OSHKOSH 2009 – UNDER THE RAINBOW
Detroit, with the 398
nautical miles and Lake Erie between me and it, seemed so far away. This would
be the only fuel stop between Wings Field outside of Philadelphia, and Oshkosh
Wisconsin. I’d flight planned longer distances before but always ended up
settling for a closer fuel stop. I figured the Viking Witch could make it but knew
I couldn’t without a nature break. Usually I have to go just after takeoff and
upon entering the clouds and IMC (instrument meteorological conditions) as my
luck always works this way. I did, however, elect to go to Detroit this
time because I found an empty tequila mixer bottle that I could bring along to
tinkle in just after departure.
Following my normal preparedness techniques, I
began packing at 4:00 am on Saturday, July 25, 2009, which was 2 hours and
forty minutes before I was scheduled to get airborne. I had filed for an
0640 departure and between now and then I had to find the tent, the tent
stakes, my clothes, the cooler for the Yuengling’s I’d bought, and my brand new
Flight Cheetah FL190 weather receiving GPS tablet computer.
When I walked out to pack the car to go to the airport, I discovered
that the neighbors car had been wrapped up with all the other neighbors
newspapers. I had to laugh as I watched folks coming out looking for
their newspapers. I’m telling you what, it’s a whacky neighborhood!
I left the house at 6:15 a.m. flying
down the road like a crazy woman headed to an all-you-can-wiggle-pedicure
sale. I gave the weather fella’s a call and they confirmed what the
weather channel had already told me; rain, wind, fog. I’m sure I’d have
to pee on departure. I had my departure time pushed back an hour just in
case and it turned out to be just about right; I got airborne at 7:37! It
only took 30 minutes to pack up the plane, but a lot of duct tape was
used. I gave Philadelphia a call on the
frequency and received my clearance to Detroit. It was starting to become
believable that I was going to Oshkosh EAA Air Venture 2009 and I was grinning
from ear to ear!
Armed
with my brand new 
NexRad
weather receiving GPS, off I went towards my first stop of Detroit. Although I
overflew parts of Canada, I never saw it because I remained right smack dab in
the middle of 
the
clouds. The ride remained very smooth and I was able to enjoy my Duncan Donuts
coffee and muffin without interruption. Soon, I had to “go” so I trimmed
the aircraft and uhm, started. I could sense the airplane entering a
right roll and now I’m aiming with one hand, holding the bottle with the other,
throttling back with my right foot and rolling back to the left with my left
foot while still watching my aim cuz it wasn’t about to “stop” on
command. Wings level, still peein’, and back on course – I finally finished
and all was good. Just after leaving the shoreline at Erie, the GPS lost
it’s mind and decided to shut itself off – along with the “weather awareness”
it had been providing! I was looking forward to evaluating the approach
features of the new GPS but didn’t have time to reboot the thing and
troubleshoot what had gone wrong before being cleared for the ILS 33 approach in to
Detroit. I broke out of the clouds about 500 feet and the runway was
right where I’d planned on it being – in front of me! YAY. Four hours and
6 minutes after takeoff and I was now on the ground and I had just completed my
longest leg ever in the Viking Witch, N8388W.
There are two fuel facilities at Detroit. One is owned by the city and is a
self-service pump that sells aviation 100LL fuel and the other is an FBO (Fixed Based Operator) named Signature that has
fuel trucks that will come and fill up your tanks for you. The self service
pumps have no on-field employees there to assist you. Signature has several
very nice employee’s and one wicked witch of Detroit Michigan. Ho! After
landing I taxied over to the self-service fuel because the price of the fuel
was half that of which Signature was selling theirs for. I filled up and
instead of getting my flight plan clearance for the flight from Detroit to
Oshkosh, I decided to taxi over to the Signature parking area to use the men’s
room. After parking, a Signature fuel dude drove up to see if I needed
anything. I told him I just wanted to run in to use the restroom and he smiled,
pointed the way, and bid me a safe journey to Oshkosh. All was
good. As soon as I walked in to the terminal however, the Ho! lady yelled
that I “owed” her $28.50 for services. “What services”, I asked.
She demanded, “Well Who Parked You!!!!?” I did, I replied. “Well,
Who Filled Your Gas Tanks!!!!!!!!?” I did that too, I replied. She
then said again that I owed her $28.50 for services and I let her know quite
loudly that I didn’t owe her anything and 
I was absolutely prepared to discuss that with her manager or
whomever else she wanted to call. I went and read the paper in the men’s
room and when finished and was walking
out, the Ho! lady said “Well, be sure to stop here on the way back from
Oshkosh for fuel since she let me “slide” this time. I laughed AT her and
said whatever. During all this time there had been another pilot paying
for his fuel and watching the whole show of this lady riding her broom stick
around the terminal building. He stopped me before getting in the plane
and asked how much I’d paid for my fuel. When I told him and he realized
that I’d paid less than half of what he’d paid, he said he’d never go back to
their again either. We chatted for a little bit and discovered that we
were both from Southeast Pennsylvania, less than 12 miles apart. He is from
Doylestown Pennsylvania and is the owner of Underwater
World (a SCUBA shop); I also SCUBA dive so he’s definitely a good
guy. “Mike” is also the owner of a really nice Piper Arrow. What a
small world huh?
I hopped back in the
aircraft and I called the tower and picked up my flight plan clearance from
Detroit to Oshkosh and was soon on the way. For this leg, I decided I’d
climb up to 10,000 feet in case there was a problem crossing over Lake
Michigan. If I happened to be in the middle of the lake and the engine
quit, I wouldn’t be able to glide to shore, but it would give me some valuable
time to holler like hell and try to learn how to fly on my own. The
engine ran fine and I didn’t end up having to swim to shore. The airway
that crosses over Lake Michigan along my route is called V510. I flew
V510 over the lake and began my descent out of 10,000 feet for a new
assigned altitude of 4000 feet to prepare for the VOR Rwy 27 approach into Oshkosh.
The Flight Cheetah
FL190 had been rebooted and all appeared normal. Here, I’m flying along
V510 from Muskegon Michigan to Falls VOR in Wisconsin, right about the middle
of the lake. The altitude on the GPS shows 8440 and I had just started a
descent out of 10,000 feet. I could hear a little bit of traffic on the
radio but since the actual event wasn’t starting until Monday, there was still
a lot of aircraft that hadn’t left to come out to Oshkosh yet. The
picture below shows Oshkosh as I approached from the East. I would be
parking down on the left side of this runway (runway 27). See how open it
is on the right side of the runway. That whole area would be full by
Sunday night! I broke out of the weather after descending through 3400
feet and cleared for the approach in to Oshkosh. I was cleared to land
runway 27 on the Green Dot and soon was on the ground. I was at OSH! 
For my
pilot and controller buddies, my clearances were as follows:
|
Leg
1, Duration 4:06 |
KLOM
PTW RAV V170 ERI V116 YQG KDET @ 6,000 feet. |
|
Leg
2, Duration 3:07 |
KDET
DUNKS V170 LESSY LAN V2 MKG V510 OSH KOSH @ 10,000
feet. |
|
|
|
I nailed the Green Dot
with the main gear touching down right in the center of the green circle,
slowed down a bit and turned off the runway into the grass and began following
the marshallers that would be directing me to my parking spot. The
marshallers are all volunteers that come in to see the airshow too. They
volunteer their time for a day while they are there and are taught a job for
that day. It sounds really fun to do and I think one day I’ll volunteer
too. I hope to get a plane director’s role and there will no doubt be a
traffic jam! Like Stevie Wonder shootin’ skeet; everybody would be
running in different directions! About the time I got behind the marshaller, it
started to rain!
I still had to set up
the tent, find ice for the beer, find
something to eat, and do it all holding an umbrella or wearing a poncho!
Lucky for me, the rain only lasted about 10 minutes and it took me that long to
taxi to the camping spot. There were airplanes everywhere and it was only
Saturday – 2 days before anything started; except of course the drinking!
As I was taxiing to my parking spot, Mother Nature presented me with a
beautiful rainbow. This would be a recurring gift from the HO because she
would make it rain Saturday through the morning of Tuesday.
I was able to get the tent set up before the sun went down and also able to get
a few photo’s of some of the planes in my
immediate area. I found out quickly that one of my tent neighbors
to the right of me was also from Doylestown. It’s pretty wild meeting two
people out of 800,000 in attendance that live right down the road from
you.
The Viking Witch Below (From the Front & Back). The GAC in the windows
stands for General Aviation Camping so the marshallers would know where to
direct my taxi.
Finally the tent was up and my bags inside.
There would end
up being over 11,000 smaller aircraft and 800,000 folks in attendance for
Oshkosh Air Venture 2009.
I spent the rest of the
afternoon meeting the neighbors and then went over to Friar Tuck’s Pub, which
was just outside the airport fence, and had dinner and the local beer. I
guess I was more exhausted than I realized because just after 7:00 PM CST, I
found myself almost falling asleep in my plate and in a daze from the “prop
lag” that I must have been experiencing.
I
paid the check and walked outside just in time to see the 2nd rainbow of the
day. I could hear it storming outside as I was eating and kinda waited until it
settled down. As I were standing outside waiting for it to totally quit
raining, I ran into my Doylestown SCUBA buddy, Mike, again. We chuckled
at how slim the chances were that we’d run into each other again amidst the
hundreds of thousands of people already there.
A few minutes later I
walked back over to the airport and around the runway’s edge towards my tent. Each one of these trips I would
make on foot was over a mile each way so I’d end up walking and jogging almost
37 miles during the week. I have the Garmin GPS watch that I use for
jogging so I knew the 37 miles was accurate and since I was exercising so much
I’d get to drink more beer! YAY.
Sunday morning came early
and after almost 10 hours of sleeping, I woke up to the sound of sprinkle on
the tent ceiling and after waiting a few minutes for it to stop, I finally gave
up waiting and grabbed my toiletries and walked up towards the showers that
were 1/2 mile up the taxiway. On the outside of the entire shower
building there are numerous wall plugs so you can charge your phone, camera,
and aviation scanner, oh and the ladies hair dryers. The entire community
of folks there seem to be quite honest as nobody seems to worry about the
expensive gear they leave plugged into the outlets whilst they go shower.
That’s a nice feeling to know that there are so many honest people out there;
many more than we probably realize. After everything was washed, teeth
brushed, and whiskers shaved, I walked back over to the tent to drop off my shower
stuff and then began the long walk, 2 miles this time, to Target and
Starbucks. There was a shuttle bus that ran back and forth to Target, but
it wouldn’t start until Monday – the official start date of EAA Air
Venture. I picked up a few things from the store and also got a large cup
of coffee. Oh, I was able to get a big bag of ice for the cooler and even
managed to get it back over to the tent before most of it melted. I
learned a 20 pound bag of ice weighs a helluva lot more than 20 pounds after
carrying it for 2 miles. After feeling came back to my arms and the beer was on
ice, I grabbed my breakfast that I’d bought, my chair, camera, scanner, and
coffee and walked over to the runway to watch the conga line of aircraft arriving at
Oshkosh. Although there are tower air traffic controllers “in” the tower,
their are also a bunch of controllers on trailers beside each runway where they
are also controlling arriving aircraft too.
The wind had continued
to be as strong as it was the day before at around 18 knots with gusts to
28. Fortunately, the direction from which it came was within 30 degrees
of heading right down the runway so much pilots were able to land without too
much dancing down the runway. There were a few that did go around to try
again; which was the safest move for them to do. I’m glad they didn’t
think they “had” to land with so many folks sitting along the runway watching.
That peer pressure has no doubt been a contributing factor to many of mishaps
in the past. I sat and watched arrivals for a few hours and recorded some
of it. 
Here
is the Arrival Procedure the
aircraft were following. Remember, the show hadn’t even started yet, so these
controllers weren’t even busy yet. During the peak arrival period, the
controllers would work for about 20 minutes before being relieved by another
controller. After a couple of days, we’d start to recognize voices and
new which ones were good and which ones were, uhm, less gooder. That’s
when we’d all get together and watch the airshow! Nobody scratched paint
although sometimes we weren’t sure how!
It was recommend to
take the free shuttle over to the Oshkosh Museum, so I walked over to the bus
stop and caught the shuttle to the Oshkosh Museum that I honestly didn’t even
know existed. I am certainly happy I did go over as this is a really fun
place to visit. Lot’s of aircraft on display, movies playing all the
time, helicopters rides in progress, and a huge store filled with
goodies. They even have a full motion simulator. I spent a couple of hours there at the museum
and then caught the bus back over to the vendor area to have a look around at
what would be opened during the week.
The bus park is only a
couple of hundred feet from the main show area which is situated just South of
the Tower. There are four large hangers and tons of other displays from each
aircraft, avionics, and gadget company aviation and/or speed related. I
say speed because there were boats, race cars, motorcycles, and souped up golf
carts all around. The vendors were still setting stuff up but I was able
to find something to eat for lunch and a place to sit. Here is one of the
“speed” things I came upon while walking around. I had to splice this picture
together as it was too big (and not enough room behind me) to get the whole
truck and trailer in one picture. Those are jet exhausts just behind
either side of the cockpit. I saw later that the truck cap lifts up and
two wide screen displays come up from each side of the bed and plays jetboat.
I walked around for a
bit longer looking at all the setup activity going on and then headed for the
aircraft parking area to look at the various aircraft that people flew
in. There were probably already 4,000 aircraft on the field at this time
and everyone was busy setting up their campsite, polishing up their aircraft,
watching the arrival airshow, or watching everyone else do those things, as I
was. By the time I got back though, the thunder clouds had moved back in
and rain was threatening to come down upon us once more. After running
over to the porta-potty, I stopped back by the neighbors who were out standing
underneath their wing drinking Southern Comfort on the rocks. Not wanting to be
a bad neighbor, I quickly accepted the offer of one for me too.
Having not eaten in an hour of so, everyone started talking about dinner and
where everybody else was going. We ended up going as a group to this
little kitchen right across the street from the airport that was a secret to
all besides the locals. We walked up, waited for a couple of booths, and
proceeded to have an awesome home cooked meal that was fantastically delicious.
We all agreed that we’d be back to this place again and with full belly’s, we
all headed back towards the airport and the North 40 tent city. There was
an opening night celebration back at the “theater in the woods” so I walked all
the way back past the main event area and took a seat just as the guest speaker
was coming on stage. Dennis E. Fitch walked out and looked at the crowd for a
moment. When he began speaking, there wasn’t a sound being made.
See, Dennis was the instructor pilot who was riding (deadheading) back to his
home base aboard the ill-fated DC-10 over 20 years ago that crashed in
Sioux City. Dennis wasn’t in the cockpit when the trouble
started, but certainly had a major part of lessening the loss of life on that
plane. His recount of the incident took an hour and we all gave him our
undivided attention. I’m really happy I was able to listen in.
Afterwards, I walked back in the dark towards my campsite. It was late
when I reached the tent so I wished everyone a good night and went in for the
night.
I woke up Monday morning to the sound of
aircraft engines running. The field opens up at 6:00 am for departures
and arrivals an hour or so later. I found it odd that folks were already
leaving but learned later that many flights come in on Saturday like I did, and
then during the week will go on short flights to surrounding areas for sight
seeing and then return to fly the conga line Ripon-Fisk arrival back into the
airport. I watched a few departures then went for a jog. It felt like I
had ran 433 miles, but actually may have only been 3. After barely
pulling together the strength to go and shower, shave, and read the newspaper
(ahem), I
headed over to the Target and Pick and Save to get coffee and a muffin. I
was starting to come to life right around 8:00 am when I got back from grocery
shopping and walked over to the main vendor displays. John Deere is one
of the sponsors and there are bunches of John Deere Green Tractors pulling
everyone around the airport in wheeled trolley’s. Each tractor has a
driver of course, but there is also a “volunteer” that sits in the very back of
the trailer and hollers at people for sticking their arms out the window or
climbing over the seats and being bad in general. They also get to holler
at the driver when it appears safe to drive away from the loading and unloading
zone so they are given their own microphone and loudspeaker. You know I’m
volunteering for that role one day. “Lady with the Blue Hair,
Please Sit Down!” I’m all over it! If they let me drive a tractor
we’re going off-roading until they catch me.
I walked over to the
ultralite area and got to watch a bunch of cool aircraft that were doing their
own little airshow. Many of them were home made, some one-of-a-kind, and some
didn’t even have sides – just bars. Very cool and I know I would love to
have a coupla-three of them too. There are certain restrictions on the aircraft
to allow them to participate in certain “categories” of aircraft. Each category
has its own set of rules to live by including weight, speed, fuel capacity, and
a few other particulars. I saw that there would be a presentation the
following morning entitled “Introduction to Powered Paragliders”. I would
absolutely be attending that one for sure as I want to learn how to pilot the
powered paragliders and fly around the backyard for a bit. I stayed for a while
and then headed for the center of the vendor area as it was time for a bite to
eat and a look at the homebuilt composites. 
I
figured lunch would be about as expensive as movie theater meals. I was
right.
About the same time I
left the ultralites, a large flock of aircraft flew overhead and around the
surrounding towns leaving a trial of smoke behind. They kept a nice tight
and clean formation throughout their demonstration. There was also a four
ship that screamed by in front of them and entered a midfield break for the
overhead pattern – smoke on the whole time as well. I was listening in to
my scanner and heard a controller giving traffic on White Knight II so I
boogied up to the flightline quickly to watch the arrival of the space delivery
vehicle called White Knight II. I had heard it was coming in today and the
first glimpse I got of it really looked cool and showed a very odd looking twin
tailed aircraft.
What a cool
aircraft. The theory is, they attach a spacecraft in the center of the
wing and carry it to a high altitude where the spaceship then starts it’s
engines, and blasts off in to space. It looks like such a fragile
aircraft but the word is, it’s terrifically strong! It would be my luck
to have the left side shoot off to the left somewhere and the right, to the
right. Actually, the cockpit is on the right and the windows on the left
are actually only painted on and don’t really exist at all. I
watched the arrival show by the WhiteKnightII for a few minutes and then
started looking at some of the aircraft parked all about the airport. 
So many cool aircraft were
in every direction I looked. The new Army Medical Helicopter and the cool
looking Duetsche Push/Pull Prop, and Duggy,
the yellow smiley faced DC3. The official airshow hours are between 3:30
– 6:30 CST but with the awesome amount of arrivals and departures, its pretty
much an airshow all the time. It was getting later in the afternoon and
the beer had been on ice for quite some time so it was time to go have a
swaller or two to make sure it hadn’t gone off. It didn’t.
I noticed that the
clouds were starting to build again and so I grabbed another beer. I had a
great idea that if it rained hard, I’d wash the plane using the rain water to
rinse her off, so I had another beer. I prepped my washing supplies so I
had a washing glove on one hand, wash soap sitting on the tail, I was wearing a
$1.47 poncho that I bought from the Wal-Mart, and had a new beer in my other
hand. When he big drops started falling I knew it was time to start
washing. I squirted some soap on my glove and started washing like a
crazy girl on the price is right. I was able to get about 2/3s of the
plane washed before the rain became a drizzle and not quite enough to rinse her
off sufficiently. I had bought two gallon sized water jugs but used them
to finish rinsing off the suds instead of trying to finish up. I knew it
would rain again so I’d have more opportunities to wash her nose off before
departing for Wings Field later in the week. By the time I got everything put
away, it was time for another beer and the sun was getting way low on the
horizon. I walked back over to Friar Tucks for a great fish sammich and
local wheat beer. Both were delish and filled my belly. The field
closes to arrivals at 8:00 pm, so the walk back to the tent was quiet of aircraft
engines, but all throughout the camp, I could hear other crazy people hollering
about the rain water soaking their sleeping bags and clothes. I’m so glad that
I brought plenty of clothes! I think. I don’t know why I realized it just
then, but I could clearly see in my minds eye, my pile of washed clothes
sitting on top of the dryer – still! I knew it was gonna be an early
morning because I was bringing my shorts with me to the showers and I was gonna
take over the place to get some clean britches!
Tuesday morning did in
fact come early and by 5:45, I had already washed me and my drawers in the
shower facility and had them drying on the prop. I knew it would take a
while for them to dry so my plan was to get over to the show area as quickly as
possible so everyone wouldn’t see the hillbilly who owned them. Today was
going to be a way cool day. The A380 would be arriving, I’d get to see a
helicopter do loops, and would be going over to the sea plane base for a look
at their operations. First stop: The Seaplane Base!
In order to get to the sea plane base, I
had to take a bus as it was about 5 miles away down country roads with live
wild dogs, snakes, and crazy people. The lake is only 1 mile short of Rwy
27 approach end, but the seaplane base is offset to the South a bit. The
seaplane base has quite a few vendors set up too. Mostly there are seaplane
salesman, float vendors, and a bunch of life preserver dudes selling their
latest models.
The bus ride took about
10 minutes and dropped me off by the edge of the woods. I could hear
stuff going on down a trail so everyone on the bus became lemmings and followed
the first dude in the line. Glad he didn’t take a wrong turn. About
1/4 of a mile down the trail, the woods opened up into a beautiful cove along
the shoreline. There were seaplanes everywhere! I could smell corn on the
bbq and it smelled delish! BTW, that’s the only way I eat it! Soak
corn in water (under water is best) for about an hour while it’s still inside
the shuck. Don’t cut any shuck off or pull it open or apart!!!!!
After it soaks for an hour, throw it straight on the grill just like that and
roll it over after 10 minutes and cook it for 10 on the new side. It’ll
be hot when you shuck it now, but it’ll also be the best corn you’ve ever
eaten! Nice! Anyway, sure enough there was bbq’ing corn and burgers and
dawgs and taters. I walked around for about an hour looking at all the
planes and watching a few take off and land on/from the water. It’s
really neat to see. I looked at the booths that were setup and they were
lots of water-related “stuff” as expected. Click on the pics to see them
up close. I got smart before I left for the seaplane base and filled up a small
cooler with ice, water, fruit, sammiches, cheese curds, snap peas, and chocolate. It was
just after 11:30 am by the time I finished walking around so I sat down at a
picnic table and unpacked my big lunch and ate and ate and ate. I
finished up with some fresh fruit and headed back to the bus stop to get back
to the airport in time for the A380 arrival. I barely made it!
After jumping off the bus and trotting over to the
trolley, I was enroute to the flight line when I saw a huge thing hanging in
the sky. It was, of course, the arriving A380 in slow flight. It
appeared just to hang there in the sky but was actually probably moving over
150 miles an hour, at a minimum. They would be giving tours in this heffer and
yes, I’d be standing in line to go aboard.
I wasn’t close enough
to the runway to see it actually land, but apparently, it was a very VERY hard
landing and the pilot pretty much flew the aircraft into the runway and the
wings bent quite a long ways down and there were a lot of post landing
inspections that had to be completed over night. If you look on YouTube,
you can probably find a video of it if you search for A380 Oshkosh. I saw
the video and it was kinda surprising that they pretty much crash landed.
I watched it taxi in to parking and soon heard the crackle of the intercom
announcing the beginning of the airshow! First up, the Red Bull
Helicopter!
This dude is
crazy. I’ve never seen a helicopter do what this fella could do with
it. Very graceful in flight and he did maneuvers that put g’s on the
rotor blades. I was definitely impressed. Here’s a whole album of
just his show. Click on any one of the pics to bring up larger
views. During the show he was taking questions and providing answers as
he did loops and rolls. Really a great show! I stayed on the flightline
of runway 36, which was the airshow active runway, for about two hours and then
headed back to the tent to get ready for dinner, drinking, and
watching/listening to the arrival train of hundreds of aircraft that were in
holding outside of the towers airspace. Every afternoon about 30 minutes
before the airport reopens (after the airshow ends), airplanes start showing up
at holding points Southwest of Oshkosh airport. It is quite fun to watch
the conga line trek its way to the airport. I have a scanner that I listen
to and watch all the aircraft react to the instructions that the tower is
giving to them. If you missed the short 2 minute audio up top, have a
listen, it’s pretty cool!
I filled up the
cooler, grabbed my chair and camping table, scanner and sunglasses and headed out
to the runway’s edge of runway 27, which would be the arrival runway for the
daily arrivals of aircraft into Oshkosh. As the aircraft land and exit
the runway, there are a bunch of volunteers waiting along side of the runway
that I was telling you about earlier. The “topgun” marshallers get to
ride mopeds around the field and “taxi” the aircraft to their parking
spots. It’s quite busy and you can see in the picture to the right that
the moped dude ain’t watching where he’s going so it must be a lady driver. JUST KIDDING.
He intercepted this aircraft and directed him to parking just 3 planes down
from where I was parked.
After the arrival of aircraft
ended for the day, I walked back over to the tent and sat outside with the
neighbors for a bit and laughed and cut-up and told story’s, mostly made up,
and none fully true. It was fun and I made some good friends. Speaking of
which, each day dozens of presentations, how-to classes, workshops, and seminars
took place on a multitude of topics dealing with everything from building
aircraft to interpreting the weather. There were a bunch of topics in
between as well, like Aerial Photography. I wanted to attend this class and
gained some good information from the presentation. Coincidentally, one
of my tent neighbors I met is a professional pilot and actually owns his own
aerial photography business, http://www.americanaerialphotos.com.
Real nice fella and full of laughs. Dick and I went to breakfast together the
following morning over at the Hilton just outside the perimeter fence of the
airport. I think I asked him 11, 428 questions about photography and
airborne picture taking. I love to take photos of my journeys and any
pointers I can get helps me that much more. Dick is also putting
together a training course that teaches not only the fun part of his business
(snapping photos), but the necessary part as well - the business end.
He's good people and I hope to see him again at a future Oshkosh.
Going Home Early 
There are weather
briefers at various locations around the airport. These are manned by
meteorologists and they provide pilots with current and forecasted weather
patterns and such. The weather along my route from Oshkosh to Wings Field
in Philadelphia wasn't going to be pretty over the next few days but my best
chance of a no thunderstorms flight would occur on Thursday so I made plans to
return a day early and make a long weekend out of it back at home.
Since today would be
my last day at Oshkosh, I wanted to make the best of it so I walked around
looking at everything I could take in. I spent a lot of time in each of
the four large vendor hangers looking at all the neat stuff that was coming
out. Things like inexpensive HUDs (Heads Up Displays) for general aviation,
IR technologies, NVG's (Night Vision Goggles), and other cool video gear that
enables you to see the airport in pitch black conditions. Lots of
airplane parts, paints, and procedures as well. I could have stayed in
there all day but didn't want to miss that other stuff left to be seen.
Tours were being giving in the Airbus
A380 so I headed up to get in line to get a chance for a peek inside.
Ironically, the A380 pilot had flown the world’s smallest twin engine aircraft
in to Oshkosh 20 years ago and had now flown the world’s largest passenger
aircraft in this year.
One thing that I was
surprised about was the fact that most of the interior of the airplane was open
with wires and stuff hanging out. Once explained though, it made
sense. The A380 is still not "in production" if you will.
Numerous tests are still being completed and several configurations of test
gear are shuffled between flights. There are large water buckets to
simulate the weight of passengers in each row with only a few real seats strewn
about. Actually, the seats are for the testers and not representations of
what the real seating will look like. The tour started on the top floor
and we all worked our way to the back of the aircraft, down a wide staircase,
then back towards the front. The cockpit was closed to visitors but I was
able to take a picture of a picture to give you an idea of what was behind the
doors. It was pretty impressive and makes me wonder how the B787 will compare.
Afterwards, I decided
to mosey back to the tent and begin packing up my stuff. I would get as
much ready as possible and pack what I could in order to leave around 8:00
am. I had filed an IFR flight plan and had reserved a departure slot for
the same time. If departing VFR (visually), I wouldn't need a slot time and
could simply follow the marshallers out to the runway, wait for clearance for
takeoff, and then head east - however the (forecasted) weather wouldn't allow
for that so I filed IFR (instruments). By the time I finished packing
what I could, the Viking Witch looked like Sanford and Sons truck with all sorts
of stuff crammed in. Dick had already
packed up and headed back home and my immediate neighbors Rob and Bob, whom I
had had a swaller of Southern Comfort on the rocks with were packing up
too. Rob owns a Cherokee that is also parked at Wings (we didn’t know
each other prior to Oshkosh), and Bob owns a beautiful V-Tailed Bonanza.
After most everything that could be
packed up was packed up, I headed over for a bite to eat, a sip of local beer,
and then off to bed for an early rise.
Thursday
Morning. I woke up early and went and showered while the line was still
short so it wouldn’t take so long to get ready to get airborne. I
was beginning to worry about making my slot time, but there weren’t a lot of
people and traffic out since it was raining, foggy, and reduced
visibility. I got everything back to the plane and packed in the cooler
before taking down the tent to put on board the plane. Rob and Bob got
airborne just a few minutes before I did and were headed south to Chicago
before heading East towards Philadelphia. 
I couldn’t believe it
but the weather broadcast was stating the field was under VFR (visual) flight
conditions. I called Clearance Delivery and picked up my IFR clearance to
Ashtabula Oh, which is just outside of Erie Pennsylvania by 10 miles. The
controller told me not to start engines yet and to wait for her call because
Milwaukee was delaying departures due to weather. Five minutes later I
called back and got another 15 minute delay. This happened twice more and
then I asked if I could keep my IFR open, but depart VFR and pick up the actual
clearance overhead Lake Michigan. The controller did some coordinating
and approved my request. I immediately cranked up the engine and began
taxiing at the direction of the Marshallers and was soon airborne. My IFR
request had delayed my departure by an hour while my VFR request got me
airborne in less than 5 minutes from the time I started taxiing.
After getting airborne
I turned to the North until leaving the tower’s airspace before turning back to
the East and starting a climb up to 7500 feet. I wasn’t able to climb
straight to altitude because I had left under visual rules and it would be my
responsibility to see and avoid other aircraft and to remain clear of
clouds. As soon as I received my instrument clearance I would then be
allowed to enter the clouds. I dodged clouds and other aircraft for about
40 miles and then in the center of Lake Michigan on V510 I called Muskegon
approach and received my IFR (instrument) Clearance. I descended to 7000
and immediately entered the clouds to not see the ground again until 10 miles
off-shore of Lake Erie descending into Ashtabula County airport.
After landing in
Ashtabula, I taxied up to the fuel “pit” to the self-service pump and stopped
short to allow another Piper in front of me to finish fueling his aircraft. No
Way! Sure enough, it was Mike, my SCUBA buddy from Doylestown - and
completely unplanned. This is the same fella I had met up with in Detroit
and again at Friar Tucks. We had to chuckle a bit and then laugh at the slim
chances that could have happened yet again. After Mike departed, I pulled the
Viking Witch over and filled her tanks, then pulled her over to the main
parking area and tied her down. I’d filled up the cooler with sammiches
and waters for the trip home and now enjoyed lunch and stretched my legs a
little bit before jumping back in the plane to continue the trip home.
That leg had lasted 3.6 and covered just under 400 miles.
The weather was
showing signs of higher ceilings to the East so I never did call for my next
clearance and instead elected to fly the last 2 hours VFR with flight following
by the air traffic controllers. I took off and began a climb up to 7500
feet to take advantage of the 25 knot tailwinds that were up there. I
still had to dodge the clouds and did so by dancing between, above, and below
them (ahem, while still maintaining separation requirements). It was a
smooth and fun ride home.
I was almost able to
fly directly to Wings but you can see the occasional jaunt to the left to avoid
the clouds. After I contacted the controllers, they requested I climb to
9500 to avoid an arrival corridor so I did and gained another 5 knots of
tailwind. Soon the Philadelphia skyline came into view and a few short
minutes later I was on final to runway 24 at Wings. The cargo area had a
full load and I was able to aero-brake like a fighter jet and kept the nose off
the ground for 2000 feet down the runway; even got an “attaboy" 
by a Citation taxiing out for departure. It
took me about an hour to unload everything, but finally did, then tied down and
covered the Viking Witch and headed home. All in all, a wonderful trip
and I know I’ll go again. Looking forward to it!
I met a bunch of really neat folks and
hope to see them again too. Ya’ll be safe and for goodness sake, Be
Particular!