Oshkosh Airshow

Posted by Jeff Carter
on July 26th, 2012

Yesterday I didn’t work in any productive capacity for myself at all. I went up to Wisconsin to the Experimental Aircraft Association‘s (EAA) annual Oshkosh fly in.

They were celebrating some icons of World War Two, the Tuskegee Airman, so I wanted to be there. Warbirds from all over the country flew in. I think there were close to 25 P-51 Mustangs, and they put on a tremendous air show. Since I am involved with raising money for a Tuskegee Airman project, I thought it might be fun to meet some people that might be interested in it.

If you haven’t been to Oshkosh, it’s overwhelming. I have never seen so many planes in one place in my life. This year they were also celebrating the anniversary of the Piper Cub, and at least a hundred were parked together on a grassy field.

A friend of mine is an avid flyer, and he took me around. There are some things I didn’t know about planes. First, most civilian aircraft will fly on average 130 miles per hour. That means you can travel safely roughly 455 miles before you come down. That’s 3.5 hours in the air. Second, maintenance depends on the plane. For most of the military aircraft, it can be tough to find parts. We saw a propeller remover tool that was pretty rare. It was a heavy hunk of machined metal and there aren’t a lot of them around. If you have a warehouse of junky airplane stuff around, go through it. There is probably an aftermarket for it.

The restored military aircraft are really the stars of the show. The planes there are too numerous to mention. I put a bunch of photos on Instagram yesterday and you can see them there. Photos don’t do a lot of these planes justice. The paint jobs on them are meticulous, and beautiful. The aircraft sometimes have avionics that are upgraded.

Many of the aircraft that fly do so in honor of veterans. There was a B-25 Billy Mitchell Bomber that flew. It was really neat to watch it in the air, and it was more maneuverable than I imagined.

The other thing I didn’t know about military aircraft is the amount of maintenance it takes to fly one. After every flight, there is something that usually needs a little work. Military aircraft were only engineered to fly around 3-4 years. Many of these are 70 years old. I spoke with a crew of a D46 out of North Carolina and it took them nine years to restore the plane. It now flies, but each and every flight they have to fix something.

The crowd at the EAA was pretty cool. Everyone was very helpful. Pilots of planes would talk to you. A neophyte like me could learn about flying. I don’t know all the shoptalk, and they would take the time to explain flyboy terms to me. At around 4PM, a skydiving team did a demonstration. The last diver out had an American flag. As he jumped, a band on the ground played the National Anthem. Everyone around me stopped what they were doing, removed their caps and silently listened until it was over. Once it was over they went back to what they were doing. You don’t see that every day.

If you are in the midwest, I would encourage you to drive to Oshkosh. You will learn something about flight, the history of flight and be able to talk directly with pilots that know a lot about it.

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