THE aviation event

[pineywoods]

I'm sitting in the campground at the world's largest aviation happening, annual Experimental Aircraft Association convention/airshow in Oshkosh wisconsin. No pics till I get back home next week. The wireless network here won't tolerate uploading pics. White Knight II spaceship and the airbus 380 arrived yesterday. There's just no decent way to describe this event. Over 10,000 airplanes on the field, 1500 acres of campground and displays. Todays highlight of the airshow was aerobatics (including inverted flight) in a helicopter. Not recommended eh DanG!!!!  there's enough ex-military hardware here to support a small war.

[Tom]

I'd bet a bag-a-donut holes that my first cousin is walking around up there too.

[DanG]

DanG Piney!  You got me wanting to go up there!  Maybe, if the stars line up right, I can do the EAA Fly-in and the Piggy Roast in one trip next year.

[fishpharmer]

DanG, that sounds like a brilliant idea.  Need a co-pilot?

Pineywoods, I enjoyed your neck of the woods.  I finally got to go to Simmons in Bastrop.


I hope you post lots of pictures when you get back.

[sawmilllawyer]

Really need pics, no pics, no happen.

[pineywoods]

Got pics, it happened. Here's a few. More in my gallery

There were 25 or 30 of these, P51 mustangs
 



Black sheep anyone?? vought corsair made famous by the black sheep squadron and tv series
 




Predator un-manned surveilance drone. This one belongs to the US border patrol
 




This one's for DanG. Placard on the side says max load 22,000 pounds.
 




More pics later

[Norm]

Thanks Piney!

I was stuck out in Nebraska visiting that weekend. Oh well there's always next year.....

[pineywoods]

Previous post is now fixed. I clobbered my gallery while uploading some more pics. Here's a few more ..

Mother ship of the Rutan/Branson space ship.  Named "Lady Eve"
 



Airbuss A380. This monster carries over 500 passengers plus a bunch of freight. There's a P51 and a ford tri-motor parked under the wing.
 




World's smallest twin engine plane. single seat, 2 chainsaw motors. It belongs to the co-pilot of the Airbus. Wings fold, strap to a pallet and stuff it in the baggage compartment. It does fly nicely.
 



Curtis P-40 painted like the flying tigers. Not many of these left.
 



P-38 lightening. Less than half a dozen of these still flying. America's top-scoring ace in ww2 flew these.
 



There were 2 electric powered planes there, one of them flew. No way to get decent pics because of the huge crowds - attendance was over half million people.

[fishpharmer]

Piney, that some very impressive macinery. 

What kind of chainsaw engines did the little plane have?

Thanks for sharing.

[pineywoods]

Piney, that some very impressive macinery. 

What kind of chainsaw engines did the little plane have?

Not sure, but I think they are sachs. 11 hp each. It's from france

[farmboy1tn]

nice pictures. thanks for sharing

[DanG]

Thanks Piney!   That Skycrane is a brute.  What sort of pod did they have mounted under it?  The Army had a variety of pods that could be attached to them, but I never saw any of them being used.  They even had a passenger pod.  Drawing on my foggy memory from 40 years ago, I'm thinking it would carry 38 souls.

[trapper]

I am about 15 miles from oshkosh if some one needs a place to park next year. 
might even have a spare room

[pineywoods]

Thanks Piney!   That Skycrane is a brute.  What sort of pod did they have mounted under it? 

Would you believe a water bucket ? with a big dump valve in the bottom. fire bomber

[sawmilllawyer]

Thanks for the pics Piney. What a show!

[wi woodcutter]

DanG and fishpharmer I only live about 50 to 60 miles away from there let me know if you guys come up here next year. We'll go out and have some cheese curds and a few Pabst Blue Ribbon's.

[Jasperfield]

Last time I flew in was '02. Zaugs (I believe) had the food contract. Large Cokes were $4. How much were they this year?

[pineywoods]

Last time I flew in was '02. Zaugs (I believe) had the food contract. Large Cokes were $4. How much were they this year?

Can't say, I didn't buy any. I stay in a motorhome in the campground, we take our own food when we can't eat in the volunteer kitchen. Zaugs is still the food contractor. There are 3 camp stores in the campgrounds.  It can get a bit pricey, but no more so than say a nascar event or a major league ball game. Anybody that's interested in going next year, I can provide all the nitty gritty details, costs, accomodations transportation, etc. The kind of stuff you normally have to learn the hard way. There's LOTs of stuff besides looking at airplanes and watching an airshow.

[Slabs]

DanG, that sounds like a brilliant idea.  Need a co-pilot?

Maybe a navigator??  I got maps and a whiz wheel.

[DanG]

That sounds like a winner, Slabs.  I've been known to whiz on a wheel or two in my time.

Seriously, if we start planning now, we could get up a new version of "The Grits Express".  Nothin' says it has to be all in one vehicle, either!  How 'bout it Tom, Woodbowl, Ellmoe, Radar, Don K, and the rest of you Southern, grits eating Hammerknockers?

[Ironwood]

Cool. Ironwood

[Don K]

I love warbirds and airshows.    

Don

[DanG]

It would take a lot of organization and commitment to get a bunch of us together for both events, but it sure would be fun!  Piney, do you(or anybody else) know the dates for Oshkosh next year?  It would need to be pretty close to the Piggy Roast date for this to work out.

[pineywoods]

Yup, next year's dates are july 26 thru aug 1. Ends on a sunday. That gives 4 days to travel the 450 miles to Harrison, either up thru the UP or around thru Chicago (ugh). There is a ferry across the lake, but it is quite expensive. Organizing a get-together in Oshkosh would be something I could handle fairly easily, both where I work and where I camp are easy to find. If I can pull it off, I just might be driving a 35 ft motor home up through the UP. For the trip north, I won't be much help, we go 2 weeks early. Sounds like a good idea, bring it on....

[Night Raider]

Did you make it to the sea plane base?  I'd love to go down one of these years, but as a bush pilot it kind of cuts into our busy season and if the boss lets one pilot take the week off we'd all want to go down.

[DanG]

The time lag between Oshkosh and the PR might be a dealbreaker for next year.  Getting a group together who could spend the better part of 2 weeks on the road and camping out might be a challenge.  Camping out is about the only way I could afford the trip, and I ain't sure my old bones could take it.   This year would have been ideal, since we could have done the whole thing in a week.  Too bad we didn't think of it in time to get it together.

[pineywoods]

Did you make it to the sea plane base?  I'd love to go down one of these years, but as a bush pilot it kind of cuts into our busy season and if the boss lets one pilot take the week off we'd all want to go down.

I made several trips to the seaplane base. one to pick up a boat used to ferry stuff around. Boat had some damage to be repaired. Another to retrieve a pontoon boat that lost the wood transom and dumped a nice new mercury outboard in the lake. Would you believe some nut ran a golf cart in the lake ? I got the assignment to repair it. Then I got to haul it all back after the repairs were done. The sea plane base is several miles south of the oskosh airport, located in a quiet little cove off lake winnebago. Not many slips, the planes are anchored to buoys out in the cove. There's several boats available to ferry people and stuff back and forth. It's a real neat, laid-back place. Camping is available and there's a shuttle buss to and from the airport.