Airventure has Started

And the arrivals are brisk. Nice weather too. A front must have crossed as the wind is now out of the east rather than the north and west as they have been since we arrived Friday AM.

Our camp setup was filmed by EAA media and made the Airventure web site. Judy has a speaking part but I was silent as I hate setting up tents and the like and everything I said was laced with F*bombs and other similar profane things.

I've posted the Video in the right pane we're in it after the guy with the weird hat and the fat dude who paints the lines.

I'm volunteering at the learn to fly center today and tomorrow. so I have to make breakfast shower and go over there at 1045 CDT.

Cheers! This is our eighth Airventure!

Airventure 2008 - Old Friends, Alcohol and Camping

Our day one in Oshkosh we filled up my ski boot bag with groceries and ice on our first walk to the Pick and Save. I though I was getting chest pains on the way back to camp when I realized I was walking briskly with 80 pounds of groceries on my back while carrying 20 pounds of ice in my arms. I cooked up a porterhouse and cracked a bottle of red and we ate a good dinner then cleaned up the camp and packed the coolers.   

 

We hooked up with the Denton Texas crowd down in Vintage Camping and caught up on their airplanes and flying. Jim came in his Cessna 140A that he is painstakingly restoring to new condition. What wasn't polished aluminum was painted similarly to Larry's 50 something 170 Cessna which was gleaming in the sun.  Bill flew with his wife Sharon in Jim's 1961 Racing Bonaza and Howard and his brother in law were driving Howards new (Jim's Old) highly restored 50 something Bonanza.

 

I always feel that I'm kind of insane for injecting so much money in my old airplane but hanging with the fellows makes that all go away. According to the EAA my 35 year old Mooney won't be eligible to park in Vintage for another 5 years. Thats an odd figure but with the majority of the GA fleet being manufactured in the mid to late 70's they wouldnt have the room if they opened it up to all of us. 

 

We woke up at 6AM with a hole in the air matress. Sleeping on the ground sucks and although we tried to patch the mattress it was obvious that the thing was trash.  We walked back over to the pick and save and then next door to Target and bought a new mattress.

 

I got an email from Ed saying that they were leaving Kenosha and would be arriving shortly. The live in Ottawa and almost lost their whole vacation due to the same weather that kept us in Danbury. When they arrived I spent the afternoon making them and Judy Mojito's and subsequently I ended up cooking dinner where I relied on experience I aquired at Widow Browns in Danbury when I was a kid. Cooking blind.

 

Alex from DC showed up while we were winding down and it was good to catch up with him. I received an email from Scott in Danbury saying we had made the EAA website so we all pulled out our laptops to see if we could have a look at it. 

 

Eventually I got up and walked to the tent and crashed.  

 

I'm feeling OK now but Judy is down for the count. Advil and Breakfast will fix that up so I'm sure we'll be ready to go at it again tonight with a new bunch of Old Friends Alcohol and Camping.

Airventure 2008 Recapping the trip out

We left DXR at 5PM on Thursday the 24th. The weather was iffy for the first 50 miles and rather than get run around by New York Tracon we took our chances VFR and headed out to the west at 1700 feet. Once we were west of the Hudson river the ceiling lifted appreciably and we planned on making Wilkes Barre PA.

 

As we were approaching Wilkes Barre we asked the controller for the weather in Willimasport PA and he replied Clear and 10 so we changed our destination with him and headed on along.

 

Judy checked the weather on the garmin/XM and we saw that although there was some heavy stuff in the Bradford PA area we were going to be south of it and it was miving north east to our westerly heading.

 

We decided to go onto Cleveland's Burke Lakefront airport where we arrived in good weather at 8:30PM. The kind folks at Landmark got us a rate at the Hilton Garden Inn downtown and gave us a ride there as well.

 

Up the next morning at 5:20 we lifted off from Cleveland at 7:30 am enroute Toledo, South Bend Fort Wayne Kankanee Rockford, Janesvill Madison then Oshkosh.

 

We encountered IMC at Kankanee and climbed to 8000 to stay on top. We checked the weather at OSH and the whole east central wisconsin was marginal VFR to Low IFR. Judy had said she needed to use the laides room an hour back and presented with the possibility of going missed at OSH we diverted to Rockford where we ate lunch used the facilities illed the tanks and headed backout IFR to OSH.

 

We did the VOR 27 approach into OSHkosh and broke out at 1500 4 miles final. When we switched to tower we heard all sorts of people sneaking in VFR and it amazed me that people would be that cavalier to pick their way along in low seilings and visibilities. Anyway we're here and aside from sunburn we're ok!

 

Airventure Oshkosh 2008 Trip Day 1

Spent on the ground in Danbury. We were supposed to be off yesterday after work but the weather was kind of dicey with thunderstorms and heavy rain all across our routing.

 

We've been making the Haaj to Oshkosh since 2001 so this will be our 8th trip to Airventure. Flying westerly in the northern hemisphere is always a chore since the predominant weather pattern moves from the west to the east so you're typically going to have to cross a front at some point during the flignt.

 

Today we woke at home to heavy rain and thunder so rather than rush and check the weather I was inclined to roll over when my alarm went off at 5:30 local.  However since I'm the systems admin on 22 Windows and Unix servers I resisted the urge and logged on to verify that everything that was suppoed to be running was running.

 

Once that was taken care of I jumped on DUATS (www.duats.com) to see what the weather was going to be like. It wasn't good so I made coffee and brought it to my bride Judy and told her the bad news.

 

Judy's got a corporate job with a fortune 50 company so her vacation time is set in stone and naturally she was looking for any silver lining in the dark cloud's that would get us pointed on our way.

 

That wasn't happening so she picked a couple of cups of blueberries and made some Jam while I went into work.

 

Well the long and short is we're waiting for improvement that might be here tomorrow afternoon. The forecasts come out at 8AM 2PM 8PM 2AM and cover a 24 hour period. We're working on 2PM today till 2PM tomorrow now and they show a significant improvement over the dismal weather we have at this moment. 8PM is next and hopefully it will be like the KC and Sunshine Band song of old "Tell me something good'.

 

More later.

 

SPW