To pilots here in North America, Oshkosh is the pilgrimage of the flier. For one week each year, around the end of July/beginning of August, Wittman Field (KOSH) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin becomes the busiest airport in the world. Here are the details of my visit:

My family drove to Bedford, Massachusetts to borrow my mother’s Class B Motorhome. It was in need of a lot of attention, as the routine maintenance had been neglected, and it had a pretty nasty water leak. We did some work on it in Mom’s driveway, and took off back home, with a quick stop to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water house in Pennsylvania.

After returning home and working on the water problem, we sent our daughter off with some friends to Colorado (for some reason, our 15 year old didn’t want to go to the airshow), and departed the house on Tuesday, late afternoon. Tuesday night we spent freelance camping en route in the van, and Wednesday stopped in Beloit, WI to get a LP gas problem fixed and to buy a pair of new RV batteries. We arrived in Oshkosh later that afternoon. We paid our $19 per night to stay in Camp Scholler, and found a spot in the pet area. So, it was me, Inna, Alan and Sima (our Yorkie) staying in the miniature motorhome.

Thursday morning, we rose, used the community showers, and made our way out to Airventure, where we took in the static displays, and listened to separate forums hosted by Chuck Yeager and Bob Hoover. We watched the aerial shows, heard a violin concert in the Theater in the Woods, and returned to the van to a nice meal of beef stew. As with last year, we arrived in Oshkosh at about the same time that the rain did, so the shows were abbreviated.

Traveling with our 5 month old was difficult, but it seems that the EAA has families in mind. We found diaper changing stations in a couple of places, fully stocked with all sizes of disposable diapers, as well as a “Mother/Baby Hanger” where mothers and babies can do what they do, with an outdoor waiting area for the dads.

Friday, we had some more fun watching the dogs from the US Customs and Border Protection agency sniff out drugs and contraband from suitcases on stage. I watched forums on GPS and WAAS, and flying cars, while Inna watched the airshow again. Tragically, this was the afternoon when two P-51 Mustangs collided with each other on landing, killing pilot Gerald S. Beck, 58, of Wahpeton, North Dakota.

Pilotcast Podcast-Palooza

At 5:30, in the GAMA pavillion (#2) I was invited by the Pilotcast guys to join them and representatives of Uncontrolled Airspace, Airspeed Online, Ultraflight Radio, The Finer Points, the CFIcast, and the Student Pilot Flight Podlog in a round-table discussion/hangar flying talk which will be available soon on the Pilotcast site. I may also put the mp3 in the Flying Pilot podcast feed.

After this, Inna and I took a walk around all of the airplane tie-downs to see what we want to buy or build.

Saturday morning, I took a workshop in composite construction, where we took a flat square of foam, filled it in with epoxy mixed with microballoons, covered it with fiberglass cloth, and coated the whole thing with epoxy resin. Afterword, the whole thing was covered with a dacron sheet. It turned out pretty well. I was pretty tired when I attended the briefing for the fabric covering workshop, so I ended up skipping the practical portion, but learned a lot in the presentation.

World War II Bombers

In the Saturday airshow, there was a formation of WWII bombers, a B-17, a B-24, and three B-25s. Also, there was the highly anticipated demonstration of the F-22 Raptor. It astonishes me each time I see it fly straight up, run out of speed, and simply nose over and accelerate again perfectly horizontally. Oh the technology of vectored thrust!

3 Generations of Air Force Fighters

Later, the F22 was joined by a P-38 and F-86 in an Air Force Heritage formation flight.

Saturday night, we saw the 1942 John Wayne movie The Flying Tigers at the fly-in theater. Inna and I both enjoyed it, and Alan seemed to enjoy it as well, at least during the times that he was awake.

Oh, I’m not going to talk about all of the commercial displays. You can read about them in many other places, with new VLJs, (Very Light Jets), LSAs (Light Sport Aircraft), and flying cars. Just visit Airventure.org to see them for yourself. I did pick up the book about Captain Jeppessen, and will talk about him and his little black book on a future podcast.