Airventure 2024 | Day 9

July 25 | Thursday is Orlo Hawaiian shirt day, so I dig into my bag and pull out the one Hawaiian shirt from my closet and get dressed for another day at Oshkosh.

The alarm this morning was an airplane in the row behind me starting up at 5:52 am. The morning after the night airshow is the most active for departing aircraft. The weather was good enough to be MVFR, or marginal visible flight rule flight. There were some tall cumulous to the east, but the ceilings were above 1,000’ above ground level, or AGL.

The flight line crew works to keep people from running into propellers, so they ask every pilot to let them know they are ready to leave, so some of the flight line crew can stand by to keep start-up and taxiing safe. A few pilots are so eager to beat the crowd, that they start up and taxi out without help, but they are a small minority of the people who fly into Oshkosh.

The planes were streaming out from all the parking areas as I walked to the tram stop in my camping area. I asked Joe, the Point man for Point Midway, covering the area I was in, if he could use another ground pounder for the rush before I went to breakfast. He just smiled and told me to go refuel and come back out. Just a little sample of the flight line vernacular.

I had breakfast with a pilot from Germany, one from Denmark and one from Lafyette, California, about forty minutes from home at Sonoma. We all traded information about the planes we flew and our experiences flying them. Dirk from Germany flies a Beechcraft and the fellow from Denmark showed me a photo of the two place Swedish aircraft he flew, which I had never seen before.

George, from Lafyette, flies a post-war, 1940s Luscomb that he has owned for over fifty years. He used to fly up to Wagner’s strip right next to Wally Riechel’s airport in Sonoma, Sonoma Valley Airport, better known in the antique aircraft community as Schellville. That was where I learned to fly in 1981.

George told me that he’s owned his Luscomb for over fifty years and has landed at my home airport, Sonoma Skypark, several times on a Saturday when we have our weekly hamburger barbecue lunch. Chapter 1268 serves up hamburgers and hot dogs every Saturday to raise funds for our Air Academy and flight training scholarships as well as to give pilots a destination for their “hundred-dollar hamburger,” referring to the fact that the burger itself costs only $10, but the fuel to get there runs a bit more.

This is my last day on the flight line for this year. It was a relatively busy day of departures after the airport yesterday was operating under instrument flight rules, or IFR, for much of the morning, limiting the number of aircraft operations. Flight line operations bought pizza for the entire crew, with the flight line members rotating into ops in order to keep the flight line staffed.

After lunch, at about 3:15, as many of the crew as possible assembled for a group photo of everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts. After the photo was taken by a photographer perched precariously on to of a ladder, we sang happy birthday to Chad, a long-time and very special member of the group.

I tried uploading my reports and photos again, but there are so many people at Airventure that the WIFI is completely saturated. I’ll try again in the early morning and see if I have more luck. I’ve uploaded using my cell phone as a hot spot, but with this many people even cell service is sketchy at best.

I had been trying to get together with Jim Roberts, and old friend from Skypark, all week and finally made the connection this evening for dinner at Wentz’s by Lakee Winnebago. Jim has a Swift, a very fast and elegant two-place airplane produced post WWII. He is also active in the Globe Temco Swift Association and was sharing a rented house on the east side of the field with some other Swift owners.

Jim started out volunteering at the Tall Pines Café, flipping pancakes and serving breakfast to the people attending Airventure. Jim has moved up in the world and is taking photos and writing copy for the daily newspaper published and available on the grounds of the airport during Airventure. I suspect, like other Hollywood starlets, Jim was discovered by the editor while he was ladling gravy over biscuits in the breakfast line. A Pulitzer may be in that boy’s future.

I think I feel a special kinship with Jim because he is one of the most decent, generous and cheerful people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. That, and I think we share a similar warped sense of humor that most normal people don’t quite understand. I don’t get to see Jim often enough, so it is always a delight to spend time with him.

Dinner at Wentz’s was fried perch, with a choice of potato and a side of slaw, washed down with a local beer and accompanied with lots of good conversation. Jim’s friends and housemates include Dana and David, who I visited with on the porch while Jim put a load of laundry into the washer. They own a beautiful Swift now, but had previously owned a Funk, a rare and unique airplane. We tried carrying on a conversation while the F-22 flew a demonstration overhead in full afterburner. We had to continue the conversation at dinner since we were plugging our ears every time he roared over the house.

I was sitting next to Paul, another of Jim’s friends, who owns a P-51 Mustang but flew a F4U Corsair into the airshow. Paul is from Mississippi and was telling us about the incredible number of warbird rides they had been giving during the week. I think he said it was close to 1,000, but I’ll have to check with Jim to confirm that I heard that correctly. He was talking about flying P-40s and other rare and exotic warbirds, and I just sat there taking it all in, thinking “gee, some people have a lot of fun in aviation.”

After dinner we walked over to the docks on the lake and stood talking and taking in the beautiful view of the late afternoon sun on the water. I was especially thrilled to meet a writer I’ve admired for many years, Sparky Barnes Sargent, who has written many wonderfully informative and entertaining articles for EAA magazines for years. I did everything except ask for her autograph, but it was nice to connect a face to writing that I’ve appreciated for so long.

We made a quick stop at the seaplane base on the way back to the house. We walked the long, soft mulch covered path through the woods lining the lake and emerged at the shore of the lagoon holding the many seaplanes that had flown to Oshkosh. It was late, so the concessions were closed except for one last pontoon boat tour around the lagoon.

After taking in the view and watching a few seaplanes taxiing in and out of the lagoon, and taking off for a sunset flight or landing after one last flight of the day, we went back to the car, drove to the house and then Jim, after putting his laundry into the dryer, took me back to Gate 21 on the south end of the ultralight field, where we said goodbye for the evening and I walked back to my plane and tent.

Tomorrow will be my last full day at Oshkosh, then I will break camp again next morning, pack everything in the 182 and head out as early as I can Saturday morning for my two-day flight home to my Catherine and pooches and all the rest of my cherished ones.