Oshkosh 2006
This year at Oshkosh was a bit of a strange one for me. I didn't have to buy anything! I didn't take any pictures either. It was more of a social event for me than an aeroplane spotting event.
I arrived on Wednesday evening, and was picked up by my lovely sister-in-law Carken who helped me out tremendously for this trip, since I messed up both my hotel room AND my rental car! Carlen is working in Neenah for a while on assignment, so she extended her room for me, fed me, and loaned me her car to pick up Cameron and Suzanne the next morning.
We arrived at the airshow on Thurday morning, and had a good old wander around. We checked out all the exhibits in the hangars and checked out the warbirds.
While we were there, I checked in at the Blue Mountain stand to see what their latest stuff looks like. It's pretty! I asked Greg about running the G4 software on our old EFIS One, and he said that they're working on an upgrade to enable that to work out. He said it would run, but would likely be a little slow. He also told me to send my unit in for a complete 'pre first flight' check up and calibration, free of charge. Sweet! When they do this, they update to the latest software revision, recalibrate any sensors and if you want, they can perform any upgrades. I should call them next week actually to schedule some time to send it in for a going over. Mine runs real nice right now, apart from requiring some recallibration for the glideslope and VOR signals from the SL-30.
On Friday, I needed to get a hat for my head! I'm getting thinner on top in my old age, so a hat was in order. I got the obligatory free Breitling hat by flashing my watch at the Breitling stand! Cheeky, but I've been getting one every year!
It was nice to see another Lancaster flying around. It's been a long time for me. I grew up in Lincolnshire in England, not too far away from RAF Waddington, home of the Dambusters. I always used to be amazed by the Vulcan bombers that would fly over all the time that were based there in my youth. The noise they used to make was unbelievable! The Battle of Britain flight used to be based out of there too, so I always used to see them flying around over Lincoln, and other parts of the county. We also used to have the Red Arrows nearby at RAF Scampton.
Mike and Russ (with his nephew Kyle) arrived on Friday too. Russ flew in from Utah in his Rocket, via Minneapolis to pick up Kyle. Mike flew in from near Jackson Michigan which is where he moved to after being in the hangar behind me a couple of years ago.
We saw two F-22 Raptors give a demo too. That was really cool. Those things can manoeuver! One plane made passes along the runway, the other went up high, and just played around in a little box, turning and flipping and stuff that aeroplanes shouldn't do! Incredible.
We all would head out to the SOS Brothers beer tent in the evenings for some smoked chicken and beer! We had a blast! We would always meet new people, make some friends, and have a great time hangar flying.
Well, that's really it for my Oshkosh account. I did buy some things while I was there... Some books on Spitfires, some life vests for flying over the Great Lakes, some more books on Spitfires, a little bit of hardware, and some little bits of tools.
See you there next year!