OSH '07 Redux -- Part IV -- The Wonders of OSH

Things That were Wonderful
As always, there are simply too many good things about OSH to list.
Aviation is an elixir that intoxicates in so many subtle ways, but
most of the time we who partake are seen as the "oddballs" who "waste"
so much money on "those little planes."

At OSH every year, I am reminded that we are truly NOT alone, and that
there are literally thousands of guys and gals who will willingly
spend a week camping in a big field, in any weather, just for the
privilege of hanging out with like-minded folks. In that regard,
this year was the best yet, as we were able to stay close to people we
know through this group - which itself is a self-selected bunch of
(sometimes crazy) aviation fanatics.

Each morning I would lay on our 12-inch-thick inflatable bed
(something that has made camping at OSH incredibly comfortable), eyes
closed, listening to the first departures of the day. Ear plugs,
like ANR headphones, allowed me to pick out detailed sounds at
frequencies that are normally covered by the exhaust noise, and it was
great fun to hear the differences between makes, models, engines, and
props.

The bark of a radial, the purr of a Merlin, the growl of a big
Continental or Lycoming, followed by the cavitation of the prop or the
whistling in the wires of a biplane - all of these sounds blended
together into a symphony each morning that simply can't be duplicated
anywhere else in the world.

The sad part of it all is that, after you reach a certain age you
appreciate the fact that no matter how wonderful something is, it must
soon end. This knowledge, so valuable when living through hard
times, is best forgotten at OSH, as it gives you the bitter awareness
that this, too, shall pass - WHILE it's occurring.

Thus, on our last day at OSH, sitting with good friends under the
welcome shade of a Stinson trimotor, I suddenly knew that the Raptor
demo flight would soon be over, and that the B-2 fly past would soon
be nothing but another Oshkosh memory, indistinguishable from the
rest. I knew that my son, already more a man than a boy, would soon
be departing the nest and that we would rarely go down this road
together again.

I knew that all these wonderful old planes, with their fascinating,
storied pasts and wonderfully generous pilots, would soon head home,
leaving nothing but an impression in the grass. I knew that Oshkosh
would soon return to its normal, sleepy self, and even the bitter
North 40 horn blower would soon forget whatever it is he's so ****ed
about.

I looked around at the sights and sounds, in all three dimensions, and
choked up, knowing that I had to leave, that this could never continue
forever, and that simply attending 25 in a row would never assure that
we'll ever make it back here again. To Oshkosh - the very best place
on earth.

As I'm typing this, Jack and Steve are (according to Montblack) en
route to their first stop somewhere in Wyoming. "John Smith" ended up
somewhere in Indiana with a bad mag - but is probably home by now.
Ray, Art, Dan and Lou all left a few days ago - I trust they have made
it home safely.

Thanks to all who made it - we'll never forget you, or OSH '07. See
ya next year!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message oups.com...
Things That were Wonderful

When did you leave, Jay?

When did you leave, Jay?

We packed up our gear Saturday morning, left Atlas at our site,
enjoyed the day on the field, and then were able to blast off right
after the airspace reopened Saturday evening.

We were pretty close to the front of the line, so departure was the
easiest I've ever seen -- AND we got to depart on Rwy 9 over Lake
Winnebago. This is quite beautiful...
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay,

You write beautifully. Thank you. I just read all four postings to
Candy and we are both damp-eyed. I can take pictures but not describe
things as well as you do.

Cheers,
-- Art Z.
-- N7430J

You write beautifully. Thank you. I just read all four postings to
Candy and we are both damp-eyed. I can take pictures but not describe
things as well as you do.

Thanks, Art. Let's make this an annual thing. (And you should bring
Candy next time!)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay Honeck wrote in news:1185737011.096243.121160
@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

Thanks to all who made it - we'll never forget you, or OSH '07. See
ya next year!


Thanks for the great reports, Jay. I've got to put it in the plan for next
year.

Mike

Thanks for the great reports, Jay. I've got to put it in the plan for next
year.

You got it, Mike. Looking forward to it already.

We've already started discussing improvements for next year. Now that
the Pool Party has really taken off, and we're starting to get a fair
number of folks flying up with us into OSH on Sunday morning, I think
it's time to put together some written procedures for all of us to
follow. (Call it the Alexis Park Inn NOTAM?)

This year we did the flight all by ear and on the fly, from departure
intervals (one every five seconds) to altitudes (3500 feet), to com
radio frequencies. It all worked out well, thanks to everyone being
good pilots -- but with more and more people showing up I will plan to
make sure that we're more on the same sheet of music, literally.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

As I'm typing this, Jack and Steve are (according to Montblack) en
route to their first stop somewhere in Wyoming. "John Smith" ended up
somewhere in Indiana with a bad mag - but is probably home by now.
Ray, Art, Dan and Lou all left a few days ago - I trust they have made
it home safely.


We landed at RHV about 2 pm local time on Monday.

Another fantastic trip from the left coast to OSH and back. The return
was OSH - O'Neil, Nebraska (gas stop) - Rock Springs, Wyoming
(overnight) - Carson City, Nevada (gas stop) - San Jose, California
(drop me off) - Lincoln, California (Jack puts the airplane away, washes
off the bugs, vacuums out the trail mix crumbs, etc).

Weather the first day consisted of a broken layer going into O'Neil (IFR
flight plan), and some scattered showers at the Nebraska - Wyoming
border. Departing Rock Springs about 8 am the second day found clear
sky, glass smooth ride. This was one of those flights you want to take
folks new to small aircraft on.....beautiful early morning light over
Wyoming, no bumps, over the Wasatch at Parleys Canyon, pass 2 miles
south of KSLC (above class B, talking to Salt Lake approach). From
there very slight bumps over a couple of ridges in central Nevada, but
mostly smooth until letting down into Carson City. Departing Carson
City we orbited about 3 times for altitude, crossed Spooners Summit into
the Lake Tahoe area, over Echo summit, and finally the long
downhill cruise descent towards KRHV.

It was great to see everyone again and put some new faces to names.
Looks like everyone made it home. See ya next year.

Steve

Jay,

I have been to Oshkosh for 5 years now (not all in a row), but this
was the first time that I flew in rather than going commercial. I
flew with my friend and business partner in his Kitfox 7A all the way
from Caldwell Idaho (EUL). It was a long 14 hour trip each way, and
there is definitely not enough padding in his seat cushions! My butt
kept falling asleep after each 3 to 4 hour leg, and I had to get out
and walk around and stretch just to get the circulation flowing
again... ugh!

We flew EUL to RKS for the first leg. Taking off at RKS at noon in
90F temps at 6800 feet was a challenge as we clawed our way back up to
9500 feet. It was a bit bumpy over Wyoming, but it smoothed out over
Nebraska. We had enough fuel left at Scottsbluff NE that we decided
we could push on to Norfolk NE but soon changed our minds when a
scattered layer we were flying over started to become an undercast...

We put down at the Hooker County NE airport only to find out there
were no services, but a nice man in a big red pickup pulled up as we
got out and offered us fuel from a tank in his shed hangar. He
charged use the rate we had paid in Rock Springs for 15 gallons of
100LL and we got back up in the air with enough fuel to be able to
deal with the layer. After talking with a nice lady on flight watch I
found out that the layer wasn't as bad as it looked and was breaking
up as it flowed North, so we pressed on. About 100 miles from
Norfolk, we saw one last big hole so we opted to desend there, and got
down to 2000 AGL with clouds about 1000 feet above our heads. Being a
mountain west pilot, I am not used to that murky fish bowl effect in
the midwest. Add to that a low angle sun and the overcast made it
very dim and dreary as we flew the last 100 miles to Norfolk. I
really appreciated Mike's KMD150 with all the 1500' towers that sprout
up in that part of the country. We gave them a wide berth.

We landed at Norfolk about an hour or so before sunset. A couple of
plane spotters at the airport told us that they saw us coming in from
several miles out because of our LED recognition lights that we were
running full time. They gave us pointers on where we could spend the
night in Norfolk, so after refueling the plane from the self-serve
pump, we took a cab to a really nice new hotel there in town and spent
the night. Norfolk NE is a nice small midwest town, and the people
there were very nice. I'd stop there again.

We got up before dawn and left Norfolk at 6:30 AM with a 2000 foot
ceiling and 10 miles visibility in haze. We flew East toward Cedar
Rapids until we found a nice big hole and climbed up above a thin
veiled layer that we could see down through. I had checked the
satellite map and knew that the warm front between us and Iowa wasn't
very wide, so we started up toward 11,500 as we saw some build-ups
ahead of us. We climbed as high as 12,000 feet to wend our way around
the build-ups, but could still see the ground down though canyons in
the clouds. Soon we were past the narrow ridge of build-ups and
flying over a downward sloping cloud bank toward the clear skies over
Iowa. We flew into Marion airport outside of Cedar Rapids where we
refueld and were met by Mike's adult kids who were going to drive to
Oshkosh to help us exhibit.

We flew into Oshkosh Saturday morning. About 100 miles out we had a
flight of 5 T-6's pass left to right a quarter mile in front of us 500
feet higher than our crusing altitude... wow! Then we crossed the
mighty Mississippi into Wisconsin. Getting close to Ripon we dropped
down to 2000 feet. A Bonanza passed over us as it overtook us from
behind and to our right. I spotted its shadow before I actually saw
it. The Kitfox has acrylic doors and turtle deck, so we had excellent
visibility when made looking for traffic much easier. We followed the
Bonanza in from Ripon but didn't see anyone else (about 12:15). We
had someone about 1/2 mile behind us as it turned out. The Fisk
controller called us out a couple of miles from Fisk as a high wing
with blue stripes and flashing lights. After that, we flew the
approach and landing on runway 36L and taxiied to the North Aircraft
exhibit area to our space right behind Velocity.

It wasn't nearly as scary getting in as I had feared, but I know
Sunday is a lot worse.

We departed at about 5:30pm on Sunday and flew two hours to Rochester
MN where we spent the night (another nice small midwestern town). We
got up and took off at 6:30AM on Monday and flew to Huron SD for fuel,
then to Rapid City SD for fuel, passed Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse
monuments (wow, Crazy Horse is going to be HUGE! Bigger than all four
heads on Rushmore), passed Casper WY and again landed in Rock
Springs. Departing Rock Springs at 4:30PM was another long struggle
up to 10,500 where the air temp dropped from 93 to only 68. From
there we flew to Pocatello then on to Caldwell.

BTW, if you have never seen craters of the moon national monument from
the air, its a very unique sight... we had a great view both going
and coming as we flew across Southern Idaho.

Here is an observation from a mountain west pilot: its much easier to
track your progress visually in the mountains where the terrain
features are more unique and distinct than it is over the midwest
where you have endless miles of flat rectangular fields...

Dean