Mark Allen M wrote:
In not trying to "rain on Oshkosh attendees collective parade" but if I recall isn't the Warbird flying activity usually quite minimal? In the years I have attended I usually had a wish for more actual flying of some of the types in attendance. I remember walking over to a few aircraft and wondering what that airplane would look like in the air. Am I thinking correctly that Oshkosh (warbird speaking) is usually a celebration of aviation and not so much an actual airshow. I know there are several warbirds that indeed do fly but usually the warbirds in serious running for awards usually sit out the flying. Am I correct to think this? Again not trying to stir up a pissing contest.
This gets discussed here every so often. This will be my first OSH since 2001, but I don't suppose much has changed since then in this regard. Certainly this complaint has been around since long before.
Like any fly-in, some stuff flies during the displays, other stuff just flies in and out (at least that's two chances to see it in the air!). I haven't noticed any correlation between whether it flies and whether it contends for an award. It just depends on the owner. In a lot of cases their warbird is just their ride to the event and, being a showplane, it gets a much better parking spot. Others fly every evening, and/or at impromptu times every day.
A lot of the big iron at OSH has always been supplied by a few collectors/organizations bringing several planes each, and the quality of the evening airshows depends a lot on their practices. Back in the 80s it was Pond, Parish, CWH, all of whom aired out the planes at least for the extended warbird shows and usually every evening. I don't know how the current generation of collectors approaches it.
Some planes come to Oshkosh to try to win the big award and then are never seen at Oshkosh or much of anywhere else in public again. (Who has seen Seafire PR503 since OSH 2010?) Not a big surprise when those don't fly in the shows.
One cool thing about OSH is you get to see some "private" warbirds that generally don't do the show thing. Their owners may not be seasoned display pilots and it's hard to blame them for taking a pass on the airshow tango.
EAA/WoA have tried various incentives to get planes to fly in the shows, including enhanced Warbirds membership for owners who do it. I'm not sure any of that has stuck. They do set up showcase flights to make sure there is an opportunity to see most of the really marquee planes (e.g. the Rimowa Ju 52/3m) but the schedule of these is hard to find out.
Some of it probably has to do with interactions within the owner community. To get flights of 24 Mustangs like they used to, the owners have to get together and commit to something special. That might happen or not, depending on personal dynamics.
Warbird fans at OSH have it good compared to fans of other showplane categories. I'd love to see all those antiques and classics in the air, but apart from the halfhearted "parade of flight," there is no occasion to display-fly them. They just don't command the audience interest I guess.
The complainers, in my experience, have tended to be guys who count it as of little value to check out a warbird on the ground, even if it is a real beauty and one they might otherwise not see anywhere else. I have a little trouble understanding that. There's plenty that does fly. If you kept a log of every warbird you saw flying during the evening shows, plus everything that was in the pattern while you were walking around, it'd be hard to bellyache about the result. Of course there are individual planes that we might be disappointed not to see flying, but that's not a big-picture complaint.
It definitely pays to keep an eye on the parking areas and taxiways and be ready if something cool looks like it's going to head out for a photo or pleasure flight. You never know what is going to fly and when. I have ended up catching most of the stuff I really wanted to see in motion, even if it's just taxiing and taking off or landing.
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Anyway, even though I'm one of those obnoxious "photographers" I'd rather know of the occurrence and cope with the mob than miss it. There are limited opportunities for crowd-free photos at OSH and whenever there's activity around one of the cooler planes, that's not one of them.