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Post Your Improved OSH Arrival Ideas Here...

TomVal

Well Known Member
Perhaps posting your comments here may provide the EAA board with useful input towards solving this arrival problem.

My 2 cents:

1. Establish separate arrival fixes for both runways
2. Odd numbered N-numbers to one fix, even, to the other (for alphabet registrations...last letter A to M one way, N-Z the other).
3. Still maintain fast and slow mover arrival altitude separation

Regards,
Tom
 
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Flying In & Out of Oshkosh session today

I'm attending a forum session at 1430 today.

Flying In & Out of Oshkosh

This is presented by the NATCA Controllers.


This will be a very ineteresting one.
See you all at Forum Stage 6
 
Better ID of aircraft for some controllers

Some controllers do better than others, but I have witnessed significant confusion because pilots fail to recognize when controllers are talking to them because controllers are calling everything a “Cherokee” or a “Cessna” or a high wing or a low wing.

Perhaps pairing a spotter with each controller who is really up on their aircraft types would help.

Perhaps emphasizing to pilots in the NOTAM that they need to be prepared to be called something other than what they are would help too.

(Perhaps just having controllers brush up on their types would help too.)

A few notables I saw:

calling a Cessna 310 a “low wing”, 310 failed to comply

calling a T-6 Texan a TBM (the turbo prop kind), T-6 failed to comply

Calling a Champ in standard yellow and orange champ scheme a “yellow cub”, Champ failed to comply

I’m not saying they should be able to tell the difference between and RV-7 and an RV-9, nor do I expect them to correctly ID every obscure homebuilt, but the basics ain’t that hard! RV, Mooney, Bonanza, Cherokee, etc.

(Seems like this year was way worse than others, almost like they brought in controllers from LaGuardia Approach control or something who only work with big iron. I arrived Saturday around 5:25 and didn’t get caught in the goat rope on Sunday at Ripon but they did shut down an entire runway for a mass Cessna arrival long before they were even close, which made no sense. Additionally, no reason to limit aircraft operations on the NORTH taxiway for 27 because of the mass Cessna arrival on 36. They made everyone shut down for 20 minutes on the taxiway because we couldn’t cross the ccorridore of 36. Someone forgot this was a fly in.)
 
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How about they fine any pilot who lands without a printed copy of the NOTAM on board $100?
 
The easiest thing to do would be to close the airport to VFR traffic until double VFR weather minimums are met and projected by TAF to remain so for at least two hours. You can't really police the pilot behavior effectively, but you can ensure it happens in better weather.
 
I think there should be more control on mass arrivals. Like only allowing them during a specific time on a specific day. If the weather didn?t cooperate on that day, then join the arrival like everyone else. Closing two of the three available landing runways for a mass arrival that took way to long, created an unacceptable condition. We were told they needed 1 mile, and occasionally, 2 mile spacing on the FISKE arrival. This clearly doesn?t work. The majority of the traffic was turned out south of Fiske, only to get back in line and have it happen again, with dangerous flying by frustrated pilots. The Fiske arrival flown EXACTLY like spelled out in the NOTAM works amazingly well, and will occomodate more traffic on the three runways than a mass arrival, coupled with their unspecified ?trickle? arrival over Fiske. We have had one runway ops before and it wasn?t always caused by trying to accommodate a mass arrival. But this year, coupled with pent up arrival traffic caused by weather the previous two days, it created a monster on Sunday. Somebody in control at Oshkosh should have been able to predict this, and kept all runways open for normal arrivals until this huge glut of arrivals could be swallowed at the airport.

If they are going to make the ?trickle? arrival a viable option during abnormal ops, then they need to have a control station upstream over RIPON. It was chaos between RIPON and FISKE on Sunday when the airport finally opened up. I was passed on the arrival north of RIPON several times while I was at 90K/1800? - on both sides and I was over the tracks. Oh - and is there anyone that thinks asking a pilot to maintain 2 mile spacing on the preceding aircraft is a good idea? Trying to see the tail of the airplane 2 miles in front of you, and maintain that space will only work if a controller trickles you in over RIPON and then you maintain the required 90K.
 
Maybe the whole "aircraft type and color" ID system is so foreign to pilots AND controllers that it should be abolished.

A new sequencing point upstream of FISKE, just beyond RIPON, where pilots contact ATC over RIPON, ATC acknowledges type and call sign, IDs the plane with a wing rock, then instructs the plane by type and call sign to proceed to FISKE and maintain radio silence. Pilot acknowledges with a wing rock.

Controllers near RIPON would forward the call sign sequence to FISKE controllers by landline, just like what occurs in normal ATC ops where approach controllers sequence arrivals and call tower controllers to tell them who to expect on their frequency.

Over FISKE, the controller, again using type and call sign, directs plane to a specific runway which pilot acknowledges with a wing rock. By landline, FISKE controllers tell tower controllers who to expect.

Tower controller clears plane to land, again using type and call sign. Pilot again acknowledges by wing rock.

A pilot who proceeds in from FISKE without his/her call sign being used or acknowledges someone else's wing rock for his own should get ready for a little chat on the ground and prepare for some consequences.
 
One thing i have learned with ads b is that you can rarely see a small plane at 1.5 miles. Maybe if youknow its there and it has a crossing path. To follow and hold spacing would be impossible.
 
It seems to me that the effort to make things more safe turns into a race to land fewer airplanes.

1. Guarantee aircraft camping and parking for all arrivals. Consolidate the EAA grounds and vendor space to accommodate. There is no lack of real estate.

2. Cancel pre-weekend events and mass gatherings, provide food service and basic needs to prevent get-there-itis.

3. Keep the arrivals coming on Monday and tueday... cant do that if the camping is full.

4. Dont turn away 150 airplanes after making the visual for 36 I'm the name of IFR. That decision, except for the grace of god alone, may have put more people at risk than visibility from the tower. Sending hundreds of VFR flights off into the heavens with IFR crashing down quickly, was not a safe decision. They needed an airport to land at. They had one. They were turned away. That is not safety in my mind. That was government. IFR to departing VFR would be stupid. IFR to landing VFR in a sketchy situation is hero work. ATC is lucky nobody died. They all are.

5. Special VFR requests were considered a nuisance. If IFR is descending in the area, just where will VFR go? The ATC nuisance... just what was the workload after everyone went IFR, approximately 2%? That's not safety.

6. Ripon was a mess, and the ATC from Fisk could see all the way to Ripon. For those cutting back in line, I would have sent them all back to ripon too. I drove to Ripon and Fisk and watched it. Amazing s-show. Jerks up there, glad nobody was injured from falling airplanes. Grace of god alone, not pilotage. Theres a heavy helping of dignity left between green lake and ripon and Fisk on sunday.

7. Hold. Enforce the holds. Hold at the holds. When people hold, things work. When people dont, people can die. Holds are critical.

8. Land more airplanes.

9. Keep the conversation between the ATC and FAA as transparent as possible. This is not a conversation to have behind closed doors.
 
I'm attending a forum session at 1430 today.

Flying In & Out of Oshkosh

This is presented by the NATCA Controllers.


This will be a very ineteresting one.
See you all at Forum Stage 6

Summary update regarding this session yesterday.
1. The contollers admitted the arrivals where a mess.
2. Many times played the short staffing card
3. Did not like the possibility of having 2 arrival corridors(short staffing)
(although Fisk was the choke point)
4. Pelton is aware & not happy & demands answers after Oshkosh
5. Q&A got heated at times
6. Bonanza mass arrivals, in their opinion was safer because they got on the ground quickly & safer.
7. They got the message from all in attendance, it was very unsafe & dangerous.
8. ATC does not want to hold anyone accountable. They do not want an adversarial relationship. Cutters & non-NOTAM readers go without any recourse.

I returned to Clearwater today, but feel free to send a PM if you'd like to discuss further.
 
I avoided the furball on Sat and Sun by coming up on Mon. Too late to make it before the air show, I parked at Baraboo for a few hours. Timed my departure to arrive at Ripon at 6pm only to discover that the airport wasn?t taking arrivals until 6:30pm. Into the hold around Green Lake once. Inbound past Ripon and another closure. Around Rush Lake once, cut off by a new close friend taking the inside line out of the Rush hold, joggled over to let him go by, and luckily the airport opened again just before Fisk. The controllers were advising that anyone not in the two holds should go away because of the hard rule of prop stop at 8pm on the grounds. So the arrival window after the air show was about 1:15 instead of 2hrs All that to say that there are arrival issues beyond the Sat/Sun scrum.

Suggestions:
... Shorten the air shows - who needs to watch airplanes tumbling through the sky for 4hrs? Maybe delete the Mon air show.
... Reserve one runway for arrivals after the air show (I?m assuming the delay until 6:30pm was to allow departures on both runways).
... Move the cutoff time for landing to 8:30pm, about sunset, with plenty of daylight left for safe taxi.
 
Not that I?m an air traffic expert but do something like have all arrivals circle Green Lake counter clockwise, maybe Rush Lake too. Place controllers at Green Lake to call out aircraft by N number to proceed to Ripon and Fisk. That way, the controllers can regulate spacing between aircraft. If airport closes, divert all aircraft between Ripon and Fisk to Rush Lake. A controller at Rush lake feeds each plane by N number back into the stream. This would be an easier thing to do once everyone has ADS-B. A software program could poll all aircraft N numbers (say on a given squawk code) and track hold times of all aircraft. Sort the hold times from greatest to least. Controllers would release aircraft to pass Ripon according to N numbers with greatest hold times.

No more red and white RV rock your wings and watching two planes at Ripon rock their wings when the Fisk controller cannot see them.

Just a preliminary thought anyway. Lots off issues to work out. I was in the madness too. Logged 4 hours on Sunday which means I held for a little over 3 hours.
 
For a global perspective.

I'll await report from James, but one should look on planefinder.net archives July 22 - 1500-1700. Note the repeated mass turn backs and surges at holding areas.

Linking liveatc at the worst times in real time may help understanding.
 
Split the VFR arrivals into two categories:
1. ADS-b: The controllers can direct these planes in by name with their own approach path.
2. Non ADS-b: Bring these guys in the same way over Rippon, but have a few controllers staged along the tracks and about 1/2 mile to the side with binoculars calling-out, by N-number if readable, planes that are not properly sequenced.

Planes with issues should be sent somewhere else. Several people called in with pseudo emergencies and interrupted the flow. "I had a blown tail wheel that I fixed, but I'm not sure if it is OK" from 15 miles out should be sent to a different airport; and maybe investigated for flying with a known deficiency...
 
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For those who think you can call out airplanes by N-Number based on visual identification from the ground - put a plane half a mile away from you with three inch N-Numbers, and try reading at an angle - then imagine it is moving. Report back on how well that works.
 
Realistically, the open times on Saturday and Sunday were gonna be busy anyway due to the weather, but the runways were operating at a fraction of capacity which was the real problem. That meant a LOT of people stacked up. If 200 airplanes/hour arrive at Fisk and you turn back 100 of 'em, you have 100 people holding after an hour, 200 after two hours, etc.

Intentionally or unintentionally, the folks running the arrival process bolloxed things up this year by restricting the flow to the runways. Fix that and everything will work much better.
 
Fix the flow

Intentionally or unintentionally, the folks running the arrival process bolloxed things up this year by restricting the flow to the runways. Fix that and everything will work much better.

I agree,

As a long time OSH flyer since 93. The 1/2 mile separation(even with only 9/27 runway available) works well. Fix that and yep- most of the saturation problems are solved.
 
Bigger picture

In years past, the show opened on a Saturday. It was moved so now it opens on Monday. It seems to me like the character of the show changed with the date change so now the first part of the week is focused on homebuilders and the last part is a big circus for the general public. The result of that is that everyone who owns or rents any sort of private aircraft, including the vendors, show up on the Saturday/Sunday prior to open and are bugging out by Wednesday morning. The camping fills up and if you come any later you win the South 40 no services land that requires a mile walk to get to a shuttle of any sort. Every incentive now is for all the flyers to come on Sunday afternoon.

I would submit that the powers that be consider reformatting the show to make it less segregated and stop the big show focus so much. Begin the show on Saturday again and make the week more balanced so there isn't such a separation of interests.

The camping availability also needs to be addressed. I've seen many prime camping spots open on Wednesday mornings that are not filled but folks are being sent to the South 40. I'm not sure why, but with all the planes flying over and the technology available, it would seem to me that it would not be that hard to know when camping spots open up. If pilots knew the good camping would be used later in the week, maybe they would not have to fight for an early arrival to avoid walking a mile to a shuttle or to get a decent shower house.

Do a little site work and fix the drainage in the camping areas. It would not take much investment to have high and dry grass taxiways to get to and from camping. Now you taxi down a low spot that is the first to fill with water. No wonder they have to shut down large camping areas when it gets wet.

Military arrivals that think they need the field closed should not be allowed on the prime arrival days. All the pilots that are just setting up camp and vendors getting displays ready are more annoyed by the noise than impressed by their tax dollars at work. Save the flybys for airshows or off times for arrivals.

Weather had a big part in this years fiasco, but ATC did no one a favor by short staffing this event and changing the spacing so much. It's a credit to all the pilots that there were no midairs and deaths in that mess. I hope that the ATC folks can understand that they need to take this a little more seriously in the future. You can't just show up with too few people with little experience and get this job done. I saw a report recently about how the Obama administration changed the focus on new hires for ATC and took away ability requirements for ATC jobs. Looks like the result is less than desirable. Sad
 
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Perhaps posting your comments here may provide the EAA board with useful input towards solving this arrival problem.

My 2 cents:

1. Establish separate arrival fixes for both runways
2. Odd numbered N-numbers to one fix, even, to the other (for alphabet registrations...last letter A to M one way, N-Z the other).
3. Still maintain fast and slow mover arrival altitude separation

Regards,
Tom

Move the event to AZ in February? :)
 
For those who think you can call out airplanes by N-Number based on visual identification from the ground - put a plane half a mile away from you with three inch N-Numbers, and try reading at an angle - then imagine it is moving. Report back on how well that works.

Hey, there is no critiquing in brainstorming
Maybe require all to tape large last 3 digits of n-number under wing. If they do not have then they obviously did not read NOTAM and send them to their alt Airport. Already require to print up parking sign. Requiring a little more prep to save confusing could be an easy requirement.
 
There is no 1 answer

I don't think there is 1 single answer that is the right solution here. Several things went wrong and some of the suggestions here are really good suggestions. On Monday fairly early there were probably about 200 airplanes or more in the air "attempting" to circle both lakes. I witnessed a few key issues in the air and 1 issue on the ground. In the air, there was absolute free for all on who was to hold and who was to proceed from Ripon to Fiske. There were people on the Northwest side of Green lake that did a U-turn and cut clear across the lake to Ripon when the controllers stated that Ripon was once again open. The same thing happened at Rush Lake from the North side.... That one of the worse "uncontrolled" situations that involves airplanes that I have seen. Maybe they need another trailer between Green Lake and Ripon to control the flow in to Ripon. I think that's where a lot of "cutting" in line was happening. If ATC is going to have a hold, then they need to control the flow of the hold as well. Someone suggested that everyone should start with the Green Lake hold. That's not a bad idea...
Of course, one of the reasons why all this happens is what's going on the airport ... things like mass arrivals tend to mess up the flow and close one of the runways. My opinion is that Mass arrivals should happen on Rwy 9/27 and they should leave 18/36, both left and right for arrivals. When mass arrivals is in effect, they essentially shut down both L & R North/South runways, going from 3 runways down to 1. Another thing that I witnessed after landing was that they were closing Rwy 36 L&R because there were several low passes by our military. As cool that is to watch, and i never get enough of that, I have to say that it's more important to have 2 more open runways than to have our military do low passes before the show even starts.

Just some additional thoughts to noodle over...
 
I almost completely agree with Amir. The main disagreement is the flybys not getting old. They got old for me a LONG time ago. When I finally flew in on Monday morning they shut he whole airport down for 15-20 minutes for a flyby that didn?t even happen. That helped cause the oversaturation on Monday morning and it took a long time to recover.

For a great watch go to Facebook and look up MZeroA.com and watch their arrival video. This was right before the close of arrivals on Sunday evening. A few random planes were making it in, while most were being sent West to try again. There was the minimum fuel and the sick passenger both in this video.

I think having a separate frequency and a controller on Green Lake and another on Rush Lake makes a lot of sense. Make everybody fly to Green Lake first, entering from the west, then spotted and sent to Ripon. During Low traffic times the Green Lake frequency could just broadcast to fly directly to Ripon and change frequency. You can fit a whole lot more people around Green Lake than you can on the railroad tracks.
 
For those who think you can call out airplanes by N-Number based on visual identification from the ground - put a plane half a mile away from you with three inch N-Numbers, and try reading at an angle - then imagine it is moving. Report back on how well that works.

My suggestion read "by n-number, if readable" It is 100% doable with 9" numbers. The rest of the suggestion implies to use the current visual description if you can't read the n-number. An.d make it a 1/4 mile if that works better. The point is you can clean up the line leading to FISK before it becomes a cluster there
 
The basic Ripon arrival works fine. The problems come from "special handling" interrupting the stream, and this year, metering at Fisk.

Making the procedure more complicated won't solve anything. The result will only be more pilots not following the procedure.
 
Bring the mass arrivals in from the north and limit them to 09-27. That would keep two runways (18L/R-36L/R) open for other traffic. They would have to give up the ?show center? hoopla, but it seems a small trade off.
 
I witnessed a few key issues in the air and 1 issue on the ground. In the air, there was absolute free for all on who was to hold and who was to proceed from Ripon to Fiske. There were people on the Northwest side of Green lake that did a U-turn and cut clear across the lake to Ripon when the controllers stated that Ripon was once again open. The same thing happened at Rush Lake from the North side.... That one of the worse "uncontrolled" situations that involves airplanes that I have seen. Maybe they need another trailer between Green Lake and Ripon to control the flow in to Ripon. I think that's where a lot of "cutting" in line was happening. If ATC is going to have a hold, then they need to control the flow of the hold as well. Someone suggested that everyone should start with the Green Lake hold. That's not a bad idea...

Yup. I missed out on the Sunday arrival fun but was right in the midst of it at 0730 Monday morning; I held for 1:45 then bailed to Wautoma. I've been really lucky during my previous 8 OSH arrivals and have never been involved in the furball until this year, and the lack of airmanship and insanity I witnessed was just astounding. As you mentioned, I noticed a bunch of "line cutting" at both Ripon and along the south line of the Green Lake hold. Much of the craziness was instigated by ATC requiring 1 mile in trail, and that just can't happen here; westbound along the N edge of Green Lake the spacing looked good, plenty of room, but, at the SW corner of the Green hold you'd have 3-4 new arrivals fill the gap that you'd worked so hard to achieve. So there you are, a gaggle of 5 headed to Ripon at 80 kts... not gonna work.

Then there were the a$$clowns who punched in RIPON on their GPS and just flew direct to it with no regard to the line formed up at Green Lake. Direct RIPON, direct FISKE, what's the big deal? Maybe they didn't know about the Green Lake traffic, or maybe they just didn't care. At one point I was at the NE corner of the Green hold turning left to head outbound again and I see a eastbound C-172 at 200' above us headed straight line to Ripon, oblivious to the Green Lake holding scrum that he just passed over... there have been some good suggestions in this thread and a few others that just wouldn't work, but my main question is, how do you fix or regulate stupidity and/or selfishness?
 
I?m sure mass arrivals are more efficient, but during the airport shutdown for other traffic the safety risk is spiking in the scrum forming around Rush and Green Lakes.
 
As adsb becomes more common, it seems that if the FAA cared to, they could use it to make things much better, or at least stop rewarding the bad behavior. An automated system could register your N number as soon as you come within X miles of RIPON, or wherever. You fly the approach the same way, but if holding is required, they can start releasing people from the hold in the order of their arrival, calling them out specifically by tail number. If people have been holding for an hour and some nitwit flies right in, controllers will immediately see he’s a newcomer and send him away. I’ll bet anybody with a piAware adsb receiver and a basic programming background could built that system in a day.

Yes, plenty of aircraft may not be equipped for a while longer, but they could have special arrival windows where they can all duke it out together. Call it one more incentive to equip...

Chris
 
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A few issues with Sunday's arrivals following Fisk...

Using 09, doesn't give you much time to final adjust the spacing as it's almost a straight in final and short approach.

When using 27, you have more traffic post Fisk, the downwind enables you to adjust spacing & ATC can extend the downwind call when needed to enable more dot landings. With 09, no ATC control for extending.

On the landing roll, aircraft could not exit to the grass, since it was soft & wet from the weather.
 
Don't forget the PILOT as a key part in the system change

I'm sure the systems analysis folks will sort out the max landing rates achievable, and potential maximum arrival rates given multiple scenarios of day, weather, special landings, emergencies, etc. Once that is sorted out, and flexible ways devised to "control the flow?, everyone will want to see and sort out those details and see how they line up against their own thoughts.

My concern is that getting the logic sorted out is only part of the issue. One of the key pieces in the "system" is the pilot and approach to executing. As much as we like to think the "logic of the new approach? is all that is needed, to convince us to change, the real "fact" is that feelings drive us much more than we care to admit. There appears to be many in the category of "nothing happened to me when I cut? or, well they have been doing it and "winning" so I am going to do it next time. (and unfortunately, those that recognize the lack of safety, related to anything close to this year?s arrivals drive the need to remove themselves from it)

I would guess that unless a major effort is undertaken by all organizations involved or reporting on Oshkosh to A.) educate the public on the changes for next year, and more importantly B.) push to have review, acknowledgement and PUBLIC COMMITMENT to the new way of working arrivals, we will continue to see too many unsafe actions.

A key factor in making a change happen and sustained is to have individuals come to the realization, and then internalizing, the new way is both achievable and appropriate, as well as yielding fair, safe and timely arrivals. Without that, any efforts will only be temporary, or even futile. (yes, rules and enforcement come into play, but are usually less successful, than internalized change) Another reason for the very public commitment is that there is obvious a serious need to push/pull some individuals away from their attitude of doing whatever they think they can get away with to get to the head of the line. Peer pressure does work to some extent.

Who knows,.. maybe even something can get figured out to reinforce the need for queue discipline while riding the trams/buses at Airventure, so we can continue to push on those that have not yet made the change.

Fly safe, for yourself, others, and the future of aviation.
 
1 miles spacing

Oh yes, as John (jbDC9) stated, the 1 mile spacing doesn?t work. There were at least 200 airplanes in the approach when I arrived, if half were circling both lakes and the other half were in single file line ( in a perfect world) that is 100 miles... okay let?s say there were only 50 planes in the air and they ask half to be 1 mile apart, that?s still 25 miles.... maybe ATC wasn?t really thinking it through when they were asking for 1 mile spacing :confused:
 
If it ain?t broke...

Ok, I?m gonna get flamed for this I?m sure but the system in general ain?t broke - it has worked for YEARS.

This year, however it broke down.

But with better controllers (and more of them apparently), some better prepared pilots (in some cases, many did their due diligence but only a few can spoil the lot) and some better weather, most of this wouldn?t have occurred.

Lots of good suggestions here, but no need to make radical changes to something that historically has worked incredibly well to land a tremendous number of aircraft in a short period of time.

Ok, let me have it!
 
Ok, I?m gonna get flamed for this I?m sure but the system in general ain?t broke - it has worked for YEARS.

This year, however it broke down.

But with better controllers (and more of them apparently), some better prepared pilots (in some cases, many did their due diligence but only a few can spoil the lot) and some better weather, most of this wouldn?t have occurred.

Ok, let me have it!

Nope! No disagreement from me as the system usually works and works pretty well, but, this was apparently the year of the ?perfect storm? so to speak. Lousy weather, ATC issues and questionable piloting/decision making skills from more than a few bad egg drivers. Hopefully I?ll be back next year and have my usual, easy arrival.
 
Ok, I?m gonna get flamed for this I?m sure but the system in general ain?t broke - it has worked for YEARS.

This year, however it broke down.

It also happened in 2016. It's broke when the weather impedes the days leading up to the show start.
I was in the 2016 debacle, but the controllers working that year were very clear on the radio that if you haven't gotten to Ripon, hold at Green Lake. If you are between Ripon and Fisk they were cherry picking folks and making the others hold at Rush Lake. When the Rush Lake holders were completely flushed out, then they started letting people in from the Green Lake hold. I did 3 laps at Green Lake that year and could watch on the ADS-B that the Rush Lake hold was getting sent in eventually. They were also down to one runway at one point (gear up closed one of the runways), but they at least were letting people through at Fisk with 1 mile spacing to the one open runway.

This year the controllers on Sunday were NOT telling people what to do except "turn left" over and over and over and over. This didn't help at all. They also occasionally would let someone in (it seemed like maybe one airplane per minute). Then they would just turn everyone away for a while.
Having been through what happened in 2016, and looking at the number of airplanes clustered around Ripon to Fisk, and doing the math, it would have taken us probably 5 hours to clear out the amount of airplanes trying to get in. We did 3 laps of Green Lake this year, and figured it would be just plain luck to get in on Sunday. There was no way I was going to add myself to the number of airplanes just randomly flying around between Ripon and Fisk. We diverted to Wautoma and spent the night. We watched the madness on Flightradar24, and listened to it on liveatc.net. I was never more glad to be on the ground.

We went up Monday morning at 7am and it was almost as busy. We got in line over the railway line at Ripon. There were multiple aircraft on either side of us (not over the railroad), and at various speeds and altitudes. We all got told to just "turn left". Again, they didn't say explicitly to hold at Rush Lake. We did the Rush Lake hold and then back to Ripon where even more airplanes were just streaming in. This time we were again right over the tracks (easy with the Skyview showing the location of the railroad). Again, we had other airplanes low/slow and not over the rail line. I kept the 1800' and 90 knots. I passed a group of 3 Cub's way to the left of the railroad and going maybe 80 knots (and low). There was a low wing on our right who was also higher than us and going slow. We kept our speed/altitude and flew passed these planes and by the time we got to Fisk, we had good spacing and were able to get in the runway 27 queue. A Bonanza was about a mile in front of us and he was descending in to land on runway 9! ATC told him to break off the landing and get back up and on the downwind for 27. I kept a wide downwind to give him some room. We made it down and landed on the Green Dot. Whew!

They really need to fix this before I do this arrival again on the day before opening. They really need to meter the flow (reservation time slots?), enforce the published holds, and keep the flow into the runways consistent (I heard 1/2 mile, 1 mile and 2 mile spacing at various points on Sunday). On my EFIS with the 2 mile ring selected there were probably 16 airplanes - some going in different directions! No way that was going to work. Tempers were getting pretty hot with some folks who did a dozen laps and kept getting cut off by new arrivals at Ripon. The controllers need to be at Ripon to throttle the number of planes that can hold at Rush Lake.
 
IMO there is nothing wrong with the system in general, and I say this as someone who put around five hours on an airplane over the course of three attempts to get in this year.

At the core, the problems this year simply stemmed from too many planes all vying for position at Ripon. The entire procedure depends on aircraft arriving there in such a way that they can self-organize into a nice line. But what I saw when I first arrived there Sunday afternoon was a long line of traffic that had been spun out at Fisk, all nicely spaced and heading for the tracks, alongside an equal number of aircraft arriving from other points and trying to fit in.

Essentially, it worked out that you'd have 2-3 distinct lines forming ahead of Ripon. Each of these lines might have had decent spacing, but when they all collided at Ripon, it was chaos. How does one determine which line has priority over the other?

This whole question of sequencing works decently most of the time, but breaks down at high volume. The solution, IMO, lies in finding a way to shut off inbound traffic to Ripon so things can get sorted out.

Sunday afternoon, the controllers were not doing a good job of organizing pre-Ripon traffic. I heard a lot of conflicting instructions about holding over Green Lake, or not holding, or continuing inbound, or going back to holding, etc. Rarely was there a consistent message over the arrival frequency about whether or not holding was in progress, or any real informative sense of how crazy things were.

Monday morning (when I finally got in), the controllers were far better about controlling that inbound traffic. They instituted holding over Rush and Green pretty early (helped out by the B-1 arrival), and as the olds got full, they began regularly broadcasting that anyone not within 30 miles of Ripon should stay the **** away.

The result was that while the holds did get full, inbound traffic slowed to a trickle, and they were able to empty out the holds in an organized fashion. From what I've heard, this scenario repeated itself for a while - set up holds, decide the holds were full, start telling people to not come to Ripon until the holds were cleared.

I'm hesitant to add any complexity to the arrival. To be honest, the thing is pretty dirt simple as it is, and yet many people have a lot of trouble following it (I think I saw a grand total of 10 aircraft actually follow the tracks last weekend - lots of them were over the highway for whatever reason). I don't think the solution is to make things more complicated, with separate approaches for each runway or things like that. IMO that will just result in more pilots just doing whatever they want because they can't remember the procedure and can't or won't consult the NOTAM to figure it out.

Long story short, while I think there are definitely good lessons to be learned from this year's fun times, I think we should keep in mind that the conditions this year were unusual and thus so was the unpleasantness. A measured approach to better handle these aberrant high-traffic events is a good thing, but rejiggering the entire procedure is, in my opinion, an overreaction.
 
IMO there is nothing wrong with the system in general, and I say this as someone who put around five hours on an airplane over the course of three attempts to get in this year.

Philip, as one who was in the fray, a question for you. I looked several times at the plane finder replay of the afternoon and noticed that theft turns then entry and holding pattern around Rush and Green were chaotic. I saw planes going directly away from Fisk seemingly at the same altitude as entries and backtracking on the same path (!!) and also a surging of the holding pattern from a nice circular pattern into a wad over Rush. It looked like the wad would sort out then all the planes reorganize (self organize) and finally, nicely, then approach ripon/fisk. . . then all turn away and the chaos almost repeated the pattern exactly. Was visibility an issue? Was it hard to enter the holding at Rush? Why suddenly would all the holding planes tighten the circle and wad up before re-entering the Ripon/Fisk/path? Will ADSB help this in the future to allow controllers to advise?

Any insight from the cockpit? Your thoughts are appreciated, I would like to fly in next year, my first.

BTW - I replayed about 45 min real time and saw that planefinder only had maybe 50% of the planes showing as the controllers were talking and releasing many more planes than were seen.
 
May as well just advertise that the NOTAM is optional.
Maybe not everyone got away with it. A GA twin on VFR arrival (Baron, IIRC), as rolling out on 36, was told twice to contact ground and regarding a possible pilot deviation. Was listening to tower on the radio Sunday while watching landings and nothing was discussed prior, so I could only assume something happened out on the approach.

As for improvement ideas, why not update the arrival ATIS to close the arrival if it gets out of control. Like they do with field closures.

And 1-mile spacing simply won't work. Leave the procedure just like it is. This was either FAA not wanting to assume any added risk of having airplanes closer than 1 mile *under their watch* (feel free to increase the mid-air collision risk outside the limits of FAA control). Classic risk aversion of federal employees/agencies. Or, the FISK controllers simply didn't read the NOTAM, or were not qualified to work their positions.
 
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Will ADSB help this in the future to allow controllers to advise?

Saw a photo that one OSH ATC took of the ADS-B image they were seeing on their scope. It was nothing but bright light line RIPPON to FISKE and OSH with so many signals close together. Bright unusable circle around Rush and Green Lakes. Totally unusable. Way too many targets.
 
Philip, as one who was in the fray, a question for you. I looked several times at the plane finder replay of the afternoon and noticed that theft turns then entry and holding pattern around Rush and Green were chaotic. I saw planes going directly away from Fisk seemingly at the same altitude as entries and backtracking on the same path (!!) and also a surging of the holding pattern from a nice circular pattern into a wad over Rush. It looked like the wad would sort out then all the planes reorganize (self organize) and finally, nicely, then approach ripon/fisk. . . then all turn away and the chaos almost repeated the pattern exactly. Was visibility an issue? Was it hard to enter the holding at Rush? Why suddenly would all the holding planes tighten the circle and wad up before re-entering the Ripon/Fisk/path? Will ADSB help this in the future to allow controllers to advise?

Any insight from the cockpit? Your thoughts are appreciated, I would like to fly in next year, my first.

BTW - I replayed about 45 min real time and saw that planefinder only had maybe 50% of the planes showing as the controllers were talking and releasing many more planes than were seen.

I think part of the problem was that folks were being told to turn left at various places along the route between Ripon and Fiske. Some were being turned at Fiske and some were being told that if they were between Ripon and Fiske to turn left and go into the hold. Some were being told to hold at Rush and some were being told to hold at Green. Many that are turning left between Ripon and Fiske are going to fly right thru the hold at Rush. When the 2 holds are saturated, the two patterns converge more or less head on just Northwest of Ripon.

It appears that page 7 of the NOTAM is where there was a major breakdown of the system.

* Controllers telling people at or beyond Ripon to not proceed to FISKE and to turn left prior to FISKE goes against the NOTAM:

"Aircraft at or beyond Ripon: Continue to Fisk and enter the Rush Lake holding pattern as depicted."

* Pilots not following the NOTAM when holding was required. Seems pilots were refusing to hold and just continued inbound toward Fiske:

"Aircraft approaching Ripon: Watch for traffic to follow and enter the hold at Green Lake as depicted."

* Pilots not following the NOTAM and staying away when it was obvious that the holding patterns were saturated:

"Holding pattern saturation: If theGreen Lake holding pattern is observed or reported to be nearing capacity, stay clear and proceed no further. Instead, make left turns over a point on the ground and continue to hold until ATC advises you to proceed or to transition into one of the published holding patterns."

* Seems the controllers were not managing the holds at all. Pilots were left to figure out for themselves that the holds were saturated. Controllers were not clearing the holds. It was a free for all/every man for himself situation.

"When ATC advises aircraft to depart a specific holding pattern, those aircraft shall transition to the arrival procedure in the following manner:
 Rush Lake: Rejoin railroad tracks at the southeast corner of Rush Lake and proceed northeast towards Fisk.
 Green Lake: Upon reaching the southeast corner of Green Lake, proceed directly to Ripon and follow the railroad tracks northeast towards Fisk.
 Others: Proceed to Ripon and follow the railroad tracks northeast towards Fisk."


* Instead of being managed, most of the aircraft would try to exit the hold at RIPON and FISKE at the end of each lap around. The hold line would collide with the planes arriving from the south of Ripon (who did not follow the NOTAM) and this would over saturate the arrival and compound the problems.

* All of this mixed in with the clueless folks that have never read the NOTAM, the lifelong jerks that think the world revolves around them, the scared to death newbie that is in way over their head, the experienced pilot that is in way over their head but does not realize it, the folks that fake emergencies to get priority, the folks that have emergencies and need priority, etc. etc. etc.

Oh, I almost forgot! Only the ADS-B out equipped planes would have been showing up on Planefinder, FlightAware, FlightRadar 24 etc.
 
Having helped write military flight manuals and procedures in the USAF, I had one constant nag about format- the lack of "Overview".

We had to brief the "overview" to all the high-ranks (most of whom flew with instructors only). Then training material was added.

Could the NOTAM gain from a 1 page narrative overview summarizing the perfect storm issues of '16 and '18?

If holding, holds drain first. Single line Ripon to Fisk, over the tracks, no cuts. Ever. That space you may see is already being compacted and taking it creates a compression. If holds fill land at ine of the multiple fine airports nearby and wait a reset.

I really don't like ADSB here- is there even a standard for warnings and advisories like TCAS? Is it even showing ALL ADSB outs? It is not rule airspace and is worse transponder only to "Standby" Notam'd. Tech does not seem to point as the fix. Eyes out. Don't just practice 90 knots, practice 1/2 mile attaining and maintaining?

Was the use of the 135 knot lane over or under utilized? Is it best for 18, 36, 9 or 27? Looks like 36 and 27 to me.

Manage expectations. The Mooney Mass on 36 seemed to work. Can massing arrivals wired to Saturday only? They want to at least park if not camp together- Can they practice and assemble to hit a day earlier? Can vendors and Trans support support the early arrivers?
 
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Was the use of the 135 knot lane over or under utilized? Is it best for 18, 36, 9 or 27? Looks like 36 and 27 to me.

For much of the day on Saturday and Sunday, the 135 knot 2300ft lane was IMC. Even the 1800ft lane was pushed down at times.
 
Philip, as one who was in the fray, a question for you. I looked several times at the plane finder replay of the afternoon and noticed that theft turns then entry and holding pattern around Rush and Green were chaotic. I saw planes going directly away from Fisk seemingly at the same altitude as entries and backtracking on the same path (!!) and also a surging of the holding pattern from a nice circular pattern into a wad over Rush. It looked like the wad would sort out then all the planes reorganize (self organize) and finally, nicely, then approach ripon/fisk. . . then all turn away and the chaos almost repeated the pattern exactly. Was visibility an issue? Was it hard to enter the holding at Rush? Why suddenly would all the holding planes tighten the circle and wad up before re-entering the Ripon/Fisk/path? Will ADSB help this in the future to allow controllers to advise?

Any insight from the cockpit? Your thoughts are appreciated, I would like to fly in next year, my first.

BTW - I replayed about 45 min real time and saw that planefinder only had maybe 50% of the planes showing as the controllers were talking and releasing many more planes than were seen.

All of the left turns off of the tracks most definitely added to the chaos IMO. For one thing, it provided a steady stream of traffic into Ripon from what, to me, was a kind of unexpected direction. I also think that there was a lack of guidance for the people getting the "turn left, go back and start again" directive. I never got far enough to see what people were doing immediately after turning out, but I did see them returning to Ripon, and most were rejoining the fray right over the town. The effect for a new pilot arriving was that there was an already established line with no end in sight.

Later - maybe late Sunday, I'm not sure - they did get better about this somewhat, directing pilots to "turn left, fly two miles, and then go back to Ripon." So maybe this is another opportunity for improvement, having a better-defined procedure for when you need to break off past Ripon, either on your own terms or when directed by ATC.

For me personally, while I spent a lot of time Sunday flying a lot closer to other aircraft than I have in my life, for the most part I never felt unsafe. Everyone was going in more or less the same direction and being relatively predictable. The exception to this, and the time when I always felt most vulnerable, was when I'd attempt to establish myself onto the tracks and then decide I needed to bail out. This feeds into your question about backtracking traffic, and also my point above about some better guidance for the bail-out pilots.

Now, as far as the holds go...I never held at Rush, so I can't speak to that. Green ranged from OK to really interesting. When I first entered the Green hold Sunday afternoon, I was actually happy. I had a Cherokee in front of me, and all I had to do was follow him with good spacing. Once they opened up arrivals again I'd just follow him up the tracks when we got there!

Problem was, that organization fell apart over the course of about half an hour. We had some aircraft closely following the lake shore, others flying a circuit a mile or two outside the lake, a few randos flying right over the middle of the lake, and people randomly moving between these circuits. This was actually the point where I bailed on my first attempt, because I realized that there was no way this "hold" was going to get emptied in an organized fashion.

So here, too, there's maybe opportunity for clarification. The NOTAM simply says to make left turns around the lake, but what's more important - staying near the lake, or keeping a single-file aircraft line? If we're keeping single-file, what happens when there are so many aircraft that we're flying miles from the lake? What's the trigger point for "saturation?"

And then there's the real question, the one that must follow any suggestion for improving the procedure - how do we document and explain these improvements in a clear and unambiguous manner that can be understood by anyone?

Anyway, I'm getting long-winded here, so let me try and address what I think is the meat of your post: I did not feel that visibility of other aircraft was a problem. With my eyes outside, and my right-seater (also a pilot) doing the same, I don't think we ever had anyone sneak up on us. It was not easy keeping track of everyone, but with some intelligent triage (ie identifying aircraft quickly as unlikely to be conflict problems), we did pretty well, I think.

I don't know if ADS-B will help the controllers. I know it didn't help me, and that the traffic warnings from the 650 in my plane were extremely obnoxious. Next trip up, I may take the time to see if there's a way to generally suppress them, because hearing "TRAFFIC ONE O CLOCK ZERO MILES" every minute or so was definitely a distraction I didn't need.

Finally, since you mention wanting to fly in for the first time, I would say to remember that what happened this year was an aberration. For the most part, you can engineer your arrival to avoid the busy times, and I'd recommend that for any first-timer. The Saturday and especially Sunday evening before the show are typically the busiest, and I would avoid them, even having done this a couple times now. Hitting Ripon early in the morning is usually a recipe for a nice quiet arrival.

Of course, as we've learned from this year, all those guidelines I mentioned can go out the window if weather or other factors come into play, so be cognizant of those when planning your arrival.

Finally, preparation is key. Be able to explain how the arrival works to a stranger on the street. Be able to reliably fly your airplane at a chosen altitude and airspeed. Be able to put it on a spot on the runway, maybe a weird spot 2000' past the threshold.

I believe the arrival procedure is safe and uncomplicated, but that's no reason to not take it seriously. Unexpected things can and do happen, and as we saw this year, sometimes those things can make the situation really interesting and challenging.
 
First for the people that may be scared off by some of these stories, please consider the second weekend. Once again I came in Friday morning about 8:30, there was a fair amount of traffic but the approach worked seamlessly (Ripon>Fisk>36L yellow dot) and I had a great weekend camping next to the plane with my boy in Oshkosh.

The more I think about this the more I think the approach would benefit from a tech upgrade, they already have gps points for Ripon and Fisk, add 2 at the corners of rush lake hold, and 4 for green lake hold. navigation to be GPS direct between the points. They'd have to make some accommodation for non gps equipped planes but that has to be <2% at this point I would think and they could usually get in line and follow someone. Pilots are just more accustomed to following their purple line than following railroad tracks or shorelines. Even though it's against the NOTAM it seems like 20% are already flying direct between the GPS points (even when it's not slammed, I'm talking to you cessna that I was "following" Friday Morning).
 
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Specific suggestions

Too many aircraft in one area trying to hold in an undefined holding area, stretch out and define specific locations. Here is a few suggestions.

1. Define the Green Lake hold as starting at J & L just southeast of Ripon, left hand turns, 10 mile legs and inbound heading 055M. Hold outside the lake's edge at 1800' 90KIAS

2. On the expected busy arrival dates (Sat, Sun and Mon) a second holding pattern defined as Montello, WI (generally at 43.78N/83.33W) left hand turns, 10 mile legs and inbound heading of 070M. Hold outside the lake's edge at 2,000' and 90KIAS, there are some towers in the area.

3. Rush Lake would not be a generally expected hold location, and if used, only three aircraft at a time.

4. 120.7 at Fisk and a second frequency and set of controllers for the Montello hold location.

5. Fisk controller clears X aircraft from Green Lake hold. "Next three aircraft proceed to Fisk". In the NOTAM next aircraft is defined as inbound to J&L, once you start your left turn you are no longer consider next. Some folks will cheat.

5. ATIS broadcasts when hold at Green Lake and Montello are in effect. The Controller at Montello clears aircraft to Green Lake. Using the same procedure as Fisk...aircraft such and such rock your wings, good rock cleared to Green Lake. Identification of aircraft noted.

6. NOTAM change to REQUIRE the last four characters of registration in 12" letters under the right wing to aid in specific identification. Any aircraft approaching Fisk without the identification will be turned away and not issued a clearance to land. When Montello is in effect the controller can notify aircraft without identification. At least folks will eventually read the NOTAM.

7. A safety team at Oshkosh could meet specific aircraft to gently but directly discuss the pilot's compliance, or lack thereof, with arrival procedures. EAA flight counselors? The wing ID will help ATC identify aircraft that were not in compliance, but gets ATC out of the direct enforcement/safety discussion.

8. Aircraft turned away at Fisk for any reason are directed to Montello via direct Germania. If Montello is not in effect, then to Green Lake. Enter Green Lake on outbound course, heading 235M

This will stretch out the hold areas and hopefully reduce the amount of aircraft at Green Lake. What it won't do is prevent those pilots that ignore the arrival procedures and fly directly to Ripon. But then no procedure will completely prevent that from occurring.

Just some thoughts.
 
If you went to a lottery system what is the magic number?? Does anyone really know the answer to that?? How many is too many aircraft for one day??

I don't think making the procedure even more complex is the answer. Somehow you have to prevent everyone from trying to arrive at the same exact time, we know that doesn't work.
 
Short of assigning everyone a day and time they can arrive at Osh, there really isn't anyway to prevent too many aircraft arriving at one time. I don't believe anyone is interested or willing to be told when they can come to Oshkosh.
 
Short of assigning everyone a day and time they can arrive at Osh, there really isn't anyway to prevent too many aircraft arriving at one time. I don't believe anyone is interested or willing to be told when they can come to Oshkosh.

Quite true. Which is why EAA needs to focus on keeping the flow up on major arrival days. Runway time on the peak days is a valuable resource and can't be frittered away. I'd love to know the full story of why 18/36 (both L & R) were ghost towns for much of Sunday.
 
Human factors are a very important consideration here. Sunday is a ZOO because everybody wants to get to OSH at that sweet spot of timing - before the show starts, but not so far in advance as to not have any services.

As a case in point, we watched the weather very closely and realized going to our Mass Arrival assembly point at Madison on Saturday was not going to be possible, and that arriving at OSH on Sunday was going to be iffy for at least half the day. As a result we opted to arrive on Friday the 20th. The arrival was a total non-event. Once tied down, that's when the fun started.

You see, before Sunday there are no trams, no Welcome Wagon services, nothing. If you camp in Homebuilt Parking, you are totally on your own to get to your campsite. On top of this add the stupidity that now outlaws the use of bicycles on the grounds and you've got a tremendous disincentive to early arrivals.

Discourage early arrivals and reap the fallout of a totally crazy Sunday, then squeeze in a few hours of weather closures and you've got pure mayhem. Part of the solution is to ENCOURAGE early arrivals by having transportation and food services in place to facilitate those arrivals.

BTW, this was my first time flying into OSH, and the first time for our newly-constructed airplane to venture more than a hundred miles from home. It was a HUGE thrill to put the wheels on the white dot on RWY 9. Welcome to Oshkosh!
 
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