Tag Archives: Wisconsin

Boomerang

This piece is a shorter one but it summarizes a lot about what Oshkosh is like.  I was walking around the show site on my first day there when I came across the Rutan Boomerang.  This aircraft is now in private hands but was restored as part of the Rutan celebrations the year before.  It is an unusual asymmetric configuration aircraft that looks very interesting.  It had actually been in the race ahead of Airventure.

I wandered up and grabbed a couple of shots as the owner was chatting to a few people.  He immediately asked me if I would like to get some interior shots.  I was wearing a media badge but this was certainly not something I excepted and I was very grateful.  He then cleared out his stuff, tidied everything up and even asked how I wanted the hatches configured.  What a great guy.

This level of accommodation and willingness to share in the aviating experience is something that never fails to impress me about aviation in general.  Many thanks.

Warbirds

One group that always gets a lot of attention at Oshkosh is the warbirds.  A separate area is set aside for them where the aircraft can park but also where their people can camp.  It seems to be a well developed operation with its own marshaling and security arrangements.  I guess when the aircraft are valuable and in demand, they need a little extra attention.

Despite that, it is still a very relaxed area to visit.  The aircraft are parked up and you can walk freely in amongst them.  Often people are working on the planes and they fly quite frequently during the days (and more often the evenings when photo flights are common).  As they taxi in and out, the volunteers keep you just safely out of harms way but they are aware that everyone wants to get a picture.  A good balance exists.

The best time to visit is either early in the morning or late in the evening.  Not only is the light better then, the number of visitors is much lower so you can have a lot of time to yourself and people are not in your shots most of the time.  It is worth making repeated visits.  My first trip across had a few aircraft around but it was noticeable how many spaces there were.  however, a couple of days later, the ranks of vintage aircraft had swelled and there was much to see that was new.

Campground Options

One of the great things about exploring at Oshkosh is seeing how people are staying there.  There are plenty of organized camping options for people.  However, that is not very unusual.  What is interesting and something that is very symbolic of Oshkosh is the camping in the aircraft parking.  Many people set up camp right under the wing of their aircraft.

As part of the piece, I wanted to make sure that I had covered this aspect to some level.  I spent a good bit of time wandering through the parked aircraft.  It was fascinating to see just how diverse the approaches taken were.  I met one guy who was sitting under the wing of his Cessna 172 with a one man tent pinned to the ground next to him.  He symbolized the simplest version of things.  Sadly, he didn’t want me to take his picture but it was a great thing to see.

At the other end of the scale, some pretty significant camping enclosures had erupted!  Large tents, canopies with cooking arrangements, seating for many people plus transportation options to get around the site were also on display.  Sometimes these were next to a more substantial aircraft but other times it just looked like friends had brought all they needed between them.

The facilities for people are pretty well developed too.  Large shower and toilet blocks are available which seem pretty obvious.  I was taken by the charging stations that seemed pretty substantial.  Whether you are charging battery packs, phones, laptops or avionics, this seems to be a big deal and I guess this has all evolved over the years as the needs of Oshkosh visitors have grown.  Quite something to see in itself.

Oshkosh

Here we go with a short post for today.  EAA’s annual extravaganza that is Airventure (or Oshkosh to pretty much everyone else) has recently concluded.  I was there for GAR for a few of the days.  Oshkosh is a great experience and one that any aviation nut should try and do at least once.

There is way too much going on at Oshkosh to make a single blog posting out of it.  Instead, you will be getting bits and pieces drip fed over the coming posts.  My coverage of it for GAR also has to go out so I won’t be duplicating anything from there (well, not much anyway).  However, hopefully this will give you a few views of Airventure from my perspective.

Up front, I must say thanks to all of the friends I already have that I met there as well as the new ones I made.  Oshkosh is certainly something at which you can wander off for hours at a time to experience what is happening.  However, it is nice to be able to know you can expect someone to be around when you come back so you can share what you have been up to and talk rubbish about planes for ages.  Thanks everyone.

Janesville

The Janesville show, or to give it it’s proper title, The Southern Wisconsin Airfest, is on each year but, for one reason or another, I have never previously attended it. This time, my friend Art Nalls was displaying with his Sea Harrier and L-39. Originally, I was planning to do something with Art after this show although that fell through as a result of a third party letting us down. However, I decided to attend the show to see what it had on offer.

I went for two of the three days. There was a Friday evening show and both days of the weekend. I went for Friday and Saturday. The Friday show was cut short by a pretty excitable thunder storm that moved in just as the Heritage Flight was getting ready to launch. Art had fortunately already displayed but the light was already fading when he flew and the impending storm was not hard to predict!

Saturday started out with another storm but it fortunately blew through before the show was due to start. My morning was focused on a flight with the US Army’s Golden Knights parachute display team as I previously blogged about here. Then it was on to the main show (or what was left by the time I got back down!).

Art flew again and I had more luck than the previous day (although I believe there must be a weather curse that means clouds will appear whenever I am photographing the SHAR – just enough the make the light flat!).  The heritage flight was very good and included Beercan Collier who will make another appearance in this blog in the near future as well as Vlado Lenoch – always a fun P-51 pilot.  The Black Diamond team showed up very short handed.  The plan for four L-39s and two MiG-17s was not met and only three L-39s were present.  They flew well but the display obviously was supposed to have the pair filling in the routine. Without them there were long gaps in the performance which really hurt things. I will return to this subject in an upcoming post since the story has evolved.

Janesville is not a huge show but they had an interesting selection of things on display. The Canadian Hornets that showed up on Friday evening threw themselves around a lot before landing for the static display. I understand their departures were even more interesting although I wasn’t there to witness that. The team that hosted us did a great job and many thanks to them.

A Little Golden Knights Video

In my previous post I talked about my trip up with the Golden Knights.  It was a lot of fun and the primary goal was to get some images and information for the article.  However, since I was there, I decided to grab some video too.  I had a combination of the video capabilities of my SLRs as well as a GoPro I mounted on a wrist strap.  I tried to make this point in roughly the right direction but it was a bit of a struggle when I was focused on shooting stills.

Anyway, excuses aside, I knocked together a short edit of some of the footage I got.  Still not going to get the Emmy people excited but hopefully it gives a bit more of a feel for what it was like on the flight.

128th ARW Open House

A short drive north of Chicago is Milwaukee.  The main airport at Milwaukee is General Mitchell International and, aside from the commercial services that operate there, the Wisconsin Air National Guard also has a unit based on the field.  It has a fleet of KC-135 tankers operated by the 128 Aerial Refueling Wing.  Periodically, they have an open house  and I went up to the recent event.

This is not an air show.  The field remains open and normal flight operations continue.  However, the ANG unit takes the chance to show off what they do to the local community and let them know what is going on with their tax dollars.  They also invite others to bring aircraft in to give the visitors a variety of things to see.  These visitors include aircraft from other Air Force units, a helicopter from the army and a variety of vintage aircraft, many from the local area.

The event took place over two days of the weekend.  The Sunday looked better from a weather perspective so that is the day I went for.  It proved to be a good choice with plenty of sun but temperatures staying very comfortable.  What I didn’t appreciate was the additional benefit of it being Mother’s Day.  I got their early for the better light but most people were spending time showing their mothers that they love them.  Since I am 4,000 miles from my mum, a personal visit was a little impractical!  It did make for a quiet ramp for quite a while though.

As the day progressed, plenty more people showed up and they probably achieved their goals for sharing with the local community.  I got to chat with a number of interesting people and, since it was quiet, was able to have more than a passing conversation.  I also met a few people who might be interested in some follow up work for the magazine so the trip was productive as well as fun.

I got a few shots of airliners as well as the aircraft on the ramp.  We were also lucky that one of the based KC-135s launched on a mission while I was there so a shot of that flying helped out a lot.  Since it isn’t an air show, that was a nice extra!  I hope to get back up to the unit in due course and find out more about them and maybe put together a more detailed piece on their history and operations.

Snocross in Short Sleeves

March in Wisconsin seems like a pretty good time to schedule a snowmobile race.  Unfortunately, that would mean that you didn’t know this year was going to be particularly mild all winter and especially so in March.  So it was that the final round of the AMSOil ISOC Snocross race was scheduled for the Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva WI in mid-March.

Just because it was warm, didn’t mean there wouldn’t be racing though.  Congratulations to the organizers who made good use of their snow cannons to put a base of snow down on a basic course.  Apparently, it was a bit truncated compared to previous years but there was a course.  Moreover, the course managed to hold together as the air temperature made its way up to the high 70s (if not creeping into the 80s!).  I wondered whether this great job of combating the conditions extended to the clothing the racers wore.  I doubt too much snowmobile racing clothing is designed for the high 70s.  I suspect it is more about staying warm.  They were probably pretty toasty!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hadn’t applied for media credentials for this event so was only shooting from the public areas.  With the course laid out the way it was, this really didn’t prove to be too limiting.  There were a few shots I would like to have got but it really didn’t make too much of a difference.  The action is close to the people most of the time and they come by pretty frequently so there is usually plenty to see.

I was pretty happy with the outcome to be honest.  It was a fun day out and I spent it with a good bunch of guys as well.  We would split up at times but end up back at similar locations before too long so it worked well.  One of those disappointing things about shooting an action sport like this is that you find yourself focusing on a particular rider and hear a groan from the crowd.  This is a sign that someone has wiped out quite dramatically but all you see is them getting up and retrieving their machine unless you get lucky – certainly luckier than the racer!

Now I just have to work out what the real name is for the machine.  I always thought they were snowmobiles but then I watched some stuff from Alaska that said the people in the know call them snowmachines.  The announcers at this event didn’t seem to be aware of that so I am just as in the dark as I was beforehand.  Anyone know the right term?

Some Ski Plane Video

In the previous post I talked about the trip to Oshkosh for the ski plane fly-in.  While I was mainly taking stills on this trip, I did also take the GoPro with me for the occasional bit of video.  Unfortunately, the bar clamp I took was a little larger than the ideal place to mount it.  Instead I hand held it which makes for some fun bouncing around when on the ground!  However, it isn’t too disastrous so I am prepared to let some of the footage make it out in public.  Hardly broadcast quality work though!  Still, I hope you enjoy it.