flyingcheesehead
Touchdown! Greaser!
I'm at 18 times so far, 16 of them camping on field for the entire week which makes it a completely different experience. Living and breathing aviation 24/7 is heavenly.
First time was 1987 with my dad (though my mom swears that our entire family went once before that, I don't remember it which seems impossible). That was the year the Voyager was there, en route from Mojave to the Smithsonian (NASM). I remember Leo Loudenslager flying an amazing aerobatic routine, the Coors Light Silver Bullets (four BD-5Js doing a formation aerobatic show), seeing people camping in tents under the wings of their airplanes and thinking that was the coolest thing ever, and an old guy bitching about tricycle gear airplanes in a food tent. "Taildraggers want to fly. These damn tri-gears, ya gotta pull 'em off the ground!"
That was also the era when you had to be an EAA member to get on the flight line, so my dad bought us a membership and I got to read the EAA Magazine the next year, with lots of people complaining about the then-upcoming requirement for Mode C transponders around class B airspace.
My next time was 2005 (after learning to fly in 2003), when I only managed to go during the day for two days (Monday and Saturday). But in 2006, I began my streak of camping on-field for the entire week, first in the club's 182 in the North 40, a few years later in Scholler for the first time and alternating that with airplane camping, and the last time I camped in the North 40 was 2013 with the Mooney. Since then, all Scholler, though most years we've still brought the plane up and parked it in GAP, it's just really nice to have a car available to make runs for ice or other supplies.
Oshkosh is my happy place. I hope that's where I go when I die. There's just nothing like sitting in a camp chair with a cold drink surrounded by pilots and airplanes, and seeing the latest gadgets, the oldest planes still flying, warbirds of various eras, the amazing craftsmanship of homebuilders, and telling stories late into the night followed by being awoken in the morning by T-6s or Trimotors flying over.
First time was 1987 with my dad (though my mom swears that our entire family went once before that, I don't remember it which seems impossible). That was the year the Voyager was there, en route from Mojave to the Smithsonian (NASM). I remember Leo Loudenslager flying an amazing aerobatic routine, the Coors Light Silver Bullets (four BD-5Js doing a formation aerobatic show), seeing people camping in tents under the wings of their airplanes and thinking that was the coolest thing ever, and an old guy bitching about tricycle gear airplanes in a food tent. "Taildraggers want to fly. These damn tri-gears, ya gotta pull 'em off the ground!"
That was also the era when you had to be an EAA member to get on the flight line, so my dad bought us a membership and I got to read the EAA Magazine the next year, with lots of people complaining about the then-upcoming requirement for Mode C transponders around class B airspace.
My next time was 2005 (after learning to fly in 2003), when I only managed to go during the day for two days (Monday and Saturday). But in 2006, I began my streak of camping on-field for the entire week, first in the club's 182 in the North 40, a few years later in Scholler for the first time and alternating that with airplane camping, and the last time I camped in the North 40 was 2013 with the Mooney. Since then, all Scholler, though most years we've still brought the plane up and parked it in GAP, it's just really nice to have a car available to make runs for ice or other supplies.
Oshkosh is my happy place. I hope that's where I go when I die. There's just nothing like sitting in a camp chair with a cold drink surrounded by pilots and airplanes, and seeing the latest gadgets, the oldest planes still flying, warbirds of various eras, the amazing craftsmanship of homebuilders, and telling stories late into the night followed by being awoken in the morning by T-6s or Trimotors flying over.
