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Oshkosh 2018 Father-Son Adventure

Guy Prevost

Well Known Member
Every year, I block off Oshkosh week in my calendar. My wife has to plan vacation time a year in advance, so whether we go to Oshkosh or not, it's a great placeholder for some time off. This year, her work schedule changed, but I still had an open calendar for the first few days of the event. What to do? Go to Oshkosh!

Last time we went, the kids were 1 and 3 and both still in diapers. We camped in HBC. That was a bit too much of an adventure. This year I decided to take my now 5 year old son. I just didn't think I could handle both kids by myself, especially camping. About a week beforehand I pitched the idea to Ayrton, pointing out that since he was a good listener and a good stick he would get to fly left seat. (I fly from the right anyway.) He was beyond stoked--flying, camping, and his sister didn't get to go. I'll warn readers ahead of time. I really didn't take any airplane pictures. I took a few of some wonderful friends, but this trip was really about the first father-son adventure. Our plane was a huge part of that, but this trip to Osh, more than any previous for me was truly about people.

As the week progressed, mom and I built hype. Ayrton had recently had his first Root Beer. I let him know that at Oshkosh they take a big cup of root beer and then they put ICE CREAM IN IT!!!! Mind blown. I involved him in packing throughout the week. We took the back seats out of the 10, leaving ample room for camping gear, a full ice chest and 5 gallons of water. The latter was because we were still 500 lbs under gross with it and it moved the cg aft (to mid range) for a little more speed. He laid out his clothes for the trip the night before. When I woke him at 0430 Sunday morning, he was dressed and ready in less than 10 minutes. Impressed dad.

We were ready for engine start a little before sunrise: Ayrton didn't want his photo taken:
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Once airborne he took the stick for a bit
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Until he engaged his autopilot and immersed himself in a movie:
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Snoopy did a fine job. ;)

We stopped for fuel in Wayne, NE. I had one of the delicious sandwiches they graciously provided, while my little dude munched a PB&J we had packed and some Doritos.
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We launched a few minutes after a flight of 3 Bonanzas. As I watched them on ADSB, I eventually called them by N-number on air-to-air. They were on frequency and we chatted as we slowly passed them burning 5gph less. I know this because they asked what my FF was. As the cloud cover thickened, we eventually were forced to 2500' in the heat and the bumps. Still a nice flight though.
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One trip around the lake at Ripon, let us know that the remainder of the flight in was outside of my risk/reward profile. We bailed to Portage. I was busy, but a friend captured this photo from about the same time period. It got worse.
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Part Deux

We hung out in Portage for a while, listening on Live ATC to the madness that's already been discussed ad-nauseum. It didn't seem like it was going to resolve quickly, so we saddled up and headed to Madison. Madison was the right fit for us, since I didn't bring cooking gear (only tent and sleeping bags with some cold food), and they have Uber and Marriott. I travel for work extensively making Marriott free for personal travel.
Soon we had a room, a tasting dinner, and dad had a foamy beverage.
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Up bright and early the next morning, the little dude helped carry our bag to the plane for round two of the madness.
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By some fluke, we wound up easily making it through the Ripon / Fisk transition. They had just started one round of emptying the holds and we were right on the tail end of that chain. Once past Fisk, the madness started again. We were assigned Runway 27, which is the Oshkosh arrival I'm most familiar with. People were heading way out over the lake, with other people turning at the proper place and cutting up the flow. Inject some warbirds and an IFR citation and the result is that I and one other airplane had to go around 5 times! One of those was because of the airplane in front of us landed and started to exit left. I was in roundout as I watched the offending aircraft continue left as the tower said, Cessna Exit right, EXIT RIGHT, CESSNA EXIT RIGHT! Finally the tower gave us and said, "Never mind Cessna, Exit Left". That was his clue. He immediately turn right across the runway in front of me as I was in the flare. One touch of the mains, full power and a takeoff over him. Tower:" Silver RV, good call, rejoin on the downwind." Eventually we landed for real and got parked. The next few days were a blur of socializing with friends, making new ones, and eating too much.
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The fabled Root Beer Float!
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He got props from the NASA guys for wearing the "worm" logo. One of the folks even gave him the lighted NASA pin off of their own shirt!
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We had a weather window home on Wednesday morning and took it. It was an uneventful trip, with a short stop in Hayes, KS. The guy in the left seat looked like this most of the way:
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He did engage quite a bit as we passed through a (large) gap in some storms over NE. He got pretty good at identifying storms and figuring out a way around them. He now can visually compare the scary things outside with the colored blotches on the screen and still talks about that.

Hope to see you all there next year.
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Guy
 
For me, the time with my son has been the best part of building and flying my RV-8. My son Max was the same age as yours for his first Oshkosh. He now has ten Airventures and nine Sun N Fun’s to his credit. In his more than 600 hours in the back seat, we’ve had the opportunity to share many, many adventures together. These have included a plethora of fly-ins, many of the large aviation museums and sites, the beach, visiting grandparents, Leadville, Johnson Creek, a trip out west, Old Rhinebeck, and the latest a SCUBA diving trip in the FL Keys. Now, he’s “officially” taking flying lessons from his CFI dad. :)

Enjoy every minute. Some of the best times we’ve had have been when we’ve been stuck out somewhere for weather or a mechanical issue.

P.S. Every year my son would sit in those pedal planes until he could fit no more. It goes by fast!
 
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Great write up. Do you have a close-up picture from the seat your son is sitting on. The ones I tried wouldn?t allow full after stick and interfere with the child-seat.

Regards
Michael
 
Absolutely great!!

Guy,

This is absolutely great!! I had plans to take my 6 yr old grandson to Oshkosh this past year. At the last minute, plans changed and we weren't able to go. I'm quite certain I was the one that was most disappointed. I can't wait to see his face (and the other grandkids) when they experience the magnitude of aviation at Osh.

Hopefully next year we will be there!

Doug
 
Way to go Dad!

Nothing like those early airplane memories. Looks like you both had a blast!

Natalie (homebuilt-raised kid)
 
Thanks for the write up.

We just had a kid (a son, 1 year old now) and just about to move into our new house with a better airplane factory (3 car garage).

I so look forward to doing trips like this with him and helps provide motivation to get back at it once we are done with the move.
 
Guy,
My lil' dude and I had fun meeting/hanging out with you and your lil' dude at the OSH Social. Plan on seeing you guys again Oct 5,6 2019!
Andy

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Great write up. Do you have a close-up picture from the seat your son is sitting on. The ones I tried wouldn?t allow full after stick and interfere with the child-seat.

Regards
Michael

It's an Evenflo High Back Big Kid Booster. I found it through someone else's post here on VAF. They're surprisingly inexpensive on Amazon. I keep the pilot's seat all of the way back except for short durations when he wants the stick at altitude. This does two things; it provides stick clearance at full aft, but also allows him to rest his heals on the spar box under the seat so that he's comfortable. It keeps his legs from dangling with the full weight of them hanging off the edge of the seat.

The hardest part is keeping his feet off of the panel when he starts getting uncomfortable and wiggling around. During our first experiment with this a year or two ago, he managed to shut off the master. It was a good test of my electrical system redundancy planning.
 
Guy,
My lil' dude and I had fun meeting/hanging out with you and your lil' dude at the OSH Social. Plan on seeing you guys again Oct 5,6 2019!
Andy

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Andy, hanging out with you and your dude was one of the highlights of the trip. Looking forward to doing it again.
 
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