I had been watching the weather over the past couple days, trying to figure out when we'd have to head home. My goal had been to stay through Wednesday, catch the Wednesday night airshow, then fly all the way home on Thursday. The weather gods didn't like my plan, though, and it became pretty clear that if we didn't leave Wednesday morning, we wouldn't be leaving until much later in the week. I was a bit bummed, but oh well. I was determined to make the most of our last full day at Oshkosh!
We got off to a good start by tracking down my buddy Dutch and his sons after breakfast. Dutch is a former Navy pilot and incredibly knowledgeable; he's one of my favorite people to bump into around the airport. He had flown his Bonanza and one of his sons had flown their Cherokee. We finished our coffee and hung out around their campsite for a bit, then split up to go check out different things.
While Dutch and his sons were planning to check out some of the workshops and seminars, we knew what we wanted to do: a Ford Trimotor ride!! :)
We didn't have to wait very long for our turn in the air. My buddy Dave and I had gone for a Trimotor ride the first time we came to Oshkosh (back in 2005!), so it was really fun to get to do it again.
I wish this picture hadn't turned out so blurry; when the ground volunteers saw that a bunch of us were taking pictures they started making silly poses. We taxied out to the runway, were cleared for takeoff...
...and made a turn out to the east. We got a great view of the airshow grounds on departure!
We flew out over Lake Winnebago. Not a bad view to start the day. :)
I still haven't made it over to the seaplane base (someday I will...), but the Trimotor ride was a good substitute! It was neat to watch the seaplanes taxiing around on the lake, and you could really see how huge the Martin Mars is compared to the other planes.
We circled around the seaplane base, then made our way back to the airport and landed.
It was really fun...I'm glad we decided to go!
I wanted to check out the Vintage area again (now that it actually had planes in it), so we spent the rest of the morning wandering through rows and rows of beautiful planes. This C140 was especially shiny.
2016 marked the 30th anniversary of the RV-6 design, so they celebrated with a giant formation flyover while we were wandering around.
We stopped for a minute by the Vintage hangar to watch them fire up an old rotary engine. It was crazy to see...the entire engine spun around!
It was also the 70th anniversary of the C120/C140 design, so lots of people had flown in for that, too. I counted...there were only 4 C120s out of all of the planes. Someday I'll get my little plane out there to represent!
We eventually grabbed some lunch, then stopped back at the plane for a little while. We just happened to get there while the fuel truck was topping us off. At least I knew we'd be ready to go the next morning!
We made our way back out to the flightline for the airshow, and Dutch, Ken, and Karl wandered over to hang out and watch the show, too.
An A-10 did a few low passes...
...then they dropped the jumper with the flag for the National Anthem.
The formation flybys started just as the jumper landed.
There were so many!
The formations criss-crossed back and forth while the announcer explained the different aircraft types. They eventually landed...
...and all of the surveillance planes took off and circled around. There must have been 20 airplanes out there!
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