Two Fun Filled Days at EAA AirVenture – Oshkosh

After several (thousand) miles of driving, we finally succeeded in making our pilgrimage to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. To those of you who are not ‘in the know’, each year, at the end of July, over 675,000 aviation enthusiasts descend on Oshkosh’s Wittman Regional Airport to attend EAA AirVenture, an airshow that is truly astonishing. Our future “pilots” had been dreaming about this event since the day after Christmas and were (at this point) beside themselves with excitement.

It was Friday, and we had purchased tickets for Sunday. It was obvious that no one in our minivan was going to be able to wait that long. So, we scrambled to buy tickets for Friday, and, more importantly, secure a spot at a kennel for Chuck as dogs were not allowed at AirVenture. Luckily, the only dog kennel in Oshkosh, A Touch of Class Pet Resort, had a cancellation and so there was room there for Chuck. A mere ten minutes later, we were in the parking lot dropping our poor, unsuspecting dog at “doggie day care” so that the rest of us could the Air Show. At least the kennel had air conditioning.

Arriving at AirVenture was nothing short of amazing. There are shuttle buses to shuttle you from the parking lot to the show, but we chose to walk so as not to miss anything tbat may be going on overhead. After securing our wristbands (kids are free, adults ~$50/day) we headed straight towards the runway through the hundreds of aviation-related vendor booths. As for the kids…

Roy’s (11) first impression,

There were three or more grass lots with thousands of planes each, plus a whole airport full of manufacturers’ booths. My favorites (in order) were Kitfox, Bose, Garmin, and Cessna. There was also a warbirds section which included T-6s, P-51s, Vought F4U Corsairs, Stinson L-5s, B-25s, and a B-29 Superfortress.

Out flying, there was this Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor Jet with thrust vectoring so that it could pull hard aerobatic maneuvers like flat spins or falling backwards for no particular reason. There were so many planes in the air at any point in time. There were P-47s that brought dignity back to the airspace as well.

Per Greg (8),

At Oshkosh I got really excited to see my favorite plane, the Piper Seminole, which I had never seen before. (I wish I had gone to see the Piper Super Cub too. I would have gone there but I was way too fixated with the Piper Seminole.) I went inside two different Seminoles, a Kitfox series 7 ST I, a Sling 4, either a Kitfox Series 7 or Series 5, Super Sport, a Robinson R44, a Piper Archer TX, and a Pilatus PC24.

EAA AirVenture Day One: Friday, July 28th

After wandering through some of our favorite vendor booths, and purchasing a few souvenirs, we sat back to watch the “show”. The best way to describe the Air Show is organized chaos. Instead of highlighting a single plane (or genre) at a time, there are sixteen things going on in the sky at any given time. I have read that FAA Air Traffic Controllers relate working EAA AirVenture to the “Super Bowl” of air traffic control as during AirVenture, Oshkosh is the busiest air traffic control tower in the world. On top of the 3,500 “showplanes” at AirVenture, there are over 10,000 personal aircraft as well.

At the Oshkosh/Wittman Airport alone, there were 21,883 aircraft operations in the 11-day period from July 20-30, averaging 148 takeoffs/landings per hour when the airport is open.

While the exact specifications for the various airplanes are lost on me, I do enjoy being in the vicinity of airplanes and airports. The ‘squeals of delight’ from Greg, when he saw a Piper Seminole for the first time was pretty cool as well. While most of the vendors we visited were not overly interested in speaking with us, as it was obvious that we were not in the market for a plane, many humored the kids and allowed them to sit inside (some) of the planes and ask their myriad of questions. Nothing will keep a salesperson on their toes more than a line of questions posed by an eleven-year-old.

Meandering further through the show, we next made our way to the “University” section. Here we visited with Purdue and University of North Dakota to learn about each of their respective aviation programs. Total “sticker shock”. We learned that (in addition) to paying tuition, if one desired a Commercial Pilots License from one of these Universities, you are looking at an additional $300k to cover an instructor and all the flight hours.

Next we came to the field where the 10,000 private planes were parked. Many pilots will choose to camp outside their plane for the week, and so we were lucky enough to talk to several of them. The best piece of advice that we received came from a Delta pilot. He suggested that the kids pursue a degree in Engineering (or something), and then, while working, start to build up your hours with the goal of becoming a Commercial Pilot later in life. This sounded like a much better plan!

It was now late in the day on Friday, so I left Doug and the kids behind, to hoof it back to the minivan and rescue Chuck. The boys were planning to stay until 9PM for the STOL Competition, so I took Chuck to Target and for a stroll along Lake Winnebago. Just before the STOL event was about to start, a storm rolled in, and the show was cancelled. Locating your family the dark, amongst a field of 13,000 camper vans, is not for the faint of heart. Colorful language may have been used that evening.

EAA AirVenture Day Two: Sunday, July 30th

Now that we were AirVenture veterans, we were able to be much more organized on Sunday. We were staying about 1.5 hours away in Algoma, WI. We had booked Chuck for a stay at Canine Kids Pet Care months earlier, so were able to leave early in the morning on Sunday and be in Oshkosh by the start of the show.

The final day of AirVenture appears to be much different than all the rest. Many of the private planes are rushing to take off (for home) before the airfield was closed again for the Air Show. So for about an hour straight, we watched small planes take off at a rate of about one every 15-30 seconds. Again, organized chaos, but this may have been my favorite part of the whole experience.

Walking into the convention the second day, we first revisited Roy and Greg’s favorite vendors. Then Doug, Greg and Roy spent a considerable amount of time at the Piper and Garmin booths, while I stood outside and watched the C-5 Super Galaxy prepare for its trip back to Travis Air Force Base (from like three feet away). I just kept wishing that they would offer to load the minivan in the back so that we could hitch a ride back to California.

Once again, we then found our way to the KitFox booth, where Roy introduced himself to the owner (who he randomly recognized), and then the man who runs the Team Kitfox Forums. Both Roy and Greg were even given the opportunity to sit in “DesertFox4″s personal KitFox, which, for them, was pretty amazing.

By Sunday afternoon, many vendors were now also preparing for their flights back to wherever they had come from. This was another site to see as we watched each vendor pull out and taxi right past us towards the runway. The kids were in complete awe…and well, so were the adults. Needless to say, we all want to go back again next year.

Note, if you are planning a trip to AirVenture, I would definitely recommend including a midweek day as well as a Sunday as both days were completely different. If we would have only visited on Sunday, we would have missed a bunch of stuff as many of the vendors were packing up after a long week.