Oshkosh 2021 Notam - Airventure

The biggest difference I see from 2019 is the addition of transitions to RIPON.
 
Ick. This is going to be a mess. Dragging the start point further away from Ripon isn't going to make the dense times any better. It's just going to provide more conflicts for people who can't maintain 90 Knots and make bailing out and restarting a lot harder.

The information is contradictory anyhow. The map, the text description, and the waypoint for the start place all differ by several miles. The map shows the start point for Enadeavor Bridge at I-35 where it crosses a County Road D. The text says it starts at the town of Endeavor (a few miles to the south). The waypoint is actually on the bridge NE of the town of Endeavor. The bridge doesn't even connect to Endeavor. It flows out of the town of Packwaukee. I guess in their defense, it is marked NOT FOR NAVIGATION.
 
You disrespecting my airplane 'cuz they ain't no way it's gonna go that fast?


:)

One of these days I’ll be brave enough to fly the club 65hp Champ to OSH. 2019 was my first time flying in and it was in a 182. I think I’ll be in a 172 this year. Maybe in a few years I’ll take the slow plane.

What is the cruise speed in your plane?
 
I usually show up before "Oshkosh" rules start, but I tend to come and go several times during the week giving rides. However, I do fly the Warbird arrival a lot of the time.
 
Well when I made the comment it was not so much of the plane not being able to maintain 90 knots but the pilot. I've run down a 182 twice on the same arrival because for some dumbass reason he was flying 70 knots. The Navion has fun because they want the gear down at Ripon and unfortunately my gear speed is only 87 knots. I usually just leave it up until the right at Fisk and hold 87 as long as possible.
 
I usually show up before "Oshkosh" rules start, but I tend to come and go several times during the week giving rides. However, I do fly the Warbird arrival a lot of the time.
Is anyone willing to rent me a warbird for a few days in late July?
 
Ick. This is going to be a mess. Dragging the start point further away from Ripon isn't going to make the dense times any better. It's just going to provide more conflicts for people who can't maintain 90 Knots and make bailing out and restarting a lot harder.

Forget the inaccuracy of the transition points. We can figure that out.

The bigger problem is that there are 3 (?) issues that crop up every year with the arrival.

1) Lack of runway capacity. For whatever reason, controllers have throttled landing volume in recent years. It is extremely frustrating to be sitting on the ground beside one of the runways, reading forum posts where people are backed up to hell and back trying to get into the show, yet the landing volume is a trickle. The updated procedure(s) don't address that issue.

2) People cutting in line or not joining the line at the right point (Ripon, to be exact.) Creating multiple potential merge points (that are subject to move) doesn't fix this. It only makes it worse because inevitably the people who couldn't properly merge at the one merge point will screw up multiple potential merge points even worse.

3) The 90 knot follow the leader line. Instead of Ripon-Fisk-Oshkosh, the new procedure extends the "fly in trail" segment to as much as 47 NM. LOL. What a disaster. The accordion effect for "follow in trail" airborne traffic is a real thing. It is bad enough for 10-15 miles. 47 NM. YGBSM. Maybe this is an effort to avoid the lake holds, but this IMO isn't the right approach. With a hold around a lake, at least you can expand/contract the circle to maintain spacing at a constant airspeed, as opposed to all the throttle jockeying and airspeed jockeying that's gonna happen in a 47 NM game of follow the leader.

Here's a video on the accordion effect:


I genuinely don't understand what the changes to the arrival procedure are supposed to fix. Best I can tell, they don't fix anything and make several things worse.
 
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Agreed. It just attempt to move the conflict point further out and create a situation that gives an extended area to get things messed up.
 
Will pushing the traffic conflict out away beyond Airventure controllers’ reach result in less liability for EAA? Was this a legal fix?
 
Will pushing the traffic conflict out away beyond Airventure controllers’ reach result in less liability for EAA? Was this a legal fix?

I can't imagine that. The Notams are FAA sanctioned, which should give EAA plenty of aircover.
 
I was wondering if they'll have more controllers spaced out along the new conga line policing things but I doubt it. It was bad enough getting behind someone who couldn't maintain 90 and would refuse to bail out and head to the back of the line, making you have to be the one to take it for the team. They'll be even less inclined to head to the back of the line now in my mind.
 
Will pushing the traffic conflict out away beyond Airventure controllers’ reach result in less liability for EAA? Was this a legal fix?
Doubtful that the EAA had much to do with this. I'm betting this is the FAA's silly ass idea. Not sure why moving things ten miles down the road change anything. Ripon already was a few miles away from the first FAA outpost (Fisk) and another few miles from any EAA property.
 
I was wondering if they'll have more controllers spaced out along the new conga line policing things but I doubt it. It was bad enough getting behind someone who couldn't maintain 90 and would refuse to bail out and head to the back of the line, making you have to be the one to take it for the team. They'll be even less inclined to head to the back of the line now in my mind.
There were no controllers between Ripon and Fisk as it was. There was a couple of guys sitting on a wooden porch in front of a trailer with binoculars. They weren't looking more than a half a mile down the tracks.
 
With a hold around a lake, at least you can expand/contract the circle to maintain spacing at a constant airspeed, as opposed to all the throttle jockeying and airspeed jockeying that's gonna happen in a 47 NM game of follow the leader.

That doesn’t work either. End up with three or four concentric circles going around the lake from what I’ve seen at different speeds.

“Wait why is there someone on both my left and my right?”

LOL
 
Is that easier than VFR? I’m contemplating filing flout haven’t decided yet!


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Yes and no. Flying it is way easier— IFR separation and all. The downside is you have to reserve an arrival slot so it’s not as flexible. There are 4 slots per hour, you can’t reserve one any earlier than 72 hrs prior, and for KOSH itself they fill up fast. The NOTAM spells it all out.
 
I had a back and forth conversation by e-mail with one of the full time EAA staffers who is "in the loop" on the new NOTAM. According to him, the revisions are because an FAA Safety Risk Management Panel wanted to reduce/eliminate the danger of the mass holds. I agree those are dangerous, and there may be be a better way. I don't think this is it.
 
I had a back and forth conversation by e-mail with one of the full time EAA staffers who is "in the loop" on the new NOTAM. According to him, the revisions are because an FAA Safety Risk Management Panel wanted to reduce/eliminate the danger of the mass holds. I agree those are dangerous, and there may be be a better way. I don't think this is it.

Mass holes alleviating mass holds! LOL

(Sorry I have no filter right now. I’m remotely upgrading Windows Server in place. Even FAA stupidity is fun compared to that. Hahaha.)
 
I agree those are dangerous, and there may be be a better way. I don't think this is it.

Have the controllers at Fisk assign numbers and have an ATIS set up with "now serving #xx" when they open. "Low wing approaching Fisk, rock your wings. Oshkosh is temporarily closed, your number is 75, depart the area to the west and monitor 118.xx for Oshkosh status."

And then 6PC would be like:
Beetlejuice-waiting-room-line-number.gif


:D
 
After the show being canceled last year I predict this will be a total cluster F! I've tried a couple times to get an IFR slot but apparently you have to hit the timing just right. 1 min after opening the slots are filled. The big issues I always see are:
1. Pilots not knowing how far a mile or .5 mile in trail is by looking out the window. They get too close to the airplane in front and screw everything up. Yet if you follow too far behind someone will pass you and eff it all up. Really the root of this issues are the people who don't maintain the correct airspeed.
2. When it starts to back up, if you follow the NOTAM you will never get in. You can't have 50 airplanes holding over the lake and allow more to enter the arrival. This will start to compound as lake holders realize they will not get called in and start to just blend back into the arrival. Given the hold point position relative to the arrival route this creates near 90 degree intercepts and airplanes banking to the left obscuring everything to the right.

I usually plan to arrive the Saturday before the show starts first thing in the morning. If I cant get in I usually just leave the area entirely and find another airport to chill at for the day and try again bright and early the next morning.
 
I had a back and forth conversation by e-mail with one of the full time EAA staffers who is "in the loop" on the new NOTAM. According to him, the revisions are because an FAA Safety Risk Management Panel wanted to reduce/eliminate the danger of the mass holds. I agree those are dangerous, and there may be be a better way. I don't think this is it.
That does make sense. 2018 was my first (and, so far, only) trip to Oshkosh. I spent a total of almost 3 hours circling Green Lake, with a lunch break at KDLL in between. You knew it was bad because Patty Wagstaff landed right in front of me. Nobody was getting into KOSH. The hold was just awful. Three abreast, stacked a few planes high, and one guy going the wrong direction.

I'm sure they spent a lot of time round-tabling solutions and this is just the best they could come up with. There are some advantages. If you get booted out of line because you were following too close in trail (which, in my case, was because some jackwagon bombed into line from above me just before Fisk), you have to go farther out to get re-established in line. I can see at least two upsides to that. It lowers the chance of you cutting into line close to Fisk and getting more people kicked out of line. And it gives everyone a longer time to figure out how to fly a proper distance in trail before they reach Fisk.
 
That does make sense. 2018 was my first (and, so far, only) trip to Oshkosh. I spent a total of almost 3 hours circling Green Lake, with a lunch break at KDLL in between. You knew it was bad because Patty Wagstaff landed right in front of me. Nobody was getting into KOSH. The hold was just awful. Three abreast, stacked a few planes high, and one guy going the wrong direction.

I'm sure they spent a lot of time round-tabling solutions and this is just the best they could come up with. There are some advantages. If you get booted out of line because you were following too close in trail (which, in my case, was because some jackwagon bombed into line from above me just before Fisk), you have to go farther out to get re-established in line. I can see at least two upsides to that. It lowers the chance of you cutting into line close to Fisk and getting more people kicked out of line. And it gives everyone a longer time to figure out how to fly a proper distance in trail before they reach Fisk.
You picked a hell of a year for a first-timer! :) ****show was an understatement for the whole weekend before the show. I ended up flying back to Central IL and we took the motorhome back up, partly because of the insane amount of planes trying to get in and also because the weather didn't look like it was going to get any better. This after spending 2 nights in Janesville waiting out weather. Get-there-itis had never been stronger for me...
 
I could see it if they set up holds as feeders in parallel, instead of serial. Fill up Rush lake...."Rush lake is closed, hold at Green lake" (not looking at the NOTAM here). Then drain the holds in whatever way it makes sense. Have them come in at certain inbound waypoint and direct them to the hold that is currently accepting. Then it could flex to drain hold 1 to RWY 27 and hold 2 to RWY 36. But, what do I know?
 
I think it is imperative to keep the arrival simple. In theory, a flexible plan lets you optimize, but I’d minimize any “audibles” once aircraft are on the way. Too many people missing the calls and fumbling around their cockpits trying to locate the new plan and enter it into a gps.
 
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Not a fan of the new transitions. It's not going the solve the mad rush after a couple of days of weather.

If this is the answer, then in a few years the transitions will start in Minnesota.
 
Besides being ready to audible as Kyle suggests, I'm of the mind that the best plan is to divert and wait it out on the ground the moment congestion/volume rises to the point holding or the far transition points come into play.
 
I think it is imperative to keep the arrival simple. In theory, a flexible plan lets you optimize, but I’d minimize any “audibles” once aircraft are on the way. Too many people missing the calls and fumbling around their cockpits trying to locate the new plan and enter it into a gps.

Not to mention how many people simply don't read or comprehend the NOTAM to begin with. Adding complexity to improve exception handling doesn't work well when the users don't RTFM.

I'm starting to lean towards the concept that suggests parking it somewhere until conditions improve. Pick out 4-5 airfields in the area that accept diversions. Have a website or text list to sign up for to identify when specific airfields are released for going back into the conga line. Randomize the order that the fields are selected for infeed each time so people don't try to get into the closest one.
 
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