July 27th: A Mostly Nice Day in the North 40

Between going to bed a bit later than I planned and waking up when the first departure took off shortly after 6am I didn't exactly get much sleep. I didn't really mind, though...

...because this was the view from my tent. The weather was gorgeous!

Our campsite from the rear; that's Dave's tent set up by the tail.

Our camping neighbors had a Columbia (and a big blue tent), and had their own airport over in Michigan. The neighbors on the other side had a C172 and are somewhere on the southeast corner of the Detroit sectional; they have their own little grass strip.

We grabbed some breakfast at the North 40 cafe, then grabbed our chairs and made our way back out to the flight line to watch some more arrivals.

Patty Wagstaff came back at one point...

...and the EAA's B-17 was giving rides all morning.

A formation of 28 T-6s flew in, too.

We had to head back to the plane to wait out a rain shower, but it passed by after a little while so we grabbed lunch at the cafe and headed through the airshow gate and into the Warbird area.

I really liked this T-37. If I could ever afford a jet, this might be the one I'd pick!

We walked around the Homebuilt area for a little while, too. I liked the specs on this guy's RV-10.

We didn't go too far into the airshow grounds because the skies were getting a bit dark. We went back to the North 40, watched a few more arrivals out at the flight line, then went back to the plane as the rain showers got closer.

I sat under the wing, figuring it would be a good place to watch while the storms rolled in...

...but the skies turned dark pretty fast. I made sure the plane was tied down well, then ducked into the tent just before it started raining. I tried to nap for a bit, but it was a little hard to sleep with rain getting blown into the tent under the rain fly. The storms eventually passed by, so Dave and I had plenty of time to wander over to the other side of the North 40 to meet up with some of his friends for dinner at Friar Tuck's. That's apparently another classic Oshkosh stop, and I could see why - the food was cheap and really good! The place was packed but we were able to get seats shortly after we got there. It was a really nice dinner, and we had fun catching up with his buddies before walking back to our tents.

Unfortunately, this guy wasn't having as good a night as we were. I think it's an RV (I'm not sure which one), and he clearly had a bad landing; he'd broken off his nose gear, smacked his prop, and bent one of his main gear. Nobody was hurt, but it's sad to see someone start Oshkosh that way. We heard a few different versions of what happened, so I'm really not sure what he did, but either way it's clear he forced the plane onto the ground when he should have just gone around. The winds had really picked up after the storms moved through, so that may have had something to do with his bad landing.

We walked back to the plane, spent a little time hangar-flying with our Columbia neighbors, then grabbed showers and went to bed. The airshow officially started the next morning!

Sunset Sunday night. It was a really nice night after the storms rolled through!