Riley had one more 2-hour flight in the RV12, this time flying to the airport in Cadillac, MI to get more hands-on practice with takeoffs and landings and other maneuvers before we left Traverse City. He’s really pleased with the experience and his young whipper-snapper instructor. He said he learned a lot and was able to teach junior a new trick with programming the radio. Sounds like a win all around!
The next big destination is Oshkosh, WI for EAA AirVenture 2021, the world’s largest experimental aircraft air show. We’re taking the scenic route through the Upper Peninsula and staying one night at Indian Lake State Park in Manistique, MI before going on to Oshkosh.
Along the way we stopped at a berry farm in Elk Rapids and stocked up on fresh blackberries, raspberries and blueberries. I was disappointed that the pick-your-own blackberries had just ended but it’s probably just as well since we have a couple hours drive ahead of us. Another roadside farmer’s market stop for more produce and a cherry pie, then we were on our way.
The drive up the coast through Charlevoix and Petoskey was beautiful as always. Large, lush baskets of petunias hung from posts all along downtown Charlevoix, making the street just as picturesque as the boats in the harbor. I remember traveling up to Petoskey for work 15 or more years ago and thinking it was one of the prettiest places I’d been. Things have grown up considerably; I think I liked it better then.
Across the Mackinaw Bridge the road followed the northern shore of Lake Michigan, a much less populated area with several restaurants and motels that haven’t been updated for decades and appear to have gone out of business years ago. Not all businesses fit this description of course but generally there are few and far between.
Indian Lake State Park is just a few miles inland on the shores of Indian Lake, the 4th largest inland lake in the Upper Peninsula. We bought a bundle of firewood at the office and set up in a spot right on the lake.
Riley grilled a steak while I baked a potato and made a salad with the produce we’d got earlier. The timing was perfect. A thunderstorm rolled in minutes after we’d cleaned up the dinner dishes. We listened to the sound of rain, cozy in Charlie as we went to sleep.
The air was cool and skies cloudy on Thursday morning as we set out to Oshkosh. The drive along the lake shore was really pretty and not too much traffic until we were within a few miles of Oshkosh.
Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) AirVenture Oshkosh 2021 is enormous in every way. It’s an annual event going on for almost 70 years, originally in Milwaukee and moving to Oshkosh in 1969. This is the 4th day of the 8-day event so it’s already going strong when we arrive.
I can’t even describe how huge this event is. There are more than 500,000 attendees from 80 countries. Thousands of people fly in, then camp in tents beside their personal planes tethered in long rows in huge fields alongside the runway. According to a fact sheet I read, Oshkosh (KOSH) is the busiest control tower in the world during EAA AirVenture. 64 controllers come from around the US to work the show. During the event, air traffic controllers have reduced horizontal separation minimums from 3,000 feet between airplanes to 1500 feet, allowing air traffic controllers to land three aircraft at a time on a runway by assigning each to land on a specific colored dot painted on the runway. Up to 10,000 aircraft land at the fly-in every year!
Thousands more people come in RVs and camp in what amounts to a small city on acres and acres of grassy fields on airport property. Camp Scholler is massive, with numerous paved and unpaved streets, buildings outfitted with charging stations for electronics, huge bathhouses with probably 50+ showers and even a small grocery store. There were five grocery stores located on the airport property in all.
There are people moving around everywhere on bicycles, scooters, golf carts, on foot, in trams pulled by John Deere tractors and on school buses appropriated for the event. All of this is outside the gates to the airshow. I was amazed that everyone seemed to navigate this mix of engine powered and human powered locomotion moving in all directions and speeds without any mishaps, at least none to my knowledge.
I don’t have any idea how many thousands more people arrive by car each day but the parking lots I saw on the way in looked like Disney World. Actually, the trams pulled by tractors looked a lot like those in Disney, complete with the driver in front and announcer with a microphone in the back. Transportation on site is essential, given the huge geographic footprint.
We checked in, got our wrist bands for admission and a tag for Charlie and found a nice spot on 15th St between two big RVs that looked like it had been recently vacated. It’s a good thing too, because the campground went on farther than I could see and this was at least a half mile from the entrance gates to the show.
Like a lot of other people, we rode our bikes from the campground to the admission gate and locked them up outside along the fence. The weather was sunny and warm, maybe low 80’s, so not too hot. Small vendors of every kind were set up in the first quarter mile inside the gates leading to the main airport property, selling aviation and non-aviation related stuff. It kind of reminded me of the Labor Day flea market in Hillsville, VA. A whole bunch of stuff you would probably never actually go looking for.
Those were just the little guys. The big boys were set up in elaborate mobile showrooms, some displaying multi-million dollar jets with appointment only tours of the interiors. Beechcraft, Cessna, Cirrus, Piper and Pilatus, a Swiss company that makes luxurious private jets, all had impressive displays. Those are just a few.
Riley was excited to visit companies he’s worked with to build his plane including Van’s Aircraft, Rotax Aircraft Engines, Aircraft Spruce (for parts and tools), Aircraft Specialty, Dynon Avionics, ForeFlight/Boeing (flight planning software) and others that I can’t remember. In some cases these were people he’s spoken to several times on the phone so it was nice to meet in person.
There were literally miles of planes and every possible aviation related endeavor on display. There were vintage planes, experimental planes, jets, gliders, amphibious planes, giant aircraft like a UPS cargo plane and the Goodyear blimp. There were food vendors, forums, demonstrations and workshops. We walked from one end to the other, the equivalent of 5.5 miles based on the number of our steps for the day.
Several universities that offer aviation degrees also had large displays. No doubt this a great place to recruit for a career in aviation. All ages were represented in the crowds, from very young to very old and everything between.
Air Force, Army, Navy and Coast Guard planes and helicopters were on display. They put on impressive air shows demonstrating their power, speed and agility. I never get tired of watching the F-16s and F-18s streaking across the sky and the roar of the engines following seconds later. It always amazes me and there were many opportunities to be amazed.
Airshows occurred all day and late into the night with a wide variety of aircraft and maneuvers. There were parachuters, acrobatics and impressive formations accompanied by loud music and informative commentary. The night show was especially impressive with a mix of aeronautical acrobatics and pyrotechnics. It was scheduled for Wednesday night but was postponed until Thursday because of a storm with high winds, so that was fortunate for us. The show was stlll going on at 10 PM and we were too exhausted to stay for the grand finale so we walked the half mile to our bikes and rode back to Charlie.
The weather was cool and sunny when we woke up on Friday and it stayed that way all day never getting warmer than 72 degrees. Perfect for walking around the expo. We biked over after breakfast and wandered around the airplane vendor displays. We saw the Ranger plane Riley had originally planned to purchase before deciding to build his own and he chatted with the sales guy he’d interacted with before.
Later checked out the expo booths set up in four huge exhibit halls. Riley found several things we needed like an adapter cable to connect the audio from the radio headset to a Go Pro camera, a headset for me, a carbon monoxide sensor and a small toolkit. He was hoping to get information on options for painting or wrapping his plane once it’s finished. There were several companies that offer design work that you’d then take to someone else to do the actual painting. Not exactly what he was looking for.
The expo was interesting and Riley had a chance to talk to experts on some of the components he’s using on his plane. We walked all over, trying to find the location for a couple forums but arriving too late because we underestimated the distance. Which, today totaled over 6 miles! It felt so good to sit down in the shade under a tree to watch the airshow.
We’d seen everything we wanted to see by late afternoon so we decided to pack up Charlie and get a start on the drive back home instead of staying one more night in Oshkosh. Dinner at Lou Malnati’s, Riley’s all-time favorite pizza restaurant, was the perfect way to wrap up the day.
Spoonfeed 