Oshkosh, Looking Back

“Oshkosh”—AirVenture 2010—was a little different this year, and so will my coverage be. (Can you end a sentence with a verb? I mean, if you’re not German?) I didn’t do a day-by-day report this year because there was an unfortunate sameness to the days. That sameness was largely the result of two weeks of torrential rains prior to AirVenture that made most of the camping and parking grounds, both for aircraft and for cars, unusable. Admission to the airport was prioritized, vintage, warbirds, show and display aircraft first, everyone else as available, camping was limited and scattered, and the heavier RVs were parked in mall parking lots. I can’t imagine what the financial hit was for the EAA. I can tell you that it left for a quieter, easier but somewhat downbeat week.

A big part of AirVenture are the Forums, presentations done by individuals in some twenty or so different shed type structures, one every hour and half, running all day long, all week long. I did one again this year, breaking from my usual pattern of talking about navigation and talked about aviation blogs. I thought it went well, and I think all seven or eight people who attended enjoyed it—kind of a micro experience within the general diminished returns typical of AirVenture this year. I also went to several presentations myself, and by far my favorite were those given by Mike Busch on aircraft maintenance. Mike gave a talk each day on various subjects, from on-condition maintenance to myths about EGT and CHT readings. His talks were intelligent, extremely well informed, controversial at times, but convincing. Mike also writes a monthly column in “Sport Aviation,” which every EAA member receives automatically, and he can be connected with on-line at www.savvymx.com. (He also runs an aircraft maintenance advisory service for aircraft owners, and doesn’t hesitate to plug it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of his considerable knowledge anyway. I suspect it is a pretty good service but I’ll let him plug his own business.)

The most memorable experience for me at Oshkosh this year barely involved aviation, but I’ll tell you about it anyway because it does highlight a part of AirVenture that is very important but often overlooked. The permanent part of EAA, the museum, offices, a grass strip with vintage hangars and permanent displays inside, is on the northwest corner of the airport, quite a bit away from the flight line and the rest of the AirVenture displays, forums, exhibition halls, the core areas for the week. But it’s worth a trip up there if for no other reason than just to see the museum and hangars, and also because it is the main area for kid activities, of which there are many. Kids can do hands-on stuff like fly simulators, learn about dead reckoning navigation from instructors, learn about aircraft types, history, all kinds of stuff, all just for kids. EAA is very committed to getting kids hooked on aviation, a smart move: Who among us who fly can’t recall with some certainty the moment when, as a kid, we knew we wanted to be pilots?

My wife and I walked up there and spent a couple of hours walking around the grounds, got pretty tired, and decided to take the shuttle bus—a big school bus—back to the main grounds. We were sitting together on a bench seat on the right hand side, and on the left hand side was a young boy, sitting by himself, with his older brother and at least one parent in the row behind him. (Having been an older brother, I’m afraid to admit that I’m pretty sure the older brother told him to go sit by himself.) The bus continued to fill up, people filing by looking for places to sit in the back, and the little boy starting trying to ask people as they went by if they wanted to sit with him. They were all focused on seats further back, and he was probably a little hesitant and didn’t really speak up, and after he asked three or four people going by, “Do you want to sit with me” and was ignored, started shortening it to, “Do you want..?”, then “Do...?), and finally just tried to make eye contact. After a couple more painful failures to connect, I said, “Do you want me to sit with you?” He didn’t say anything but just smiled and slid over. So we sat and I asked him if he went to kindergarten and a long conversation ensued about how he was in The Threes last year and he would be four in the fall—“I think the first day of fall”--but that next year he would be going to The Fives. I asked what happened to The Fours, and I got one of those long sighs of exasperation, followed by the explanation, necessary only for slow adults, that The Fours and The Fives were together, the just called it The Fives. “Oh,” I said. Then he said, “My teacher wanted me to stay in The Threes but my mommy wants me to go in The Fives. “Yah,” I said, “That’s tough one.” A short while later our ride was over and we said our goodbyes and he rejoined his family, including his older brother, who had begun to get a little jealous toward the end that The Brat was getting all the attention. (Standing in line at a fast food restaurant years ago, I heard a mother say to the older of her two boys, “I wish you wouldn’t call him Bugger. His name is James. Call him James.” How do we all survive childhood?)

There is an old joke, often told by wives and flight attendants, about a mother who asks her little boy if he knows what he wants to be when he grows up. The little boy says, “I think I want to be a pilot when I grow up.” The mother says, “Well, you’ll have to decide which it will be, you can’t do both.” I don’t know what this little almost four year old boy will be when he grows up, but I’m pretty sure it will be something good.