Get Rid Of Warbirds At Oshkosh

Amen.

"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...
I'm prejudiced. Of course I'm prejudiced. In 5000+ flight hours, I've
never come as close to a midair as I did at Oshkosh 1999. Oshkosh Tower:
"BlueOnBlue Cessna, number three for runway 27. Ercoupe put it on the
numbers. Flight of three T6s, cross over runway 27, right downwind for
runway 27, caution the Cessna at the gravel pit."

(Warbird flight leader) "OK fellers, let's show them what a warbird
arrival is like."

The Cessna is looking, looking, and turns downwind. The copilot screams,
"Oh, my God " and the pilot turns hard left, only to see two wings perhaps
fifty feet below. Tower tells warbirds that they nearly had a midair with
a Cessna. Warbird flight leader, "Then tell tell the little b@$+@rd to
get out of our way."

I've about had it with the arrogant warbird *******s. The only reason that
there are warbirds at Oshkosh is that Pope Paul flew a warbird and wanted
to invite his cronies.

Pope Paul is out to pasture. Nobody else at Oshkosh gets gas money except
the warbirds. Guess where the gas money is coming from? Your inflated
entry ticket prices. You are paying for those stupid idiots to aggrandize
World War II, which damned few of us can relate to.

So this afternoon, one of the WWII warbird people who has more money than
good sense, and who never learned how to clear the taxiway in front of his
aircraft, killed one of our own. There has to be some sort of payback for
this sort of stupidity.

Warbirds, you are not welcome at Oshkosh.

Jim

"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...

snip

Warbirds, you are not welcome at Oshkosh.

Jim

To me, the warbirds are very welcome, as is everyone else until all the
parking fills up. What happened yesterday was simple pilot error, and could
have been avoided by taking more preventative measures. One idea would be
to let groups of warbirds depart once an hour. If you fly a warbird and
have it fired up and ready to taxi at 0:10 before the hour, you get to
depart with the group of warbirds that leaves on the hour. Yep, it'll be an
inconvenience to some, but if everyone knows the procedures, it won't be the
nightmare of mixing the warbirds with the spam. As someone who flies an RV,
I don't like taxiing and departing with warbirds or jets. The warbirds leave
a fair amount of wake turbulence if you're following one, and have the nasty
combination of a big prop and poor visibility. Taxiing behind a jet (I got
stuck behind one for 20 minutes yesterday) is miserable. Even if you're 50
or 100 yards back, your airplane rocks back and forth due to the jet blast
and it smells like you've stuck your head inside a kerosene heater for the
entire time.

As far as obnoxious warbird flyers go, there are plenty of other people who
are just as obnoxious. A pet peeve of mine is the guys doing formation work
(frequently RV's, but I've seen it done in everything from ultralights on
up) who don't think twice about doing a 4 ship overhead break without much
regard for other aircraft in the pattern. The attitude seems to be similar
to the warbird guys - announce what you're going to do and expect everyone
else to adapt.

KB

And just out of curiosity, were there any ground marshallers along the
taxiway to help keep traffic from getting too close and keeping an eye
on things? We all know forward visibility is very poor on most warbirds
and it seems like they should have an escort from a guy on a scooter to
be a set of "remote eyes". Just a thought.

Scott


Kyle Boatright wrote:
"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...

snip

Warbirds, you are not welcome at Oshkosh.

Jim


To me, the warbirds are very welcome, as is everyone else until all the
parking fills up. What happened yesterday was simple pilot error, and could
have been avoided by taking more preventative measures. One idea would be
to let groups of warbirds depart once an hour. If you fly a warbird and
have it fired up and ready to taxi at 0:10 before the hour, you get to
depart with the group of warbirds that leaves on the hour. Yep, it'll be an
inconvenience to some, but if everyone knows the procedures, it won't be the
nightmare of mixing the warbirds with the spam. As someone who flies an RV,
I don't like taxiing and departing with warbirds or jets. The warbirds leave
a fair amount of wake turbulence if you're following one, and have the nasty
combination of a big prop and poor visibility. Taxiing behind a jet (I got
stuck behind one for 20 minutes yesterday) is miserable. Even if you're 50
or 100 yards back, your airplane rocks back and forth due to the jet blast
and it smells like you've stuck your head inside a kerosene heater for the
entire time.

As far as obnoxious warbird flyers go, there are plenty of other people who
are just as obnoxious. A pet peeve of mine is the guys doing formation work
(frequently RV's, but I've seen it done in everything from ultralights on
up) who don't think twice about doing a 4 ship overhead break without much
regard for other aircraft in the pattern. The attitude seems to be similar
to the warbird guys - announce what you're going to do and expect everyone
else to adapt.

KB

"Scott" wrote in message
.. .
And just out of curiosity, were there any ground marshallers along the
taxiway to help keep traffic from getting too close and keeping an eye on
things? We all know forward visibility is very poor on most warbirds and
it seems like they should have an escort from a guy on a scooter to be a
set of "remote eyes". Just a thought.

Scott



I don't know. We waited about 20 minutes in the departure line and there
were no prop warbirds or escorts in front of us. There were people at each
intersection. There were a couple of warbirds (a B-25 comes to mind) behind
us, but I didn't notice if they had escorts or not.

KB

"Scott" wrote in message
.. .
And just out of curiosity, were there any ground marshallers along the
taxiway to help keep traffic from getting too close and keeping an eye
on things? We all know forward visibility is very poor on most warbirds
and it seems like they should have an escort from a guy on a scooter to
be a set of "remote eyes". Just a thought.

Typically, there is only an escort for individual planes, when they enter a
high likelihood of getting around people, such as on the northern most
taxiway off of 36, going back to the RV parking on the left, and P-51
parking on the right.

As is currently done, there is not enough manpower to escort each warbird
all of the way down the taxiways. It is up to the pilot to maintain
spacing, except where they come to an intersection.

I don't understand why this guy in the Avenger ran all over the RV. For
years, warbirds have done a fine job of having no accidents, by doing their
S-turns. I don't understand why he neglected to do the clearing turns, in
this case. There are no places I can think of that there is not enough room
to S-turn.

As always, now there will have to be a reaction to prevent any other
incidents from ever happening in the future. One pilot's lack of awareness
will cause headaches for everyone.
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

As always, now there will have to be a reaction to prevent any other
incidents from ever happening in the future. One pilot's lack of
awareness
will cause headaches for everyone.
--
Jim in NC

Hopefully, something will be learned and changed. Unfortunately, this
process is never totally right or the "changes" seemingly sufficient enough
to prevent accidents down the line. The usual result is a time of "increased
awareness" by the community, followed by a time of laxity, followed by
another inevitable accident caused by someone else in another place.
It seems that accident prevention is a never ending sine curve of good and
bad.
Dudley

"Dudley Henriques" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

As always, now there will have to be a reaction to prevent any other
incidents from ever happening in the future. One pilot's lack of
awareness
will cause headaches for everyone.
--
Jim in NC

Hopefully, something will be learned and changed. Unfortunately, this
process is never totally right or the "changes" seemingly sufficient
enough
to prevent accidents down the line. The usual result is a time of
"increased
awareness" by the community, followed by a time of laxity, followed by
another inevitable accident caused by someone else in another place.
It seems that accident prevention is a never ending sine curve of good and
bad.
Dudley


Very true, and draconian measures have no greater lasting value. However, I
really like your suggestion (from past practice and posted on r.a.p) of the
wing sitter. I'm not volunteering, which I'll leave to the young bucks, but
I really like the concept because it leaves the wing sitter free from any
personal driving responsibility to attend to the task at hand. About the
only obvious risk is the possibility of sliding off in an unexpected stop;
which should be safe enough if left to the appropriate personnel.
Peter

I like the idea it is a good one. No right now the guys on scooters are not
allowed on the taxiways only the ramps my guess that is directed by the
insurance guys.

Dave Zera
Co-Chair
Safety/Flight Line
AirVenture
"Scott" wrote in message
.. .
And just out of curiosity, were there any ground marshallers along the
taxiway to help keep traffic from getting too close and keeping an eye on
things? We all know forward visibility is very poor on most warbirds and
it seems like they should have an escort from a guy on a scooter to be a
set of "remote eyes". Just a thought.

Scott


Kyle Boatright wrote:
"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...

snip

Warbirds, you are not welcome at Oshkosh.

Jim


To me, the warbirds are very welcome, as is everyone else until all the
parking fills up. What happened yesterday was simple pilot error, and
could have been avoided by taking more preventative measures. One idea
would be to let groups of warbirds depart once an hour. If you fly a
warbird and have it fired up and ready to taxi at 0:10 before the hour,
you get to depart with the group of warbirds that leaves on the hour.
Yep, it'll be an inconvenience to some, but if everyone knows the
procedures, it won't be the nightmare of mixing the warbirds with the
spam. As someone who flies an RV, I don't like taxiing and departing with
warbirds or jets. The warbirds leave a fair amount of wake turbulence if
you're following one, and have the nasty combination of a big prop and
poor visibility. Taxiing behind a jet (I got stuck behind one for 20
minutes yesterday) is miserable. Even if you're 50 or 100 yards back,
your airplane rocks back and forth due to the jet blast and it smells
like you've stuck your head inside a kerosene heater for the entire time.

As far as obnoxious warbird flyers go, there are plenty of other people
who are just as obnoxious. A pet peeve of mine is the guys doing
formation work (frequently RV's, but I've seen it done in everything from
ultralights on up) who don't think twice about doing a 4 ship overhead
break without much regard for other aircraft in the pattern. The
attitude seems to be similar to the warbird guys - announce what you're
going to do and expect everyone else to adapt.

KB

"David J. Zera" wrote in message
...
I like the idea it is a good one. No right now the guys on scooters are
not
allowed on the taxiways only the ramps my guess that is directed by the
insurance guys.

It is my understanding that the only thing keeping them off the taxiways is
the fact that all vehicles on active taxiways are required to have a yellow
flashing light above them. Put a pole up from them and mount a light, and
there you go!

Check on that, if you will. You might be able to get that going.

As far as the wing sitters go, I think insurance will be more likely to
prohibit that practice, than bikes on the taxiways. Plus, if you polled the
warbird drivers, and asked them how many would be willing to let someone sit
on their wing, I'll bet MOST of them would say, "NO Way!" Might leave a
dent, or scratch the paint, or ..... Fill in the blank.
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote in message
...
As far as the wing sitters go, I think insurance will be more likely to
prohibit that practice, than bikes on the taxiways. Plus, if you polled
the
warbird drivers, and asked them how many would be willing to let someone
sit
on their wing, I'll bet MOST of them would say, "NO Way!" Might leave a
dent, or scratch the paint, or ..... Fill in the blank.
--
Jim in NC

Can't really say, but the pilots I know personally I think would say that
the scratches and dents obtained by plowing into that Pitts up there under
the nose might require a bit more work to rehab than the risk of someone
scratching the paint on the tip.
We always put out the word before hand to potential wingtip sitters that we
preferred them to have nothing in their back pockets and no rivets or jeans
were encouraged. We never had a problem getting people to do this for us.
Oshkosh might be another matter however, because of the sheer density of the
operation. People wanting to serve as sitters would need prior notification
that's for sure.
But its all academic really. The lawyers advising the insurance people will
most likely shoot down the tip riders anyway :-)
Dudley