At Air Venture #1
At Oshkosh, WI
After our loonnng taxi to the “south
forty” we set up camp on the last row on the end of the
airport property. We were told this was the first year
they had put campers that far down, and they thought they would
have to close the airport to any more campers.
But later, we saw them mowing the grassy
area between the taxiways and the landing strip and they
were parking airplanes in there. There were LOTS of
airplanes.
The first day, as we road the bus and
tram to get to the main events, several people questioned why
we, with an experimental aircraft, was parked so far away from
everything.
The next day, with the help of volunteers
from the homebuilders association, we were able to move up to
row 100, a significant improvement. It was just off the
end of the ultralight runway, so we had fun watching them buzz
about. This still was quite a hike from any of the main
show and events, but we didn’t mind the walk. (Or if we
were tired, we caught a tram.)
Our final camping spot for the week.
One day while watching the airshow, we
sat beside a gentleman from France who had come with the super
transporter (Beluga), the largest airplane there, and he shared
some about it with us. We determined to take a tour
through it, but the line was always so long, we didn’t
actually do it until our last day. It was HUGE!
We saw almost every kind of flying
machine imaginable while at Oshkosh.
The biggest airplane at AirVenture.
And this is the smallest aircraft we saw
while at Oshkosh. It is a fully functional, complete
controllable, one man helicopter. It sounded a bit like a
giant mosquito buzzing about, but, boy, could he make it fly!
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the various kinds of ultralights
flying, and there were many.
The smallest aircraft I saw at Oshkosh.
We toured the EAA museum, and the
airplanes in these next two pictures are REAL airplanes, even
though they look like models. They have all been flown
and then donated to be on display at the museum. They
were hanging everywhere, and mounted on the walls, and
displayed on the floors. An interesting and impressive
museum!
Real airplanes hanging in the EAA Museum.
A flying car donated to the museum.
I think they said it was used by an air traffic reporter.
This is a replica of the original Wrght
Brothers flyer. The plan was to fly it at Kitty Hawk on
the 100th anniversary of the maiden flight, in December, 2003.
There were also simulators at the show
that anyone could try to fly, that duplicated the controls from
the original airplane, and included a monitor for seeing the
scenery from Kitty Hawk, as the Wright Brothers experienced it.
I finally gave it a try, after the lines got shorter, and
actually flew and then landed it without mishap, which I was
told was quite an accomplishment, as most of those
who tried, crashed it.
A replica of the original Wright Brothers
flyer, to be flown in
December, 2003, at Kitty Hawk.
A cute little park for the children to
hang out in, with miniature airplanes for them to pretend to
fly.
A view down one of the streets, closed
off to only pedestrians and authorized vehicles. We
walked miles and miles up and back on this street.
A typical scene while waiting for the
airshow to begin.