Jay Honeck
Touchdown! Greaser!
Well, my son departed for Oshkosh this morning in our "new" (to us) 1948 Ercoupe. He's 17, earned his ticket last fall, and has a grand total of around 70 hours.
At 1:45 PM, three hours later, he called me to say "Guess where I am?" Yep, he was all set up in the "Vintage" area, with his tent, cooler, chair, and cold pop all ready for the show to start! Of course, that won't happen until next Monday, but with his limited experience we figured that doing the FISK approach might be a *bit* much for him -- so arriving this early solves everything rather neatly.
And what an adventure! This is his 18th consecutive AirVenture (not counting in vitro!) so he's almost literally grown up on Wittman Field, and he knows every inch of the place like the back of his hand. Amazingly, we realized that this is his first time away from home truly by himself -- and what a way to do it, flying an aircraft solo into the biggest aviation "happening" on earth!
Man, I wish I could be there with him. Trouble is, in an Ercoupe you can *either* bring a passenger, *or* you can bring camping gear -- but not both! This truly was the ONLY way to get the 'Coupe to OSH this year -- but Mary, Becca, and I will join him Sunday, when we fly the Pathfinder in after our fly-in pool party.
And with his extra 180 pounds of useful load in the Pathfinder we'll be able to arrive with a cooler full of cold beverages, instead of nearly dying of thirst while setting up the tent in the North 40...
At 1:45 PM, three hours later, he called me to say "Guess where I am?" Yep, he was all set up in the "Vintage" area, with his tent, cooler, chair, and cold pop all ready for the show to start! Of course, that won't happen until next Monday, but with his limited experience we figured that doing the FISK approach might be a *bit* much for him -- so arriving this early solves everything rather neatly.
And what an adventure! This is his 18th consecutive AirVenture (not counting in vitro!) so he's almost literally grown up on Wittman Field, and he knows every inch of the place like the back of his hand. Amazingly, we realized that this is his first time away from home truly by himself -- and what a way to do it, flying an aircraft solo into the biggest aviation "happening" on earth!
Man, I wish I could be there with him. Trouble is, in an Ercoupe you can *either* bring a passenger, *or* you can bring camping gear -- but not both! This truly was the ONLY way to get the 'Coupe to OSH this year -- but Mary, Becca, and I will join him Sunday, when we fly the Pathfinder in after our fly-in pool party.
And with his extra 180 pounds of useful load in the Pathfinder we'll be able to arrive with a cooler full of cold beverages, instead of nearly dying of thirst while setting up the tent in the North 40...
He sounds like a really neat young man. And a fortunate one at that.
