Of course there was lots of air show goings on. There was flight after flight of War Birds including the only flying B-29, “Fifi.” Every hour we would watch the departure of two airliners from the 1920’s; a pair of Ford Tri-Motors.
We were able to walk almost right up to the active runways and watch the planes landing and later departing. It is an amazing sight to watch two and even three small general aviation airplanes landing on the same runway at the same time. Then a minute later two or three more planes do it again. We listened in on the air traffic controller’s frequency with my hand-held Ham radio. Instructions would go something like this… “Cessna over the gravel pit, waggle your wings. Good waggle, you are number two to land on runway 27, cleared to land on the green dot.” The second later it was… “Citation, as soon as you have you plane under control, turn left into the grass, follow the volunteers to parking, welcome to Oshkosh.” Each runway had a set of huge painted dots at 1/3 and 2/3 of the runway. Each was a different color, red, green, purple and pink. I kept thinking what if the pilot is color blind?
Many of the pilots and often their families camp under the wings of their airplanes for the week. Imagine, if you can, a field that is over a mile long and two city blocks wide. Small general aviation aircraft are parked wing tip to wing tip in rows that are perhaps twice as wide as the wingspan of the typical Cessna or Cherokee. There are thousands of these planes stretching as far as you can see. It is a great opportunity to talk to the pilots. Judy and I volunteered as “Protect Our Planes” watchers. The air show crowd mingles with the pilots and crew among these same aircraft. They like to sit in the shade of the planes to watch the air show. Our job was to keep people from touching and leaning on the planes. When we saw a leaner we would approach and ask if they were the owner. If they answered yes, we told them to carry-on, owners get to touch all they want. Almost every time the owner would thank us. Some even had stories to tell of inconsiderate people actually damaging their planes. Most people apologized and moved away from the planes, when approached.
We had lots of fun with the Wisconsin weather while we were here. One afternoon a severe thunderstorm popped up while we were hurrying back to our camp. We were soaked to the skin. The weather was in the 80’s so we were not chilled, just wet. The rain turned the camp into a mud wallow. Saturday afternoon we got a blast of wind and dust while we were watching the planes. Later when it subsided we observed many tents and awnings that had been destroyed in the camp ground. Another reason we never leave the awning up when we leave the rig. We were dry camping for the whole two weeks. We would come home with the temperatures in the high 80’s and run the generator and air conditioners for an hour to get the coach livable. Tonight we have glorious electricity and no mud in our camp.
I am starting to ramble, so it is time to close.
