Opinion

Aviation lover

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Why do I love aviation? Let me count the ways. There is something for anyone interested young or old. Airplanes of every color or description from ancient, that dates back to 1903, well not really so ancient to brand new state of the art. Even one space rocket, used already, on display. Some airplanes dirt cheap and some so expensive only the government can afford like the F-35 and the F-18’s that the Blue Angels flew. Some are national treasures, the two B-29’s, Fifi and Doc, relics from WWII lovingly restored, maintained and flown, or crewed, by volunteers.

Obviously my two day trip last week to the world’s greatest fly-in at Oshkosh, Wisconsin was a time of endless enjoyment. This old guy loves airplanes, things that go with airplanes and to talk to others who like airplanes. Sensory overload and healthful as I walked eight miles each day.

There is even a seaplane base at nearby Lake Winnipesauke accessible by a short free bus ride. Electric airplanes, homebuilt airplanes of every description, former military aircraft all operational and lovingly restored—I just love the sound of the V-12 Rolls Royce Merlin engine in the P-51’s. Antique airplane still flying, vintage aircraft row upon row, must have been 250 bright yellow Cubs. Staggerwing Beechs, Cessna 195’s and about anything else one can dream of owning and flying. Bring what you have and enjoy your neighbor’s favorite ride.

Vendors of every description rent spaces to displace their wares. Education is big with flight simulators high tech and popular. Seminars on any conceivable aviation related topic are scheduled and well attended. Even the FAA shows up and is friendly and helpful. The Control Tower boasts that (for one week a year) they are the busiest tower in the world. I understand that the FAA qualified tower workers throughout the United States compete with one another to get to come to Oshkosh and supervise that controlled chaos of the arrivals and departures.

Fantastically smooth operation and that is experience talking.

With an eye for economic development, I always took at the city of Oshkosh in wonder. In normal times Oshkosh boasts a population of some 66,000 people. Size wise a tad more than Grand Island. Yet for the Fly-In the attendance swells to add some 600,000 visitors as it did this year. How in the world do they do it for a one-week event? Well for one, we stayed at their Cobblestone motel, a bit smaller than McCook’s comely version. For this one week room prices rose to around $300 a night and one almost had to book a year in advance. The Hilton located on the airport grounds reportedly rented for $500 a night. Local people rent out their entire house for the week, a good time to vacation somewhere else. There is a large campground equipped with RV utilities, like Karre Park in McCook. Then blocks upon blocks of level grassland on the airport itself lined out for camper parking, no utilities for hookup. Many people bring their tents and camp under the wings of their aircraft. The town has built bath houses for those campers and keeps them clean and equipped. Portapotties galore all kept clean and supplied.

A fair sized number of eating (and yes beer available after 5:00 PM) places set up for the week in huge tents or temporary buildings. Wisconsin cheese, brats and sausages are popular but themed like “Mekong River”, or Chinese, Mexican, Italian, about any fast food tastebud you would want. One specialty served was fire grilled corn on the cob. You won’t starve if you don’t run out of money!

Transportation. Many of those who attended, an estimated 20,000 aircraft, need a way to travel the grounds. Big yellow school buses run regular routes through the airport grounds and into the City. A string of open air trams, each pulled by a small green utility tractor and a volunteer crowd watcher tour mapped out routes throughout the festival grounds. Ride free, on and off as often as you please. We used Uber to travel to and from the motel, Lyft and local taxis were all available. Interesting one of our Uber drivers were local, the rest came from nearby towns.

I’ve no real clue what the town of Oshkosh does the rest of the year when the Fly-In, officially now called EAA AirVenture is out of session. Yes, there is an Experimental Aircraft Association EAA museum in place on the grounds but that can’t draw a whole lot of year around visitors.

A large company manufactures industrial equipment like huge firetrucks. It is impressive that the relatively small town can turn out the volunteers and provide the services to tend to over half a million visitors for just one week each year.

Work it does and it is a positive experience for me to attend each time. Eat your heart out Rockford, Ill, near ghost town, who didn’t put out the effort to host the event where it originally started and then left in 1953 due to lack of interest by the town.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail

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  • Aviation has been my thing for 38 years!

    -- Posted by greb on Fri, Aug 11, 2017, at 1:05 AM
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