Oshkosh 2008

OK, so I’m a bit late with this. Clayton has been plaguing me for ages to get the site updated, and I really should be more on the ball with this after winning a Lindy at Oshkosh.

This year Oshkosh was important to me. Even Lucy came! I was determined to spend a little more time there and enter into the judging. Who knows how well we’ll do after Sun N Fun. I do know that Oshkosh is a whole ’nother league when it comes to aircraft quality and turn out, so I wasn’t holding my hopes too high.

Before Oshkosh, I had a major dilemma. At Sun n Fun, it was so hot that the fibreglass around the base of my windshield was lifting away. This had to be fixed, so we allowed a month and a half to get it done before departing Osh. We took the plane down and started work. It involved digging down, removing the old fibreglass and filler and then doing it all again. We learned a valuable lesson here… We used carbon fibre and laid up three good layers of the stuff. Then Keith who helped me before used filler to smooth it all off. He did a great job and it was ready for paint about two weeks prior to the show.

All I had to do was get it painted. The whole top skin needed painting in front of the windshield. I sanded it all back to the metal and got it all ready for primer. I primed it, and the next day top coated it. It came out absolutley awful. I’ve no idea what was wrong. It just wasn’t happening. Time to get a pro involved.

I searched around for a pro painter and many were just too busy. Time was getting short now too, so I really needed someone. I managed to get a guy to agree to come take a look, but he was a no show. Not good. That’s when I decided I had to do it myself one way or another. Off I went to the painters supply store and set myself up with the best gun and water trap money could buy. Then I set about painting. It was night and day difference. I primed it, then top coated it the day after. The day after that I flew to Oshkosh! Talk about tight timing! I’m just glad it worked out!

Here’s the plane all set up for show! Since we were entering for judging, we had a build log book with us for the judges to look through. This really just highlighted the major highlights of the plane rather than going through everything. I explained that my web site was my main build log. That seemed to satisfy the judges pretty much.

Since we were at the plane a lot, I did a lot of talking and answering questions! My throat was getting sore by the end of the first day! We had lots and lots of visitors. In hindsight I wish I had made a visitors book for people to sign and write comments. Maybe next time. We met so many people and made so many friends this time it was unbelievable. I’m looking forward to seeing everybody again next year!

Still chatting!

Still chatting! What am I doing with my arms?!

So the competition at Oshkosh was pretty tough! There were some seriously nice aeroplanes there. You had to look really hard to find flaws! This isn’t going to be easy that’s for sure! Here are some of the planes I considered to be “up there”…. In fact all these are in the Bronze Lindy club this year!

We never got a shot of this one with the cover off. It looked outstanding. It belongs to Lyle Huffel.

This one belongs to Scott Chastain.

This one is Chuck Labarreares.

This one is Rod Bowers and the attention to detail here was phenominal!

This one belongs to Jeff Hagg.

There was another RV that took a Bronze Lindy owned by Steven Hamer, but I didn’t get a picture.

Chris Cox took home an Outstanding Workmanship award… He made his canopy skirts from a single piece of aluminium! Now that’s patience! It paid off, because it looks very nice! Way better than mine!

Congrats to everyone that one an award at Oshkosh. It takes a lot of hard work to get to this level and it has paid off.

We had some strange weather today. A big storm came through and just missed the field, but looking at this picture I’d say the storm had balls!

We were all happy to see Mike here this year. It looked like he wasn’t going to make it, but then I got a call suddenly telling me he was there! Fantastic. He got so drunk the night before this shot it was hilarious! If only we had caught him sucking his thumb in this picture!

Here I am with my Mentor, Mike “Nobody’s first plane is a show plane” Kraus. The plane is the background is my first plane… The envelope in my hand contains a letter telling me I have won something and that it would be ‘in my interest’ to attend the awards ceremony!!!

Here we are with Mike’s plane… The question is, where’s Cameron? Eh?

I took this picture for all you patriots out there that read this site. It came out better than I anticipated too. And I concede you do have a pretty cool flag.

So the night before the awards we went out to SOS Brothers for beers, and to celebrate getting an award… At this point we had no idea what it was… Well one of the Judges Jim Dobben from Midland, MI joined us, and we tried everything we knew (apart from holding him over the fire) to pry it out of him! He wasn’t giving anything up though! Jim was a great guy, and hopefully we’ll run into him again at some EAA meet here in Michigan.

The next day I had some time to wander the field and actually look at other planes! Imagine that! Our whole time had been spent by the plane. Now judging was over we were free!

That evening were the awards. Here they are all waiting…

Here’s a blurry one of me receiving my award! Woo hoo! A Bronze Lindy! I couldn’t believe I got this high of an award. An ACTUAL LINDY! Wow!

Afterwards we went back to Sean and Sara’s plane for a little drink… When we go to these airshows, Sean and Sara are the greatest. The put us up, feed us, ply us with beer and generally make sure we’re all comfortable. A big, big thanks to you guys for all you do for us at these shows. If it weren’t for you guys, I’d probably be in a hotel about 50 miles away!

Here’s a shot of the group… Mike had gone home already and missed the awards ceremony. We were all pleased he made it out for a couple of days of the show. From left to right, me, Sean, Lucy, Buffy, Tim and Sara.

What a great trip it was. I really enjoyed it. Thanks to everyone who was a part of it all, and hope to see you all again next year.