I’m home from AirVenture in Oshkosh and ready to go back again. Sunburned. Tired. Sweaty. Twenty pounds heavier in the belly and $_____ lighter in the wallet. Full of memories of new friendships, long and winding conversations, glistening airplanes, cool new toys tools.
I saw more awesome airplanes than any guy has a right to see in a lifetime.
Glacier Girl, the P-38 that spent several decades encased in the Greenland icecap was so close that I could not get a photo; I had the wrong lens on the camera.
I nosed around a U-2 spy plane (the 1980 version, which is about 40% larger than the originals), took pictures, and talked to the pilot.
I wandered through the cargo bay of a C5A Galaxy cargo plane. There is something dumbfounding about being inside an airplane large enough to carry four Greyhound buses.
I saw planes like this T6 Texan so highly polished I could have used them for shaving mirrors.
I watched aerobatics galore and actually caught photos of Sean Tucker and Patty Wagstaff each cutting ribbons with their planes.
I did not win a ride in the Goodyear Blimp but I did have the good fortune to stumble across the XM WX booth where an XM rep told me that some problems I have been having with the weather service on my Garmin GPSmap 396 would be solved by new software. And my fortunes improved even more when he told me that I could take my unit over to Garmin’s booth and they would do the update on the spot, for free.
I camped in the North 40 off the departure end of runway 27 and have been buzzed by everything from P-51 Mustangs to B-17 bombers.
I have ridden the most amazing bicycle (from the Goodwill store) until my butt hurt and I was pretty darned competent at stopping it without brakes… which was a good thing because the brakes really did not work very well.
I have been nose to nose with planes never before seen, such as the Cessna SkyCatcher and the Eclipse Concept Jet.
And for all that, I never made it to the seaplane base or the ultralight area. I only attended two forums (one of which was air conditioned!). I did not carve out the time to volunteer in any capacity. I did not sleep much. And I never found my funnel cake.
It’s a good thing the next AirVenture is less than a year away so I’ll have another chance.
On the off chance that you have not clicked on one of the thumbnails above, here are my Oshkosh AirVenture 2007 photos.
