Oshkosh - 2018

This is one thing that bothers me about the idea of going to OSH. I’d love to take the Waco, but the idea of having to hold for an hour plus in an airplane that only carries 2.5 hours of fuel when full and not-so-great forward visibility is concerning....

I have flown in six or seven times and have never had to hold. I usually like to get in the Saturday morning before show opening.

It sure looks like the weather on Friday and Saturday played havoc with this year's arrivals though.
 
They had to shut down runway 9 for about 15-20 minutes while they back-taxied the Mooney’s from 36 to the west side of the airport. ...

Nobody ended up happy.

Not to argue, but it sounds like the Mooney drivers were probably happy.

Things better today? Sounds like an argument for arriving at least the Friday before the show.
 
Not to argue, but it sounds like the Mooney drivers were probably happy.

Things better today? Sounds like an argument for arriving at least the Friday before the show.
Friday was IFR I think. Thursday was so quiet that tower was apparently looking up tail numbers and calling people by first names. I was going to come in Sunday morning but it was IFR until about noon. And it has been a mess since then. I’m going to give it a shot in about a half hour. I’ll report back this frequency if I have any result that doesn’t make the 6 o’clock news.
 
hearing a lot more "you cut me off"..."yeah well I got cut off twice"...."waahhh"..."my radio is staticky, I need to declare waahhh"
I may try “eman made fun of me on the internet so I need to land and cry it out.” That’s both as true and as urgent as the crap people have been trying. Seriously, if you aren’t sure about whether your recent maintenance stuck or not, you should just not try to land at Oshkosh.
 
it's actually tough to listen to for too long. I like the one guy who called up with a critical fuel situation, the guy cleared him in, then he said "by the way, we're a flight of two". yeah ok lol.
 
Dave, you forgot to pack...

Wow...Bryan, this really blew up into something. Your talents are wasted in IT, you should be an events promoter.
 
Made it in this morning. What a goat rope at Green Lake hold. People getting cut off left and right. Amazing there were no midair’s. Parked in Vintage back around Chicago somewhere
 
Looking at the radar now, and listening to feed from Fisk, it seems like it's calmed down significantly.

Reminds me of moving day into college at the beginning of the semester. Bust your tail to arrive on campus early in the morning, and get greeted by a crush of 1001 other students doing the exact same thing. Those that were lazy and/or took their time and got there after lunch were greeted with empty hallways and plenty of room to move around.
 
^^^^ Yup! Anybody got the link for updating camping availability?...isn't there usually an estimate of remaining a/c camping, etc? Thanks!

Jim
 
Thanks, Lance...I knew it was out there, but couldn't find it!

Wish they'd change the Vintage category to include 1971! Had a wild urge to take the Champ (a/w date 011571) up, but not willing to take a chance GA camping will stay open.

Jim
 
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Did calm down lots. A friend flew up from Illinois, stopped for fuel about 50 miles south then flew straight to Ripon, Fisk and 36 about 1/2 hour ago. No drama.
 
Totally calm now. GA parking closed, GA camping open. Some dude with a reservation at the Hilton just complained. LOL.
 
I’m in. When I finally launched after my rudely-scheduled-in-total-disregard-of-my-year-in-advance-vacation-plans phone conference, I had to turn twice near Ripon to let people in and then I was all alone from Ripon to touchdown on 36R, red square. Zero drama this afternoon.
 
I totally want to head up there and be like "aaaaaand moonanza 123 is 10 miles to the south, inbound with Delta" and see what they say.
 
Totally calm now. GA parking closed, GA camping open. Some dude with a reservation at the Hilton just complained. LOL.

I heard that. Hilarious. Maybe he could land in their lot!?!

So how many planes are out there now?? I have no idea couple hundred? Couple thousand??

Anybody out ther post some pics so some of us that have never been can get an idea of the real size of this thing.
 
I heard that. Hilarious. Maybe he could land in their lot!?!

So how many planes are out there now?? I have no idea couple hundred? Couple thousand??

Anybody out ther post some pics so some of us that have never been can get an idea of the real size of this thing.

When they close parking and camping the official numbers usually hit five digits.
 
You hear the Bonanza she just asked to slow down trip his gear warning? LOL. :)
 
The approach folk need to grow a set of balls. The RV currently coming in clearly did not read the NOTAM. Guy needs to be told to leave and read it, or st least STFU on the radio
 
While a "master list" may exist, with the expected MVFR, VFR, IFR weather expected over the next 2-3 days, any list will be soon worthless.

How hard is it to get an IFR flightplan in when it's IFR? Impossible? Or merely challenging?
 
“That’s 126.6”
“You say 126.6”

Rinse and repeat a half a dozen times...
 
How hard is it to get an IFR flightplan in when it's IFR? Impossible? Or merely challenging?

You just get a slot reservation online ahead of time per the instructions in the NOTAM. No more slots, no more IFR. Works going in or out.

Used the iPad to grab an outbound one with ground fog forecast one year.

Fog burnt off just as we were cleared for takeoff but punched a couple of holes in a broken overcast on the way to Iowa.

Field was IFR when we started to crank up and taxi and EAA was dropping flaggers out of a clown car in front of us all the way to 27 because nobody was expecting many aircraft to move on the field that morning, so everybody slept in. LOL.

Even waking up Ground on the radio to get the IFR clearance request going was a multiple radio call thing that morning. Ha. They were having coffee up there and enjoying the quiet. :)
 
We made it in from Wautoma without drama right around 11:30 AM. :)

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I love these updates since I cannot be there this year. And I thought my Saturday afternoon arrival when the weather broke last year was bad and couldn't get any worse.....sounds like this year topped it! I cannot imagine holding for 3 hrs!
 
Crazy. Just crazy. Gawd I bet Sun-n-Fun will be all clustered fudged up in 2019...
 
Honestly, I don't know what I don't know when it comes to Oshkosh arrivals (only arrival I've ever done there was in a car).

That said:

Seems like they could set up some sort of online registration system where EAA could assign people arrival times. Like, plan to be over Ripon at 0900. Yeah, it wouldn't be perfect, some people would be early, some would be late, etc. But I got to think people would have rather been waiting it out on the ground at some other field, than doing the 20th time around Green Lake. The early morning was packed, but the late morning was pretty empty on the Fisk approach.

Course, heck, come to think of it, I'm saying all this from the comfort of my house, after listening to the ATC on my phone and watching the chaos on a flight radar app. I suppose people sitting on the ground could have done the same, and timed their arrival accordingly.

Wonder if the B-1 crew knows how much chaos they caused this morning when they closed down the arrivals?
 
Got in no problem this morning Didn’t everyone get vectors for the RNAV 27? :)View attachment 65290

Bryan showed me a similar picture. My question to him was, do all those people still have their transponders on? NOTAM says to switch them to standby. Do traffic targets on ads-b still show N-numbers if the transponder is on standby, or are there that many people that don't read and/or abide by the NOTAM?
 
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