Days 7 & 8 - The Return

Checking weather and the condition of our feet and legs, we agreed Wednesday was the time to leave. A front passed through Tuesday night and Wednesday morning that we knew we could follow in the clearer air behind. After treating ourselves to the great breakfast buffet at the Hilton Hotel (where the next table over was occupied by Sully Sulllenberger and Jeff Skiles, the heroes of the Hudson water landing) we packed up Wednesday morning, got our gear to Jim Bildilli to haul back for us, said goodbye to Steve Korta (also leaving) and took off east at 1230.

The plan worked well, though the tail wind we had caught us up to the front at the Michigan-Ontario border. Discretion being the better part of flying. we landed at Port Huron, MI for the night. The FBO there loaned us a car to get to the motel and a good restaurant on the St. Clair River that flows out of the south end of Lake Huron.

If anyone wants to see the effect of the loss of manufacturing in the "Rust Belt", Port Huron, MI would be a good place to start! An "outlet mall" near our motel was about half empty with about 10 cars in the parking lot and downtown near the restaurant was a large Mopar (Chrysler) plant standing idle. Pretty depressing! And yet there was a two-man, free, evening concert being presented in the City Park of Marysville that, as Evan said, was pure Americana - older folks on lawn chairs scattered through the park listening to the music, young parents pushing their kids on the park swings, and a big American flag as a back-drop to the stage. We stopped for a moment to capture it all.

Thursday morning dawned with beautiful weather which we followed all the way to the Finger Lakes (Seneca County Airport) to refuel. From there, with the same, healthy tail wind, we were in Manchester in two hours - 2 pm!

So the Excellent AirVenture of 2010 has ended and is now a very satisfying part of our memory banks. Time to start planning for the next adventure.... Thanks for reading!

Day Six Pics

Privately Owned F4

Line of Vintage aircraft

Day Six - War Birds, Vintage Aircraft, and Crowds

Another beautiful weather day brought more planes in and huge drive-in crowds to OSH. Though the "North 40" aircraft camping area has no where near the hundreds of planes it normally has in a normal, dryer year, the good weather is bringing in large day crowds so the place has been hopping! Lots of war bird activity today with P-51's, Corsairs, B-17's, and other miitary aircraft flying. No modern jet fighters yet, only Korean war vintage stuff. We expect the heavy iron will be later in the week.

I spent the day in the War Birds and Vintage Aircraft areas marvelling at the amazing efforts, and money, people have expended to maintain these classic aircraft. In the War Birds category, besides the "usual" P-51's and Corsairs there is a PRIVATELY OWNED AND MAINTAINED F-4 jet fighter and a Harrier vertical take-off jet fighter! Just to fuel those aircraft would take all the money I have! The Vintage Aircraft included 1930's -era classics by Waco, Stinson, and the most beautifu Stagger-wing Beechcraft! One of the latter was owned by Barron Hilton. We're all grateful to those with the money to keep them flying!

Our congenial tent neighborhood has diminished as Gary, the ex-Flying Tiger captain pulled out in his Skybolt biplane headed back to Nevada, and our Cessna 172 neighbors from Wichita, KS pulled out this evening, too. They both started to leave but were held up for a while because a biz jet crashed on the main runway, 18-36. As they left, in the amazing spirit of sharing that permeates this place, we inherited left over ice, groceries, and a chair.

Looking at the weather and gauging the condition of our feet and legs, we are thinking we will leave Wednesday or Thursday. That will be a call we make after more consultation with the weather radar.

So tomorrow is uncertain but whatever we do, it will be fun!

Dick

Day Five Pics

A Sikorsky Sky Crane used to deliver the 2011 Ford Explorer.

The crowd at show center.

A line of aerobatic biplanes.

Day 5 - Trying to absorb it all!

Today was the first official day of the BIG SHOW and the weather was perfect for wandering from vendor to vendor, plane to plane, conversation to conversation. The number of planes flown in by campers is significantly less because of the long wait for the grounds to dry and the campers opting to leave their planes at surrounding airports and just drive to OSH and camp. So we are seeing tent cities with no airplanes - a major departure from past years.

We wandered separately and I found myself sort of going in circles trying to decide what to see next. There is just SO MUCH! Most of my time was spent looking at little known new aircraft lines or unusual "niche" aircraft. Examples are:
The Terrafugia - the latest attempt to create a flying car (or roadable airplane)
The IconA - A very sleek-looking pusher amphibian for two (pretty limited market)
Light sport aircraft of every shape and design - Everyone seems to be trying to get in to this new market though sales have been slow (they still cost $100K!)

The first air show was well run with one aerobatic act quickly following the last for 2 1/2 hours! The new aerobatic aircraft are so light, so over-powered, and so strongly built that the typical routine has the aircraft tumbling through the air - sideways, tail first, and every which way! The show was closed by a stunt paid for by Ford where they had a Sikorsky sky crane helicopter bring in the 2011 model of the Ford Explorer, its first public display. Edsel Ford, himself, drove it from where the sky crane left it on the runway to the show center. That stunt was followed by an outdoor concert by Chicago, music well matched to the crowd!

One interesting incident occurred when I went to get a bite of lunch at one of the concession stands and sat across from an older gentleman. As is the custom here, we immediately started talking about flying and airplanes and how we got there. I suddenly realized, as did he, that he was the same person with whom Steve had had an hour-long conversation the afternoon before! Steve had told us of that conversation as the guy WAS fascinating. We both marveled that out of 80,000 people that "rematch" had happened.

Steve struck up a conversation with yet another ex-Flying Tiger captain and even got us an invitation to a party that his group of pilots - the Beechcraft crowd -is throwing Wednesday night!

Tomorrow will be a Warbird day for me. And another air show!

Dick

Day 4 - pics

A futuristic wing tip winglet and the historic plaza in the middle of AirVenture.

Day 4 - Scoping it out before the crowds

While the powers that be await the ground to dry to accommodate everyone, planes of lighter weight or of a classification that parks in an area that is dry enough are trickling in. And the variety is amazing! In one stretch of a half hour I saw a P-38, DC-7B, Stearman, and a T-28 jet arrive. At one point there was eough traffic that they converted the parallel taxiway in to a runway and I saw the T-28 jet trainer sweep around the tails of two biplanes on approach to the taxiway and land on the runway! Air traffic control rules can be very flexible when everyone knows what they are doing, pays attention, and cooperates.

Speaking briefly of cooperation - this is the mellowest, happiest crowd of people any of us have ever seen! All the volunteers, the vendors, the attendees, and the officials are laid back, happy to be here and, consequently, we get courteous, responsive service, there is no litter, and people readily help each other. Wish we could export this attitude!

Today, with the crowds still minimal, was a day for scoping out the layout of all the areas, making mental notes of things to see and prioritizing. We each will go our separate ways as each has their own interest and focus. We''ll reconvene in the evenings to compare notes and advise each other on the "must-see" things we each have experienced.

And that's the way we did it today. I focused on all the aircraft vendor sites being madly assembled, the vintge aircraft area, and the newly restored DC-7B that flew in from Miami with 19 paying "passengers". In that last of the piston powered passenger airliners I could see the seeds of the DC-8's I worked for Flying Tigers!

Evan and I were briefly together to see the "Kestrel" exhibit and aircraft being set up. The exciting news is that the company is going to set up its development and, ultimately, production facilities at Brunswick, the former Naval Air Station for which all of us, Steve, Evan, and I have worked at different times. Hopeful news for the future of that airport!

So, tomorrow is the start of the "big show" with daily air shows, special demos and forums, and planes, planes, planes! The key will be to pace ourselves so we see as much as possible without wearing ourselves to a frazzle - a challenge!

Day 3 pics

Day 3 - Drying Out

Day 3 - Drying out


This will be an unusual year for the AirVenture event because all the rain has saturated the ground and made aircraft parking on the grass impossible as of today, Saturday. We were fortunate to arrive Friday because today every airport for miles around is crowded with parked aircraft diverted from OSH. Our first night in the tent was under a deluge from 3 am to 6 am leaving a lake around the porta-potties and shower building. Our tent site was relatively - emphasize RELATIVELY - dry though I spent a half hour mopping puddles out of the floor. But the day was sunny and windy, good drying weather and as I type everything has dried out.





Because of the soaked nature of things this morning we went to the Hilton Hotel near our camp site and signed up for the all-you-can-eat breakfast ($12) they put on for the duration of the show. The hotel knows its market - they have a stunt biplane hanging from the lobby ceiling!





A soggy day was a good day for visiting the EAA Museum, which we did, and for visiting with and socializing with other lucky "propeller-heads" who got in to OSH early, which we did, and for sitting watching a few special arrivals that were allowed in, like a '30's era Sikorsky L-39 amphibian and a PRIVATELY-OWNED Viet Nam-era F-4 fighter. The highlight of the day has been the expansion of our camp site to accommodate two other tents; a Skybolt pilot (aerobatic biplane) whose camp site went under water and Steve Korta of CT Aeronautics. As is so often true of the small world of aviation, it turns out Gary Duff, the drowned-out aerobatic pilot, was once a captain with Flying Tigers whose flights I had worked in Viet Nam and Boston!!





Next two days should be beautiful weather and all those diverted aircraft should start coming in. We're looking forward to watching all the action begin in earnest!

Day 2 - We made it!

After sitting out heavy thunderstorms overnight in Muskegon, MI, Steve, Evan and I found ourselves discusssing weather-dodging strategies with a family flying from the Philadelphia area to OSH. One gets the impression that EVERYONE is headed to OSH! Because of the line of t-storms streaming across Lake Michigan to the south, the agreed upon strqategy was to fly further north along the east coast of the lake to Ludington, MI, land there, and reassess. Others had the same idea and we found ourselves huddling with quite a group of pilots waiting for a break in the weather to make it the 70-some miles across the big lake. Smart phones, iPads, and computers were working overtime to get the latest radar tracks of the precipitation. The ceiling got to 2500' and about 8 miles visibility and we all launched together as a "flight" with us as #1! Four planes feeling their way in some hazy conditions in trail with each other. A new experience. But Evan and Steve showed steely resolve and uncommon skill and we found the western shore of the lake!

We then fitted ourselves in to the line of aircraft flowing in to OSH and landed on the "green dot" mid-way down Runway 27. The good news was we were here; the bad news was that we beat the truck that hauled our "stuff" for us. But that eventually showed up, we set up the tent, broke out some beers, and started watching airplanes. We knew we were in the right place when two P-51's taxied by!

So tonight we three airventurers will REALLY learn how compatible we are as we bunk together in Evan's tent. But we have ample food, beer, wi-fi access from the nearby Hilton Hotel (don't tell 'em), and LOTS AND LOTS of airplanes and airplane people to see so I think we will be more than OK!

Rain expected tonight. We're hoping Evan's tent works well.... Tomorrow we start to explore this world of aeronautical excess!

Dick Ludders

Day 1 Photo - N1317U poised for TO @ MHT

Plane poised for TO at MHT - We know what Lindbergh felt like (well almost...)

.Addn'l Day 1 pics

Day 1 -

Steve Berardo, Evan McDougal, and me (Dick Ludders) all NHAHS members and "propeller heads" in the extreme lifted off from Manchester-Boston Regional Airport Thursday, July 22, 2010 headed to the EAA's Air Venture 2010 at Oshkosh, WI at 6:55 am. Fuel stops in the Finger Lakes region of NY and Owasso, MI and a little over 6 hours of flying, plus a little ground time to let one line of T-storms pass, have put us at the shore of Lake Michigan at Muskegon.



Here we will wait to see what the advancing warm front brings before venturing across that LARGE body of water and scooting in to Oshkosh. At the very least, our location this far west and the clearing forecast for Saturday will put us in to the heart of aviation's "big show" by Saturday. We will then set up camp and immerse ourselves in "aeronautica" for the coming week. Stay tuned!