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Oshkosh Anecdotes

KatieB said:
"You know, I saw that over there on the ground with a bunch of people standing around it-- and my first thought was they were having a prayer meeting!!" ;)
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Yeah, praying hard that our RV-3s don't succumb to the same tragic end of Tony Boy II! We're looking forward to seeing Tony Boy III fly!
 
Dropping names

Dropping names

This is just my seventh Oshkosh ?no not AirVenture, Oshkosh. At least that is what it used to be referred to and I guess I?m just too old to change. I?m saddened when I read how disheartened some are as to how Oshkosh has morphed.

Yet, I get a huge thrill when I see Ripon (and it?s pronounced Rippin with emphasis on the Rip, not Rip On) on the horizon. Follow the railroad tracks toward Fisk. ?Red and white RV, rock your wings?. ?Nice rock?. Made my day. Decent landing and follow the flagmen. I was very lucky and parked just two planes down from the forum buildings. Despite having all my baggage organized I still took my time tying down the plane. A Canadian RV taxied up next to my plane and shut down. I walked over and before they deplaned, offered to take their picture with their camera. Big smiles. Made my day. I turned around and a father and his maybe six year old son were trying to peek into my cockpit. I asked if they would like to climb in? Then he handed me his camera. Made my day. Afterwards, I locked up the airplane and headed to the forums, vendor hangers, Lycoming tent, and Aerosh ? I mean ConocoPhillipsPlazaWhatever. That afternoon, I went back to my plane and, well, just hung around my airplane. A guy came up, ?did you build this?? ?Yip?. ?Did you paint it yourself?? ?Uh, no. But, I picked out the colors.? ?Nice?. We talked about the GRT EFIS, and the Garmin, and thoughts on the IPAD, nose wheel, tail dragger etc. etc. He asked if I had an instrument rating. ?Uh, no and really, my candle is getting too short to learn all that.? He, obliging told me I wasn?t too old, and I should go for it. More general chatting. Finally, after about twenty minutes into the visit he told me he sold an RV6 and bought a 10 and was in fact a CFII. Totally humble guy. We chatted more and then as he left he said he was coming back next year and expected N283S to fly in on an instrument plan. Made my day. Walked down the line of Rv?s and stuck a calling card in fellow boom operator, Bruce Pauley?s, canopy. Then, I bumped into Danny King, soaked up his T-38 remembrances and photographed his iconic RV. Back at the forums I got all up to speed on LOP. After that, a quick jaunt over to the flymarkets passing the cranberry girls, pots and pans guy, long tables full of cheap hand tools, cheap wire splices, and cheap adel er, cushion clamps. I bought some cheap hemostats. Finally, made my way to the beer tent, scoring a mustard smeared brat along the way. Met Larry Geiger, Dan Horton, Terry Card and wife, Bill Repucci and others whom I had only known through an avatar. Made my day ?it was just my first day.

Thursday, I packed up and headed home passing a twin Comanche on the way. Put my pix up in the appropriate forum and received a nice compliment from Pat Hatch. Made my day.

It?s said that you can never go back. For me, I believe it?s a good thing. I don?t want to go back to the way Oshkosh used to be. This year?s Oshkosh made my summer.
 
Fisk Approach x 4

Flying in via the Fisk approach for the first time was daunting, to be sure, so I was glad to be following another RVer who had done it several times in a 182. Having a passenger who is also a pilot was also helpful. But that was just on Sunday.

Unfortunately, I had to fly over to Michigan for a couple days of work (missing the worst of the rain!), which meant on Wednesday, after the airshow, I was on my own. Add the stress of low visibility due to haze, and a few puffy clouds below 1800' and several planes in the hold over Green Lake, and it was challenging to be sure. Success, tied down and covered, I was ready for a beer! Over to the SOS tent... Chatting with some pink shirts at the bar, and one asks "was it a woman on the radio when you landed?"
"Yes."
"That's her just behind you." She gave me a hug and said she remembered talking the red-tailed RV in just after the airport opened.

Fast forward to Thursday night, back at the SOS tent, talking with pink shirts again. One is a pilot and asks me about the Fisk approach. Now a veteran with 2 approaches under my belt, I say, "how about I take you up tomorrow and we fly it?" He's game, so Friday I do the approach twice more, once for him, and again for another guy who was controller of the year at Sun 'N Fun. Good fun, except on the last one when a Navion flew 200' under us between Ripon and Fisk, then climbed up between me and the twin I was following. According to the controller on the ground that I met in the tower later, "it wasn't that close," but it sure got our attention!

Definitely worth the avgas for the good will in the controller community! And I got to see some of Friday's airshow from the tower, plus a 2010 pink Oshkosh Tower polo for my hanger wall! Landed 9, 18 and 27 twice -- glad I studied the NOTAM.

Another highlight, seeing some activity at a friend's AirCam while waiting for the controllers Friday morning, walking over to say hello, and meeting Harrison Ford. My friend was about to take him for a ride.

Can't wait to see what's in store for next year.
 
I really enjoyed meeting so many of you at OSH. Fact is, I've never shook so many hands in one 5 day stretch in my whole life. It was a sensory overload of sorts, so I hope I didn't make too much of an a%% out of myself with anyone.

Embarrassing anecdote; I'm a type A, the kind that tends to get wrapped up in the mission and disconnect everything else. Thursday morning I'm stalking around my airplane, tiedowns pulled, watching the clouds above, the visibility over to Friar Tucks, and the XM on the 696.....I'm ready to leave if it will just get a little better. Folks are wandering by, looking, asking questions, the usual. I finish a conversation with one couple and immediately start into another with a guy in a boonie hat and sunglasses. At some point I ask where he's from. He looks at me funny and says he is a T-6 instructor at Columbus MS. Always happy to make a connection, I says "Hey, you know a guy named Jeremy Schuld?". He says "You're talking to him!"

Sheesh.

What you gotta know here is that Jeremy has been to my home for a shop tour, and we were drinking beer at SOS a few nights before. I had flat reached social saturation......but of course I blamed it on the boonie hat.

Anyway, next year I plan to just sit in the shade somewhere and socialize. I do hope you'll join me, but don't be surprised if I stick a name tag on you; I ain't real smart ;)
 
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At the beer tent

DanH said:
Anyway, next year I plan to just sit in the shade somewhere and socialize. I do hope you'll join me, but don't be surprised if I stick a name tag on you; I ain't real smart ;)
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What would be cool is if we could get nametags with a picture of our avatar and vaf name. I mean...
 
Not a large enough customer base with enough customer base to be practical. However, it did spark an idea for me, since I am planning to attend OSH next year whether or not I have gotten the -6A painted. I have a few credential holders (the plastic pouch thingies with a lanyard to hang around your neck); I kept them for ease of getting through TSA before they started requiring you to take your ID out. I'm going to use Word to print out a sheet with my name, avatar, VAF ID, RV type, and identifier. On the back side will be a picture of my plane. The usual format for these are 2.5" wide by 3.5" high but I also have an EAA holder that's 4" wide by 3" high, so I'll do both formats and post them for others to use.

Edit: with Doug's permission, we can include the VAF logo. Doug?
 
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N282S said:
What would be cool is if we could get nametags with a picture of our avatar and vaf name. I mean...
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I sorta did that with my shirts that had the Jolly Roger emblem and "N8RV" on the front, with potential nose art for Smokey on the back ... and my hats also have N8RV on them.

That didn't seem to help. People still often didn't make the connection.

I think Dan's right about social saturation. There's so much to see and do there that often I will meet a couple of people at the plane and before they walk away, their names have already left my floppy drive. The sound of a Merlin engine screaming by does that ... :D
 
I cobbled up a quick example of what I'm talking about. The picture on the back didn't come out so well; I'd need a better printer and paper combo. Plus, I still need to tweak it into a form so others can just drop in their information and picture and print. But you get the idea.
DSC00956.jpg
 
Looks Great

flion said:
I cobbled up a quick example of what I'm talking about. The picture ... But you get the idea.
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Bam! exactly what I was thinking. Either hanging around the neck or with a pin. Maybe get a poll of the guys planning to attend Beer Call and Bob Collins' Piece of Grass (Are You Listening, Bob?) and have those on hand. And, absolutely, if you pass your format to me, I will print!

Thanks.
 
Monday HBC Camping

We were planning on flying in on Sunday morning before the show start but got delayed and came in on Monday morning. We usually land around 8am on Sunday because traffic is so light. However, we always get parked at the back end of HBC close to the dirt road which can get pretty dusty when roads are dry and the wind is right. On monday morning at 8am, we didnt see a single airplane from Ripon to Fish so it was just as slow as on Sunday. What was neat is that Jeff reserved two rows at the front of HBC camping for Monday morning arrivals so we were the fourth RV to be parked in the empty front row and got a great parking spot.
 
gereed75 said:
My Dad was a Marine mech and aircrewman in VMB 413 stationed on Emirau flying B-25's raids against the Japanese stronghold at Rabual. He came home with two Air Medals and a tatoo on his arm as a reminder of those days.
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I'm a doctor, and I have a patient who was also in VMB 413. I wonder if he knew your Dad? I don't think he'd mind if I mention his name is Jildo Iacono. He was a gunner, radioman, and they also made him a part-time photographer. He told me the PBJ (B-25) he flew on was called "Nobody's Darlin'", which was a popular song at that time, I think. He doesn't remember the number of it. He also flew for a time in the back seat of an SBD dive bomber. They have a website for VMB 413 at http://www.vmb413.com/ I found his picture on their site on this page. http://www.vmb413.com/target1.htm He's is in the photo of the radiomen. He's the 3rd one from the right in the front row, the ones who are sitting.
Mr. Iacono's wife was in the hospital recently, and she wanted to have her dog in the room with her. The dog was perfectly behaved, would just lay there for hours without making a sound, and hardly even moved. But the hospital staff was all in a gigantic tizzy. I tried to tell them to cut them some slack! Here was a veteran of WWII, who flew with the Marines in the Solomon Islands, who flew with Pappy Boyington, in the same area where PT109 was sunk. Nobody knew anything about what I was talking about. Now that's SAD! Mr. Iacono doesn't have a computer, and had no idea that you could get information on the Internet about this, so I printed out the whole VMB 413 web site on paper, and gave that to him. He seemed to really enjoy it.
 
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