The Gosh of Oshkosh
Scenes from aviation's annual pilgrimage.
- By Caroline Sheen
- AirSpaceMag.com, August 16, 2010
Caroline Sheen
Overwhelming is the best word for it. I still think about my first trip in the mid-1990s to “Oshkosh,” shorthand for the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture fly-in held every summer in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. For the rookie it’s impossible to avoid being totally overwhelmed. Thousands of airplanes. Hundreds of thousands of people. There’s so much offered up simultaneously: lectures, forums, workshops galore on building, restoring, and flying every imaginable type of aircraft. Where to start? Where to go next? You dive in, and from the moment I did, I was hooked.
You start out in the morning with a to-do list, and find yourself immediately distracted by something you didn’t expect. At Oshkosh, you bump into legends: World War II veterans, show pilots, astronauts. But the ordinary folks (like this shuttle bus rider) turn out to be just as interesting.
The richness of the experience is constant from year to year, but a lot has changed since my first Oshkosh. Thirty-six-frame rolls of film are a memory (good riddance) as my digital camera now lets me shoot thousands of photos on a card the size of a postage stamp, all the better to try to preserve all the little moments at AirVenture 2010 (already fading in my memory, just a few weeks later). There were no cell phones my first year—if you wanted to meet up with someone back then, you agreed on a time and place, usually the base of the control tower. Today, that old brick tower has been replaced by a taller concrete one, more capable for sure, but without the old-school charm.
This year got off to the soggiest start ever, and what struck me right off was the lack of airplanes. And, although there were anniversaries to celebrate for the B-17 Flying Fortress and the DC-3, and veterans to salute, the show lacked a big-ticket item—an Airbus A380 or a Rutan-built rocketplane—as an anchor, a centerpiece. That only seemed to give back ownership to everybody. The weather improved. The airplanes and the tents appeared. Oshkosh happened again, of course. In fact, it wrapped up with the first ever night show, which drew a bigger crowd than the daytime attendance. All the while, I explored, camera in hand, and stumbled across lovely surprises such as Ben Scott’s 1945 Grumman Widgeon in sunset light, an airplane I’d hoped to see. You’ll see it too, as you wander through these photographs.
Caroline Sheen is the Photography and Illustrations Editor at Air & Space.
| Tweet | Digg |
Comments (5)
That 'British' DC-3 has an amazing story if that's the plane I think it is. A handful of Brits pulled it literally out of the weeds in Georgia, 7.5 weeks before Oshkosh, put (eventually) two brand new Wright engines on it, a ton of other work, got it properly signed off by the FAA and made it to Oshkosh! They were planning to come to The Last Time with the rest of us, but lost an engine during test flights and had to spend about two days swapping in another new one. I interviewed them for a documentary I'm doing about some of those DC-3s and their story was one of the best. The individual in charge of this plane's restoration is the same one who restored N3006.
Posted by Franklin Poole on August 17,2010 | 06:25 PM
I am an emeritus RCAF aero engine technician, circa 1960,s. I was trained on Pratt and Whitney engines fitted to the what we called Dakotas.. (DC-3)
These aircraft are still in service to this day. This is more that what can be said of many of us old time mechanics who so loved them then, and still do now. If there was ever a better designed airplane than this, it had to be done on a different planet. The venerable Douglas DC3 will go on forever.. what a piece of history!
Posted by M. Howard Whaling on September 15,2010 | 06:57 PM
Nice story Caroline. The DC-3 AKA C-47 Is the plane of generations and Countries and the world would be a different place without it.
Posted by Randy on October 13,2010 | 06:30 PM
Learning to fly is very exciting but it is very, very expensive and general aviation has a lobby like the NRA would like - to pretend that general aviation is for everybody - it's not. It's like owning a yacht! Costs are extreme, and the CPI (Certified Flight Instructor) needs hours to move on; that's where you the student come it - you pay for his training to higher - commercial prop aircraft. You are a stooge if you think 40 hours is all you need to get your license! I would say 100 to be a safe pilot. And 1,000 to be a real safe pilot. General aviation should never be allowed to use commercial airports unless a real emergency is called. It's just too dangerous - the AOPA (NRA) fights this at the risk of everyone who gets on a commercial route. Sorry for the truth.
Student Pilot.
Posted by John Salisbury, Esq. (ret.) on February 11,2013 | 10:12 AM
Anyone who even knows what an airplane looks like should visit AirVenture at least once. I was fortunate to be invited in 2008 by a friend of mine who has a V35 Bonanza. Our flight from NC to Wisconsin was an adventure in itself, getting vectored through a huge stationary weather front that would otherwise have required us to fly as far west as Kansas to go around it. We dodged cumulonimbus for two hours. After crossing Lake Michigan and stopping for fuel in Sheboygan, we blended into the nose-to-tail line of planes making their way into Oshkosh, and at the last moment on the 180 turn to final, we were diverted from the runway to land on the taxiway, carrying a full load of fuel (including tip tanks) and a back seat stuffed with camping gear. My ace pilot friend didn't bat an eye, just added 15 more degrees of bank, and greased us onto the taxiway next to runway 18. Even got an attaboy from the controller.
Camped on the North 40, saw the Rutan rocketplane perform, plus a great F-22 demo. Like Caroline, I preferred to hang out among the vintage airplanes. Don't know that I'll ever get to go back, but that trip was something I'll always remember.
Posted by Ken Hodges on March 27,2013 | 09:22 PM