I liked Rick Durden's article on AvWeb - there SHOULD be a fee if they do not have the NOTAM, and the fee should triple if they so much as press the PTT button (unless told to do so) within 20 nm of FISK!
I had a *very* interesting trip in on Sunday evening.
I was going to be among the final few airplanes arriving, and I arrived over Ripon at about 7:45 PM. Just before I got there, Fisk Approach asked if there were any aircraft on the freq inbound to OSH, field closes in 15 minutes? There was a Bonanza 21 miles from Ripon, and a 310 31 miles from Ripon. Since I was already starting down the tracks, I didn't speak up until he started clearing the other airplanes direct to Fisk. A couple minutes after I checked in, they told me to go ahead and accelerate back to normal cruise speed.
So I got to Fisk, they said "71G, rock your wings" (yes, using my tail number) and then said "71G, Fly the approach to 36L and CONTACT tower now, they have a request for you." So I flipped frequencies and called the tower - They said they'd seen some smoke that they thought was near the base-to-final turn, and could I check it out? They also cleared me to land. I let them know that I didn't see any smoke or wreckage and landed.
In the interim, a Cirrus called the tower from over the lake, the 310 flew right through the approach I was flying *backwards* on his way to Fisk (passed 500 feet above me with his lights off), a Mooney checked in with Fisk saying they were inbound, and an "experimental jet, we're 11 minutes out, we've burned a lot of fuel to get here sir, we'd really like to make it in tonight" called with 10 minutes left before the field closed. (They asked him his DME. "62 sir, showing eleven minutes to the field.")
But, as usual, the controllers were excellent. The Cirrus landed right behind me (and between floating and rollout, ended up taxiing in front of me), the 310 and Bo got sent to 27, the Mooney came in as the tower was supposed to close, and the jet was cleared straight in to 36, screaming the whole way in. I managed to shut down at about 7:58 PM. The Mooney was the last bird moving - The whole field was quiet except for him.
Then, there was Tuesday (I flew out to MWC and back to pick up Bill Williams) and I'd guess that 40% of the planes coming in had not read the NOTAM. Un-freakin'-believable. People calling up Fisk Approach as if they were entering a class C somewhere, needing instructions as to how to get from Fisk to OSH, asking whether they should fly left or right traffic, and generally talking on the radio a LOT which is not generally supposed to happen...
Tuesday, the only radio call I made was to advise Fisk that there was a crop duster working right next to the tracks, and was making his turns right into the arrivals (he wasn't making it quite up to 1800 MSL, but he was high enough to see straight over the 182's not-small cowl).
But hey - Working with bozos is a challenge. I like challenges (though I don't like bozos). So, I flew in and out three times this year - Once for me, once for Bill, once for Troy. Now that I understand the system, it's a lot easier to detect bozos.
There's generally a lot more on the departure than the arrival, too... People forget that there's more to the NOTAM than the arrival!
