Another Oshkosh has come and gone and we miss it already. Adam Jr and I spent 9 days camping under the wing of our club’s Cessna Cardinal 177B from Saturday 7/26/08 through Sunday 8/3/08. For those not in the know, Oshkosh Wisconsin is home of the Experiment Aircraft Association and one of the largest airshows / aviation conventions in the world. Approximately 10,000 planes fly into Oshkosh during the week. Another 500,000 people or so pass through the gates to engross themselves in aviation.
Our flight out to Oshkosh with my pilot friend Doug in the Cardinal was exciting as usual. We departed at 5:10 am, just as the sun crested the horizon. Because we were one of the few souls airborne at that hour, the radio seemed silent and the controllers were very relaxed. We glided over the mist covered mountains of eastern West Virginia as the sun behind us began to warm our cozy cockpit. About half-way to
Bluffton Ohio, our fuel stop, Adam Jr. took his obligatory nap. I guess waking up at 3:30am to begin our journey to Wisconsin can make a 9 year old pretty tired.
We had two other planes from our group heading out to Oshkosh that Saturday morning. However, they were both considerably faster than our Cardinal and
didn’t need to leave quite so early. About two hours into our three and a half hour flight to our fuel stop, the radio crackled with the familiar voice of my buddy Darren. He piloted a retractable gear Cessna 182 that morning with his father Darrell, besting our speed by about 30mph. Our other friends, Bruce and
Arjan, also began to join in the chatter. They were in a little experimental plane called a Vans RV-8. Their space is small, but their speed is high as they cruised about 50mph faster than our Cardinal. Needless to say, they caught and passed us before reaching
Bluffton.
Arjan flew directly over head about 20 minutes from our destination in western Ohio. Approaching the airport in
Bluffton,
Arjan stated over the radio that we would need to descend below 2,000 feet in order to remain clear of clouds in
Bluffton. Seeing clear skies where we were, I was perplexed at the weather report. As we neared
Bluffton, we hit a wall of light rain and limited visibility. Luckily, we still had our obligatory 3 miles visibility and found the airport without incident. About 10 minutes after landing, Darren and Darrell arrived in the 182, and we all found ourselves on the ground in Ohio at the same time.
We departed
Bluffton under an
IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flight plan to allow us to climb into and above the clouds. The flight was uneventful at 6,000 feet above the cloud deck. Nearing Gary, Indiana at the southern tip of Lake Michigan, we cancelled our
IFR plan and dove through a hole in the clouds so that we could fly up the Chicago skyline. The Gary controllers were great as we passed over their airspace and towards Chicago. The cruise up the shoreline of Chicago was breathtaking as usual, with the exception of passing the now deceased
Meigs Field, destroyed in a midnight raid by the scumbag mayor Daley.
Somewhere over
Waukegan,
Arjan and Bruce passed us somewhat to our east. We tried to keep up as we neared the conclusion of our three and half our flight from
Bluffton into Oshkosh. However, they had to do a few circles around an airport 40 miles or so to the south of Oshkosh to wait for us. Unfortunately, Darren and Darrell were too far behind us to catch up and we
didn’t have the fuel to circle and wait for them. So we dropped in behind
Arjan and began to follow him into Oshkosh.
At this point, the fuel gauges were already bouncing on the E, despite the fact that my calculations had us arriving at Oshkosh with at least 45 minutes of fuel. Combine that with the fact that there were now dozens of airplanes all around us who were heading into the same airport, and my senses were heightened to say the least. I fell in behind
Arjan’s RV-8, which is unmistakable with it’s Air Force striped flaps lowered. We found the town of
Ripon, per the
NOTAM, or regulations required for aircraft approaching this bees nest-like airport. As we passed over
Ripon, we flew over the railroad tracks specified in the approach procedures and marked with pink arrows pointing to the town of
Fiske, which is the second
waypoint prior to Oshkosh.
As we neared
Fiske at the required 90 knots and 1,800 feet, the first line of controllers, located in a temporary trailer on the ground near the center of town, were admonishing the approaching aircraft for bunching up too close. They wanted us all at least ½ mile from each other, which really
isn’t very far apart. However, apparently some planes were getting closer than that and making the controllers nervous. We were about half-way to
Fiske when I watched
Arjan and Bruce pull a hard left turn and fly quickly to the southwest. They had abandoned the approach for some reason.
That reason became quickly apparent as we gained on the slow bush plane flying 20 knots too slow on the approach. At this point I was almost side-by-side with this slow plane. The controllers came across the radio and stated “I see two aircraft approaching
Fiske side-by-side. One of you will have to break off of the approach, go back to
Ripon, and start over.” Seeing my fuel gauges on E and doubting my fuel management at that point, I knew I
couldn’t break off of the approach without going into a different airport for fuel. So I broke one of the rules that stated that pilots do not talk on the radio and should only acknowledge commands by rocking the wings. I keyed the microphone and stated “that plane’s going too slow!” At this point, the offending aircraft broke off to the east and we were cleared for the runway 27 approach into Oshkosh. The rest of the approach was fairly benign, as we approached the airport and landed on runway 27 simultaneously with two other planes (it's a long runway).
After parking in the grass next to the runway, and arguing with the ground flagmen regarding us wanting to all park together as a group, we sat and waited for Bruce /
Arjan and Darren / Darrell to arrive. Despite the
EAA flagman’s best efforts to ensure that we
didn’t get to park together, we managed to put Darren’s plane right next to ours and
Arjan’s plane very close by. The area between Darren’s plan and my plane would become the center of our campsite for the 5 other aircraft from
Gaithersburg who would eventually join us. For now, we had arrived safe and sound after 7 hours of flying. And yes, we had 45 minutes of fuel remaining on board. What I
wouldn’t do for some accurate fuel gauges!!
While we were tying down the aircraft and setting up camp, a reporter for the
AirVenture Today newspaper came around and began asking questions. Little did we know that Adam Jr. would become an Oshkosh celebrity...at least for a day.
http://www.airventure.org/2008/2mon28/around_field.html
