Day 11- Cross-Canada Century Flight 2009

I woke up in Oshkosh this morning! What an amazing feeling of unreality to be sleeping in a tent under the wing, with thousands of aircraft parked in the fields around you, watching a beautiful clear day dawn here in Wisconsin. I think we are all still adjusting to the fact that we have actually made it safe to our destination, and are now part of the world’s largest aviation show. From 7am to 8pm there’s always dozens of aircraft flying the air, whether it is planes on takeoffs or landing approaches, or warbirds flying in formation above the airport holding impromptu airshows. Meanwhile, there’s a media, navy and three “ride” helicopters that are constantly circling overhead, providing authentic background noise to the entire event. So far it’s been an amazing experience, and even now, after a day of exploring, I feel that we have barely discovered Oshkosh. No wonder other Oshkosh veterans recommended that we spend the entire week here!

Yesterday we pre-planned a standard food fare for each day, intended for both ease of use and maximization of our time here: peanut-butter and jam sandwiches every morning, an optional snack in the afternoon, followed by a full buffet dinner at the Hilton hotel at night. I am not convinced how long we will be able to maintain this odd eating style, but we at least followed it by the book today. It’s very ideal in allowing us to be at the exhibition grounds very early, and the buffet dinner is different every night, but I am concerned that we’re going to quickly become nauseated at eating the same sandwiches every morning for breakfast! Time will tell if we can maintain our schedule. 

Everybody seems to wake up early in Oshkosh to be ready for the day’s events, and I followed suit and was up at 6am this morning. This wasn’t exactly ideal, as I have been constantly been out the door between 5am and 6:30am for the past two weeks, and I’m sure that I’ll have a price to pay once I return home. Nevertheless, the excitement of flying and being in new places has given me a sense of purpose to maximize every minute of my time. So far I seem to be holding up fairly well, and the time spent grounded in Thunder Bay did help restore my exhaustion that had set in flying over the prairies.

The Hilton hotel has proven to be an exception stroke of good luck. I was able to use the pristine facilities there to put on my contacts, and it provides a very accessible and attractive alternative to the detested portable outhouses scattered throughout the airport. The Hilton is entirely geared towards serving the pilot visitors, and the campers are welcome to join in the buffets and make use of the lobby, restrooms and lounge. The only service that they don’t provide is internet; the EAA is supposed to provide an airport-wide service, but so far I have experienced only a very flaky connection. All the pilots here seem to own laptops, not to mention iPhones and iPod touches. Power is also an issue, although the Hilton seems also very accommodating in that regard. I am so grateful that we are placed on the North 40, near all the conveniences offered by the hotels, restaurants and retail stores in the area!

There are appropriated school buses constantly running along the North 40, taking visitors to the side entrance of the main exhibition grounds. We had to join a long linkup of pilots to register our aircraft, and received wristbands which we have to wear for the rest of the week. With the paperwork behind us, we were free to wander almost anywhere within the 1,600 acre EAA grounds which I’ve learned have 250 buildings and hundreds of other vendor tents. It was actually quite daunting just trying to decide where to go first, and we ended up deciding to take a tour of the grounds first, without actually visiting any of the many exhibits, demonstrations, or aircraft.

EAA, or the Experimental Aviation Association which hosts the entire AirVenture event here in Oshkosh has done a phenomenal job at organizing the volunteers and transportation throughout the grounds. There are buses which travel constantly to the north and south of the exhibition area, bringing pilots and their crews from the parking and camping areas. There are additionally three tram routes within the exhibition grounds themselves which are constantly running. Buses also offer service to a seaplane base and the EAA museum, and Ford has provided several “green” hybrid and ethanol-powered cars and trucks which also provide limited transport throughout the area. It’s an amazing setup completely run by volunteers. We’ve met a few of the volunteers controlling the taxiways last night, and they come from all over the US to help out; the couple we met drove from Texas to be a part of the event.

We travelled on almost every tram and bus available today in effort to get an appreciation for the grounds. It’s like a miniature city here, and the numbers of attendees far exceed the 10,000 aircraft that annually fly here. Thousands of people drive here and there are acres of land dedicated to car and RV parking. Outdoor cafes and small food places are in abundance, along with portable outhouses. There are some newly added Kohlor “flush toilets” too, but they can be difficult to find. There are also a few portable shower units which look like mobile homes, and these are also intended to provide power outlets for electric shavers and blow-driers. They also provide very scarce electricity for charging laptops and cell phones, and people place their lawn chairs outside of the shower units in order to use their mobile devices! It’s a rather funny sight to see everyone conglomerated around the shower units, but I really shouldn’t laugh; I myself might have to follow suit! So far, however, the Hilton has provided easy access for providing power, and I am delighted that we were so fortunate as to be parked at the extreme end of the North 40.

The main exhibition grounds are centered around the Oshkosh tower, and aligned with the largest runway above which is held the daily afternoon airshow. The tower has a banner reading “World’s Busiest Control Tower”, and statistics back up this stupendous claim. There are on average 3,500 takeoffs and landings per day at Oshkosh during this week of AirVenture, which is significantly higher than Atlanta or Chicago, which otherwise contend for the record the rest of the year. One thing that amazes me is the lack of security around the runways: there are a few orange cones irregularly placed just beside the taxiways, and everyone respects this invisible line and doesn’t take advantage of it. Occasionally a small scooter will ride along the line, but that is the greatest security in place. I greatly appreciate this trust system, for it allows the spectators to view the aircraft without any interference. The aircraft parking fields, too, are completely open to registered Oshkosh visitors, and one can walk right up to the hundreds of jets, warbirds and homebuilt aircraft covering the grounds.

The EAA organization, as the name obviously demonstrates, is a large supporter of experimental aircraft. These range from home built aircraft to modern experimental jets and uncertified newly-designed production aircraft. As a result, there are some very interesting “flying objects” present that, in one form or another, can be deemed an aeroplane. For example, there’s a newly designed aircraft that becomes a small car in 30 seconds. The company that makes it is already taking pre-orders for next year with the price tag of $194,000. There is also apparently the world’s first electric-powered plane here from China which I have yet to see, along with other queer aircraft that are suited for long-distance and high-altitude flights. I’m unsure how practical many of these designs are, but I’m sure that many of them fill a niche market. One such example is the Border Protection Service’s unmanned flying vehicle which looks very odd, but which has been used with reasonable success along the US-Mexico border. None of these experimental planes are perfect however; I know that the Border Protection Service has already lost one of their unmanned aircraft, while I’m sure many of these other designs have had costly faults which still have to be overcome.

The daily airshow begins each day at 1:30pm, and is supposed to run until just before 6pm. During that duration, the entire airport is closed to regular traffic, although the helicopters are permitted to continuing observing the show from a slight distance. We joined the crowds of people lined up with the airshow runway, and were fortunate enough to get close to the taxiway. We were forced to sit on the ground or stand however, since there are absolutely no seating provided. More experienced Oshkosh visitors had lined up at the front of the flight line hours before with their lawn chairs, and I’m thinking we’ll probably follow suit for tomorrow.

I knew in advance that the airshow here in Oshkosh would be different than what I would expect back in Abbotsford. Everything here is focused on experimental or stunt airplanes, and not jets or military aircraft. As a result, there are no professional jet aerobatic teams present, although the Snow Birds apparently did show up once in the past. I personally love modern technology and jet aircraft, but I’ll have to travel to the Paris airshow to be able to watch the world’s best military aircraft put on such a performance. In the meantime, however, Oshkosh has a huge range of almost every non-military that isn’t nearly as loud, but is nevertheless quite capable in offering an interesting airshow experience.

Some interesting aircraft arrived earlier today, performing flybys before landing and joining the static displays. The largest arrival was the Lancaster bomber from the Canadian Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario. The Lancaster is one of two in the world still flying, and it drew a large amount of attention due its size, uniqueness and rich history from World War II. The Canadian Heritage Museum in fact has a surprising number of aircraft here, all of which are parked at the center of the exhibition grounds in Aeroshell square. There are also a fair amount of Canadians present, and we have seen several Canadian-registered aircraft parked around us, not to mention several warbirds also sporting Canadian registrations. While Canadians definitely appear to represent the majority of the “international” visitors present, I also met some French-speaking Belgiums and have heard several other languages in use.

The airshow today began with a flying demonstration by “White Knight 2”, or officially SpaceShip2. The SpaceShip project is supported by Paul Allen and two other wealthy investors in an attempt to make civilian space travel a possibility. Don’t get civilian space flight become confused with accessible space travel, for the group intends to charge at least $200,000 per passenger. Nevertheless, the space flight attempts so far have proven very successful. Paul Allen managed to fund the launch of a single-manned spacecraft into a single orbit around the world last year, and now his group is pursuing the launching of a multiple-passenger space vehicle capable of carrying paying “space tourists” and small satellites into space. White Knight 2 is a very queer-looking double-hulled aircraft that’s intended to carry the spaceship to 45,000ft for a launch. This “carrier vehicle” itself is still in experimental stage, and today it performed exactly its 16th and 17th flight. The SpaceShip3 that it is supposed to carry is still under development, and if everything goes according to schedule, the group will begin full space tests sometime next year.

Followed by the demonstration of the White Knight 2, there was a symbolic parachute team jump carrying the “Stars and Stripes”, along with the singing of the US anthem. I know basically all of the words, and can easily sing along; a sure sign that I’ve watched too many NHL games in entirety! Unfortunately, just as the airshow was truly about to begin, the weather suddenly turned ugly. A cloud cover had blown over throughout mid-day, but as too often happens here out east, a thunderstorm erupted over the airport and left everyone running for undercover. We huddled in the Ford Pavilion for half an hour before resolving to return to the aircraft to check for water damage and hopefully escape a further drenching.

The airshow never did resume today due to the bad weather. Fortunately, however, the rain did halt in the evening, and tomorrow is apparently going to once again have clear skies. One local lady told us that this is typical Wisconsin weather, by which I gathered that this is the typical summer weather of the entire North-East! The West Coast summer is suddenly looking extremely favourable, and I would even give the prairies a better rating than the east coast. Nevertheless, I really shouldn’t be complaining; the Wisconsin weather is far superior to the disastrous conditions we experienced in Thunder Bay!

We went out tonight with Brent and Bob to the Hilton hotel for the buffet dinner. I think our plan to eat here every night is extremely brilliant; after walking many miles and direct exposure to the outdoors, I really appreciate a full meal! Brent and particularly Bob are also amazingly intelligent, each possessing a vast knowledge of information. Brent’s the pharmacist manager for the southern Okanagan’s four hospitals, while Bob is a retired wildlife biologist. Bob can explain everything from wild animal behaviours and habits to the way your immune system works. He is also very good with electronics, and owns two GPSs, USB drives and a miniature digital physician recorder which he keeps for instant use around his neck! Dinner with the pair of them invariably presents another opportunity to learn something new, and makes our trip the more memorable.

It’s nearing 11pm here in Wisconsin, and I’d better be prepared for another long day tomorrow. We didn’t even attend any of the nightly events being held on the exhibition grounds, including movies and presentations in either of the two outdoor theatres. There was also an outdoor concert being held tonight to mark the beginning of the week’s annual AirVenture. Internet connection continues to be flaky, so definitely don’t expect any pictures. I also am unsure how much time I want to dedicate to blog posting; there’s simply so much to do around here, and I want to maximize my time during this extremely memorable experience. Good night for now from Oshkosh!