can find out more about it at: Black www.darkarrow.com.
For the first time in longer than I can remember, I sat and watched the airshow for about an hour. I brought a collapsible backpacking chair with me on the trip and it was very nice to get off my feet. Having been an airshow pilot myself for over nine years, watching the other performers as always been kind of boring since they all did almost the same thing, just variations on a theme. I’ll admit I was surprised that one of the performers was Patty Wagstaff. The two of us flew airshows together over 30 years ago, and I know she had been doing that for at least 10 years before we had been together.
For dinner, I joined Jim Price and his friend from Portugal, Philippe. We took a series of shuttle buses to outside the airshow and went to a nearby restaurant that had a couple of all-you-could-eat deals. We spent a lot less money than we would’ve had we eaten at the show, and the food was orders of magnitude better.
It was back into the show, and then I got to set up to watch the twilight and nighttime airshow. It offered a bunch of spectacular events, including a flyby featuring the only two Boeing B-29 super fortresses in the world flying formation together, and they were joined by a British Lancaster bomber.
After that, right as the sun was setting, a series of high energy and noise performances I by the USAF F-35 and F-22 demonstration teams. 40 years when I think men and women as young as 23 or 24 to fly these incredibly high-performance aircraft.
F-22 Raptor
Once they were finished, it became dark and a series of night performers these airplanes typically have very bright lights as well as numerous techniques. I’ve never actually seen one of them before I always had left earlier in the week before the nighttime airshow.
One of the nighttime performers is Kyle Fowler, who flies an aerobatic Long-EZ. It’s strange for me to sit here on the ground and watch somebody else doing an erotic altitude routine and same plane, but I used to do.
The final portion of the show was a combination fireworks, drone, and airplane light spectacular. It was pretty cool to watch, but there were so many power techniques that the smoke eventually obscured many of the new fireworks.
It’s 10 o’clock, so it’s time to go back to the tent, finish editing and posting this blog, make a quick call to Kay, then go to bed. I’ll have another long day show tomorrow and I need my rest.
