After an exciting journey to get to Oshkosh, I was finally here with my beloved 1947 L-16A Champ ("Rudolph"). Though this wasn't my first Oshkosh (I had been twice before in the Bellanca, and once with a friend in his Citabria), there was SO MUCH to see and do and not enough time for all of it!
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| Part of the L-bird lineup (L-R): Rudy, an L-16A with an authentic paint scheme, L-5 Stinson Sentinel, L-1 Stinson Vigilant |
First, a bit about that L-1 on the right: it is HUGE! It dwarfed just about all of the other L-birds. What I found most interesting about it though are the zippers on the underside of the wing in place of inspection covers. I had a chance to speak with the owner briefly and he said it seems like a really great idea...until you go to use them. Then you are trying to carefully bend the fabric without cracking the paint while sticking your arm up in a hole with metal zipper teeth on the edge chewing it up.
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| Underside of the L-5's wing with zippers |
The Vintage area is near and dear to my heart so when I had some free time, I wandered around there. Part of what took up my time at Oshkosh was helping out in the Vintage hangar at the Aeronca Aviators and Bellanca Champion Clubs in the afternoons, so on my wanderings, I took many pictures of Aeroncas, Bellancas, and a couple Champions (though many are too new for Vintage).
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| A beautiful Aeronca Sedan with an enviable campground setup |
I even made some new friends in a young couple who just purchased an Aeronca 65-TAL in Maine and were on their way home to Montana when they had to divert towards Oshkosh for weather and decided to stop in and see what it is all about! Talk about an adventure!
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| Aeronca 65-TAL on its way to its new home in Montana |
The Ultralights area was quite busy with a wide mix of flying machines.
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| Ultralights area |
Rotorcraft seemed to be very popular this year.
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| Stryker SP single seat gyroplane |
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| The Gyro Technic lineup |
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| Microcopter SCH-2A - part 103 coaxial helicopter |
Bushplanes were also popular. I was surprised to see a new folding-wing ultralight bushplane that I had never heard of before - the Badland. Well, as it turns out, this is the former Belite part 103 aircraft, which I found out while writing this was formerly the Kitfox Lite. bydanjohnson.com gives more information on the aircraft and its history.
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| Badlands ultralight |
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| Savage Norden (definitely not an ultralight) |
I did get time to go to a type club forum for Aeroncas, and to do something I've been wanting to do for a long time - a Stewarts System fabric covering workshop. It was a great workshop with plenty of hands-on experience (almost 5 hours of it)! And better yet, I got to take it with my new friends with the Aeronca 65-TAL.
With many more things that I still wanted to see and do, Saturday came all too soon, and before I knew it, I had to leave. Still wanting to do a few last things at Oshkosh Saturday morning, I did not get an early start, but the weather was forecast to be perfect all day and I was still hoping to make it home by that evening. Departing runway 27 at OSH, you have to stay on a 270-360 heading at while departing the class D. Unfortunately, this was in the exact wrong direction from where I wanted to go, so I turned as close to due north as I dared until I cleared the airspace, then turned due east and climbed out over Lake Winnebago. After crossing the lake, I headed southeast until I hit the shore of Lake Michigan, then flew down the coast past Milwaukee and Chicago, landing at Michigan City, IN (MGC) for gas.
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| Chicago skyline |
With perfect weather, my mission today was to cover as much ground as possible. This meant straight lines through the blissfully flat midwest and quick fuel stops: Van Wert, OH (VNW), Knox County, OH (4I3) and then Clarksburg, WV (CKB). Clarksburg is a class D airport, with airline service (which was obvious the next morning when I looked out the window of the FBO and saw an airliner loading passengers at the terminal next door). By the time I left Knox County, I realized I was going to have to spend the night. The sun was going down and I did not relish the thought of trying to cross the desolate mountains in West Virginia in the dark in an airplane that was only very minimally equipped for night flying. I hadn't ONLY picked Clarksburg for the cheap gas (and they did have cheap gas), I also picked it because I knew they were open until 11PM.
The FBO (V1) was very helpful. They knew of a hotel that the air crews use which offers a shuttle ride to and from the airport and has a bar across the street with good food. They called the hotel for me, made sure they had rooms, and waited with me while the shuttle came. The tower both on arrival and departure was friendly and accommodating, so this was definitely a great stop!
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| Climbing out from CKB at the start of the last leg of my trip home |
When I woke up in the morning and looked out the window, I wished I had pushed on in the dark. It was dreary. A check of the weather showed areas of low ceilings and rain. I had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and then caught their shuttle to the airport. The weather wasn't great, but I saw that by deviating to the north, I could get around the lowest ceilings and highest terrain and make it safely over the mountains. After 2 hours of dodging stray clouds and a few rain showers, I made it safely back to Culpeper, VA (CJR). What an adventure! Total time was 12.5 hours there and 9.2 hours back of flawless performance from my trusty Rudy. And I would do it again!
