I was scanning some old pics this weekend and thought it might be nice to share. 1982 was my third Oshkosh, but my first with a good SLR camera and slide film. Also with the resolve to get up early in the morning and take some uncluttered pictures.
Chuckie heads out for a morning sortie.
Fifi was looking sharp in her movie paint from
The Right Stuff, but with her name added to the nose in big blue letters.
Howard Pardue's FM-2P.
Three Mustangs that used to be regulars at OSH and many shows in the midwest. Miss Coronado, Ho! Hun, Bald Eagle.
The EAA used to haul its static warbirds out help populate the warbird flight line during the convention.
The EAA Buchon was set up in a little friend-and-foe tableau with Aluminum Overcast.
Sunrise over the Air Zoo's Hellcat the previous year's Grand Champion.
The Air Zoo's Corsair had been Grand Champ in 1980.
Four Sea Furies graced the ramp that year, and in those days they all had the proper engine.
The Grand Champion trophy in 1982 was taken by Ray Stutsman's P-47G Little Demon, which helped raise the bar for inside-and-out authenticity of restoration in those years.
Ray and Dick Dieter also brought this handsome TBM, which had been restored to its exact postwar configuration and paint job.
With some effort and a little luck I got all yellow T-6/Harvards in this picture. The one in the foreground was, again, owned by Stutsman.
The T-28 lineup.
Forest fires in the Canadian prairies put a lot of smoke into the atmosphere and produced sunset-like sunrises late in the week.
In those days the T-33 was still in the USAF inventory, so you could go to Oshkosh and see active-duty ANG ones (above) alongside privately owned warbirds (below).
There were two real sensations in the warbird paddock that year. One was Pete Regina's new P-51C, nowadays Princess Elizabeth.
The other was the Yak-11. This was the first Yak of any kind to appear on the airshow circuit in what was then called the free world, and from today's perspective it is hard to recall what a stir it caused. It also had one of the funnier and more appropriate civil registrations I've seen, G-AYAK (which was exactly what everyone said when they first saw it). Today it's for sale by Kermit Weeks, having taken a whack in the Hurricane Andrew hangar collapse.
Bill Ross's P-38 was an Oshkosh regular and always as pretty as anything on the ramp.
That year Lefty also showed up, treating us to his great solo routine.
Ross tucked in behind him for a photo op flight.
A third P-38, though it didn't fly, at least moved under its own power. The EAA decided to spare its P-38 the indignity of a tow when moving it around the field.
I had always wanted to stand right behind a P-38 starting. I didn't mind the wind, but didn't reckon on how much fluid a P-38 ejects from its turbosuperchargers on start-up. First it sloshed out by the gallon, then when the fans got turning it came back as a finely atomized spray. Despite my best efforts in the campground showers, my cologne was Eau de Pierre No. 38 for the rest of the week.
Lovely paint job on this Staggerwing; I don't even want to know if it's not accurate.
Thanks for indulging me in these reminiscences!
August
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