Oshkosh Camping Suggestions

I'm sure everyone who has air-camped has a few ideas that might make air
camping a little more enjoyable for others. Here are a few of mine:

Ditch your sleeping bag. Instead, use a combination of sheets and fleece
blankets. Much more comfortable at little or no weight penalty.

Sew an old sheet into a sleeve to cover your camping pad. If you just throw
a sheet over a camping pad, it'll creep overnight and you'll end up sleeping
on the pad itself.

Bring your towels that are almost ready to be downcycled into use for your
dogs or for shop rags. After you've done all of your showering for the week,
use the towels to wipe down the aircraft, then put the towels in the nearest
dumpster.

Underwear. Same as towels. Take the stuff that is almost ready for the
trash heap. Wear it, then trash it. Alternately, leave it at the ANN booth.

Use a soft-side cooler as one of your travel bags. Fill it with clothes on
the way to the show, then unload it and use it as a cooler until you leave.

Take earplugs. Not everyone is on your sleep schedule, and there is always
someone loud within earshot. In particular, there is no way you're going to
get the slightly drunk group at the *next* tent to keep it quiet for more
than 5 minutes, so you might as well try the earplugs.

If you're a nighttime reader, flashlights using LED bulbs are your friend.
100+ hours of battery life, so you don't need to bring a sleeve of AA
batteries in order to pour through all the literature you picked up during
the day.

Not a camping note, but applies to all fly-ins: Don't power your airplane
out of its parking space in back to back rows. Pull it out, turn it
perpindicular, then fire it up... There are few things more aggravating
than having the control surfaces on your airplane bashed around by some
thoughtless clown.

Don't bother with a regular single-section air mattress. All the air
will go out from under you and end up in the corners. Find an air
mattress that has independent sealed air bladders.

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Let me add a few more...

ditch the air mattress or foam pad and get one of those twin/queen/king
(depending on the size of your tent) air mattresses that inflate to
5-9 inch high. They take regular-sized sheets and blankets. Quite
comfy, and are higher off the ground.

Ear plugs are great, but so is a CD or MP3 player with earplugs or
lightweight headset.

In the back of the putt-putt I have a couple of those plastic crates
sold in hardware stores and office supply stores.Really sturdy. When
I'm flying with weight in the front 2 seats, I put the 8 gal. water
tank in one of them. The other one has the tie-down kit, tools, etc.
Turned over, they make great "night stand" or small tables to keep
things off the ground. And I think I'm going to bring the 3 gal.
water tank along. Much easier to refill the bottles for the day as
well as having "clean up" water handy.

("Kyle Boatright" wrote)
Ditch your sleeping bag. Instead, use a combination of sheets and fleece
blankets. Much more comfortable at little or no weight penalty.

Sew an old sheet into a sleeve to cover your camping pad. If you just
throw a sheet over a camping pad, it'll creep overnight and you'll end up
sleeping on the pad itself.


Is the weight penalty worth the comfort of an air mattress for a week?

I bought an Eddie Bauer (self-inflating) queen size air mattress on the way
to OSH last year ....in the minivan. Pump uses 4 D-cell batteries. Smaller
Single/Twin size mattress was also available.

I'm not the smallest guy around, yet the thing kept me up off the ground all
night - unless I rolled to the side too quickly, then I would sometimes
bottom out.

On our last night, I wasn't even aware we had a flooded tent until I rolled
off the air mattress the next morning - only to discover an inch of water in
the bottom of said tent. I have not ruled out foul play!! :-)

I packed 1 old crummy comforter and 1 normal "top" sheet. If it's hot -
sheet on top, cold - comforter on top.

Air mattress ($45) has been used many, many times by us since last year. No
leaks, same batteries.


Montblack

For your airplane:

three pieces of 1" thick plywood (one for each wheel)

12" or 18" square

Shut down your engine a foot or two short of the line, place the squares
ahead of the wheels and pull the airplane up onto the squares.

These will keep your wheels from sinking into the soil while you are
there, making your departure much easier, rolling off the plywood
instead of pulling your airplane out of the holes.

Possibly the best Oshkosh camping trick of all ...


UW-O dorms.


Jim

1" ply? Jeez, are you flying a DC-3 in?

Jim



"john smith" wrote in message
.. .
For your airplane:

three pieces of 1" thick plywood (one for each wheel)

Okay, I admit I don't know how much weight a one-square-foot piece of
3/8, 1/2, or 3/4 inch plywood will bear before breaking. I err on the
conservative side. :-))
What would be the appropriate size for 210 or Cherokee Six six aircraft?

RST Engineering wrote:
1" ply? Jeez, are you flying a DC-3 in?
Jim

"john smith" wrote in message
For your airplane:
three pieces of 1" thick plywood (one for each wheel)

I'm going to make some offhand assumptions:

1. This is Wisconsin dirt covered with either green or brown grass quite
evenly.

2. The plywood will be 90% in contact with a supporting surface of
grass/ground

3. The airplane will weigh something on the order of 3000 pounds spread
evenly over all three wheels.

If this is true, then the plywood will have a supporting role 10% of 1000
pounds, or 100 pounds over a square foot, or a little less than 1 psi. My
best guess is that 3/8 would do, but beltandsuspenders would be half-inch.
That's what I'm bringing along.

Jim



"john smith" wrote in message
...
Okay, I admit I don't know how much weight a one-square-foot piece of 3/8,
1/2, or 3/4 inch plywood will bear before breaking. I err on the
conservative side. :-))
What would be the appropriate size for 210 or Cherokee Six six aircraft?

RST Engineering wrote:
1" ply? Jeez, are you flying a DC-3 in?
Jim

"john smith" wrote in message
For your airplane:
three pieces of 1" thick plywood (one for each wheel)

RST Engineering wrote:
I'm going to make some offhand assumptions:

1. This is Wisconsin dirt covered with either green or brown grass quite
evenly.

2. The plywood will be 90% in contact with a supporting surface of
grass/ground

3. The airplane will weigh something on the order of 3000 pounds spread
evenly over all three wheels.

If this is true, then the plywood will have a supporting role 10% of 1000
pounds, or 100 pounds over a square foot, or a little less than 1 psi. My
best guess is that 3/8 would do, but beltandsuspenders would be half-inch.
That's what I'm bringing along.

Is that based on lessons learned in the North Fond du Lac mud two year's
ago? :-))