Storms are making things difficult at OSH.
The fields are soaked and planes are being diverted.
I hope our iPilot buddies get in, parked and out, ok.

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I think, therefore I am... part of a minority.

Hello all.

Yeah, it's a little weird up here. It hasn't rained since Saturday, but the ground is really wet. The North 40 is empty of planes. They have about 100 tents set up, but no airplanes. Evrybody is parking at the neigboring airports.

We drove past Camp Scholar on the way to our hotel and there was about a 1/2 mile of campers parked on the road. They had the campgrounds closed. I saw today that the big campers, 5th wheel, or motorized coaches were sinking into the wet ground, so they are parking them on whatever parking lots they can find around Oshkosh.

They were letting people fly in today but the ground is still really wet. Someone in what looked like a Long EZ tried to taxi to park in the grass in the home built area and his nose wheel collapsed backwards about 45 degrees. They ended up pushing it to it's spot.

We saw a great airshow today and we will be back again tomorrow. The grounds are drying up, so hopefully more people will make it in tomorrow.

They had a mass arrival of 21 DC-3 or C-47's at the start of the airshow. That was pretty cool. Nothing like the sound of 42 big radial engines going overhead! Then they each came in and landed right in front of me while I tried to focus the dang camera.

My favorite performer today was the guy in the Jungermeister. It was an acrobatic trainer from Germany from the WWII era, although this was a 1969 copy. He did some awesome stuff with a 170 HP 60 year old design.

Well time for bed. I have a 9:45 tee-time tomorrow mornign and then I have to go look at airplanes all afternoon. Life is good sometimes!

Take care all,

Dennis

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Capn Denny

Denny, your write-ups have been great. Thanks for giving us the updates.

-JC

Sounds like ole Jack might want to surrender his cert...just sayin....

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Got your PM Brad, and now your it.

Day 3 was an absolutely gorgeous day. Low 80's and a few light clouds. I nice breeze blowing, so it was really comfortable. There were thunderstorms last night in Appleton and some heavy rain, but it didn't seem to affect Oshkosh, so maybe it mised them? We are about 20 miles north in Appleton.

My wife is a Facebooker, which I just think is silly, but I helped find the Airventure Facebook page. They had a guy who saw the entire crash of Jack Roush's jet. He said he appeared to make the turn too slow and then he said that it appeared to be stalling. Then it rocked left and then to almost 90 degrees to the right and the wing hit the ground and the whole plane cartwheeled. He said the engines were at full throttle at least 2 or 3 minutes after the crash. That was what was so weird. After the impact you could still hear the engines screaming. I guess a jet is different from a prop. You crash a prop job and the engine usually quits. At least they sure did when I used to crash my RC planes.

Anyway, it was a great airshow today. The had an F-4 Phantom doing a Vietnam re-enactment. He did a few low and fast and LOUD passes. That is one of my favorite planes. I am from St. Louis where they built the F-4 at McDonnell Douglas. I grew up in one of the landing patterns for the main diagonal runway. I remember often seeing an F-4 on appraoch to land. Once my brother was watching one and saw the gear door fall off the plane. He called the police and then rode his bike down the street and showed them where it fell. The kid down the street claimed he found it and got on TV, so my brother was pissed!

Kyle Franklin was there doing his pirate act with his wife walking the wing. I just love that show. I lik eit better when he does it solo without the wingwalking, but it's cool with the wingwalker too.

Shawn D. Tucker was back again today. His show was incredible today. He really had it cranked up today.

I think I mentioned it the other day, but the guy in the "stock" Stearman was back. He does soem amazing stunts close to the ground and they keep telling you it is a "stock" Stearman. One of his stunts is a slow roll at about 200 feet up. When he is inverted the engine coughs and dies when he is upside down. He starts to loose altitude and then a big flame shoots out the exhaust pipe and as he rolls back vertical the engine fires back up and he is OK. This usually brings a lot of people to their feet thinking they are going to see a crash. If I thought that was going to happen I think I would look away, not towards it. But most peopel jump up to get a look. Then when it comes back alive the announcers says, "I told you it was a stock Stearman didn't I? Well it doesn't have an inverted fuel system." Ha ha! Well he just did this on Monday and Norma was sitting right next to me. Well he did the same thing today, and Norma jumped up out of her chair and said "Uh oh!" Maybe seeing the crash yesterday got her a little unsure about thsi flying stuff? Maybe she slept through it on Monday?

But he did the same thing about 3 times last year! Last year when he did it, this lady in front of us who did nothing but complain about the heat, and the price and the crowds, jumped up on her feet to see the crash. Then when she figured out he was fooling her and there was no danger, she got mad and told her husband it was time to leave. She packed up her stuff and her kids, but he just sat there. Finally she left without him. About 5 minutes later one of the kids, a boy about 10 came back and said "Mom said you needed to come too!" The dad just told his kid to sit down and watch the rest of the show. They stayed for another 30 minutes but he left before it was over. Poor guy. Poor kids too!

Then as we were on the way back to the car the Godyear Blimp made a landing. So of course we had to stop while snapped a bunch of pictures of it coming in with the ground crew grabbing the landing lines. Pretty cool.

Well, I have a 7:10 bus ride to Airventure tomorrow. I have the whole day to myself there. Norma is maybe going to meet me for the airshow and maybe not. I'll see if I can find Camp Cary, but there's a good chance he couldn't get in. I will just walk the grounds and take as many pictures as my little fingers can press the button for, or until my feet give out. I'll start in the warbirds area and then swing by the RV camping and mosy down to the vintage. That's a long walk, but worth it.

Take care all,

Dennis

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Capn Denny

Another awesome day at the big Osh! I took the shuttle bus and arrived at the grounds at 8:00. I took the red tram out to the warbirds area, and then started walking. Me and camera and my chair on my back. I started to walk up the North 40. It was about 1/3 full today, so I guess most people just stayed at a neighboring airport. I walked the length of the North 40 and back and there was no Camp Cary, and no LRB. He may be on the other side of the runway, but I got to the end and walked back. I tried to take the shuttle bus but when it syopped it was full, so I just walked back to the warbirds area.

I took a lot of pictures along the way. The runway was busy. A lot of people leaving today. I think we may have some weather Friday and Saturday so maybe they are gettin' when the gettin' is good? I tried to help some guy with a Cirrus who was trying to push it around with the help of his wife. They were really struggling but he declined my offer. I guess he didn't want some goofbal with a camp chair lashed on his back and a camera pushing on his airplane. Just as well. It's OK I diidn't take a picture of his plane, so there! Naaa!

I finally made it back to the warbirds area, and after a rest in the shade with a cold drink I was back to taking pictures. Not as many P-51's as last year. I think there wer 20 last year, but the gathering of Mustangs in Dayton was a few weeks after Oshkosh last year. There were only maybe 4 or 5 this year. They are pretty darn cool, but everybody is so nuts about them I just look elsewhere.

I made my way through the warbirds, and there was a row of 6 Stearman's all parked together. Pretty cool.

I never made it to the Vintage area. Maybe tomorrow. I need to get there before they all leave. Those that did make it in.

Today's airshow was very good. They featured the jet warbirds from the Viet Nam era. It was pretty cool. I was distracted trying to tell Norma where I was. I had the camera in one hand and the phone in the other. It seemed Norma would call right when I was trying to take a picture, so I couldn't focus it manually. The autofocus is useless for airplanes, at least on my camera. Finally Norma got po'd with me and just said she would find me somewhere before 8:00 tonight. I had been sitting on the flight line for 2 hours before she got there to get us a spot in the front. I even had to look menacing and chase a few people away who tried to sit there. After about 20 minutes I figured I had beter go find her, but it would mean losing my front row spot. Just as I was about to leave to go searching for her, she walked up and said "I'm here."

Anyway back to the airshow.

Kyle Franklin did his solo routine without the pirate story line. The announcer gave the details of the stunts he was performing. He has this beautiful Waco Mystery Ship. Black with silver trim. He startes his show with an inverted flat spin at about 5000 feet. He frist leaves a smoke trail straight up then comes down in the inverted spin through his own smoke. He kept it in the spin for about 4 complete rotations and pulls out of it with what seems like just enough altitude to recover. He just flys with so much precision and grace. I'm no expert about acrobatics, but you can tell when someone is holding the lines or is being sloppy. Kyle Franklin's stunts are just really well done. I do wish he would use a little more altitude.

Matt Chapman performed again today. He did a stunt at the end of his routine that either I hadn't seen before or I was asleep. A lot of the performers are doing a hovering routine. They point the nose up and slow down and then apply enough power to just hang the airplane in the air on the prop. Pretty impressive. Today Matt Chapman who flies the Embry Riddle plane, did the hover, but he did it while rolling the airplane. Instead of just hanging there he rolled the plane about 4 times slowly while maintaining his altitude. I can't even begin to imagine how hard that must be to maintain the correct throttle setting and pitch and yaw and roll rate while hovering.

The Phantom F4 was supposed to be in th ewarbirds show, but he turned around from the taxiway and went back to the ramp. That was a shame but btter to have the problem before takeoff.

OK, this one is for bed. I've been up since 5 and it's now past 12. I have a really nice sunburn too. Youch.

Take care all,

Dennis

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Capn Denny

Going home tomorrow. We decided to leave tomorrow morning an dhead for home. It's kind of a bummer being there Sunday. Most of the planes are gone, and a lot of the exhibits are closed up.

We finally made it to the seaplane base for lunch. They have the greatest steamed corn on the cobb! There were a few planes coming and going but it was pretty slow. But that is the beauty of the Seaplane Base. It just slows you down. The big show gets a little crazy. So many people, so many planes, so much! The seaplane base is small, maybe 20 planes parked in the lagoon. But it is a very beautiful place and just gave us a chance to slwo down and breathe a little bit.

We saw a good airshow today. It looked like rain so I left the fancy camera in the car. Of course the sun came out and it ended up being a beautiful day for an airshow. We took the small digital camera which doesn't take great pictures, but it does do video. So I took some video of the C17 and the water drop from the Air Crane.

After the airshow we went to listen to Asleep at the Wheel. They were really good. That's Norma's kind of music. I more into blues and jazz and my favorite acid rock.

After the concert they had a night airshow. A couple of performers performed at dusk, but some were after it got pretty dark and they had fireworks. The jet sailplane performance was really cool. You could just hear the hissing of the small jet and he had stuff like sparklers coming from the wingtips and tail. He also released forworks from the body of the aircraft, all the time looping and rolling. It was really cool.

My guy Gene Souy also went up after dark and that was really cool. He was really loud but he had 4 places to emit fireworks since he flies a bi-plane. He had the same sparkler thing that left trails of sparks as he flew in the dark.

The finale was a fireworks show which was pretty decent. The end of the fireworks they set off another wall of flame. Dynamite and gasoline about 200 yards long. That was pretty impressive.

We left a little early during the night airshow. We walked through Aeroshell Square in the dark. That was pretty neat seeing a silver B17 gleeming in the dark. But when we got to the C5 Galaxy that was in the center of the square I was just reall amazed. It was just so huge and dark and grey, and unbelieveably huge. We hadn't made to Aeroshell square yet, so it was a realy shock. I had Norma stand next to one of the 20 or so tires, each almost as tall as she was and took her picture.

It was a great way to end a great week at Oshkosh. Norma said I was already getting crabby about it being over.

One thing that really bugged me this year was the damn golf carts. Norma has a bad foot an dI have a bad knee and hip. Oshkosh is a lot of walking. We really struggled with the walking, and it just made me angry to see so many rich yahoos zooming around in their golf carts. It made it hard to walk with the zooming around messing up the traffic. They do a pretty good job of restricting cars, but stop these damn golf carts.

I did a favor for someone. He asked me to buy something here from one of the vendors who was offering free shipping for items bought at Oshkosh. I agreed to do it. When the guy asked me for my name I had to get the paper out of my pocket to get the name right. He kind of looked at me funny. I put the paper away with the guys name and address on it. Then he asked me if I still lived at so so city? So I took th epaper out of my pocket to look and said yep, still there!

Last one for tonight.

As we got on the elevator last night 3 young guys got on the elevator with us. We were a little beat, and still feeling the effects of the great beer at the Old Bavarian Restauarnt. I noticed they all had the same blue polo shirts on with Sporty's on the front. So i said "Sporty's huh?" One of the young guys said yes. So i said, "Can you guy do me a favor and STOP WITH THE DAMN CATALOGS"! They kind of all looked for the back door out of the elevator. Finally Norma said, "Oh don't let him fool you guys. When he gets the new catalog he can't wait to see what's in there." She was right of course, but I thought it was pretty funny.

I have about 3000 pictures. I will go through them this week and find a dozen or so good ones to post.

Take care all,

Dennis

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Capn Denny

Denny,

Sounds great. Thanks again for ordering the stuff for me.

Best regards,

Brad

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http://www.avweb.com/new...ntOfImpact_203026-1.html

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I just got around to reading all this...great job Denny! One of these years I will get there...but between the UCAP podcasts and your daily posting, I feel like I know the place when and if I get there...

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"...But for some women, conformity is death. It's a death of the soul. The soul is a precious thing. When you live a lie, you damage the soul." "Lipstick Jungle"