Heads-up Airventure 2012

[mustangdriver]

In all fairness No one is happy when the hot dog salad runs out.

[Zachary]

Some disappointing news:

BUDGET CUTS FORCE BRAZILIAN TEAM TO CANCEL

Unfortunate news came from the Brazilian “Smoke Squadron” air show team this week, as budget cuts in Brazil have forced this military air demonstration squadron to cancel its North American tour. The team had been scheduled to appear at Oshkosh as well as two air shows in Ohio.

Some happy news - the Goodyear Blimp is returning this year.

[mustangdriver]

They just called today. The blimp will be at my place before and after the show.

[spookythecat]

Some disappointing news:

BUDGET CUTS FORCE BRAZILIAN TEAM TO CANCEL

Unfortunate news came from the Brazilian “Smoke Squadron” air show team this week, as budget cuts in Brazil have forced this military air demonstration squadron to cancel its North American tour. The team had been scheduled to appear at Oshkosh as well as two air shows in Ohio.

Some happy news - the Goodyear Blimp is returning this year.

Rats!

[mazdaP5]

shoot, was looking forward to that, although I'm sure it'll be a blast either way.

[Dan K]

Add one more B-25...Liberty Air Museum's "Martha Jean" planning to attend.

[spookythecat]

Add one more B-25...Liberty Air Museum's "Martha Jean" planning to attend.

Can never have too many B-25's. Would be nice if more of 'em flew in the show.

[Dan K]

Airshow schedule now posted.

http://www.airventure.org/news/2012/120 ... shows.html

Good to see Bob O. returning with an F2G.

[spookythecat]

Bummed to see Matt Younkin will only be there a couple days. I was hoping to see his night show again.

Bill Leff is a great addition. Haven't seen him in ages.

Also looking forward to the Texan II demo. That's a powerful little bird!

[Dan K]

If someone gets hold of Zack B., could you ask him to post whether he's planning to host another WIX party or not (and if so, on what day)? I know he's hyper-busy right now, but I need to finalize my July schedule. I've been leaving messages for him but don't know if they're getting through.

Just two weeks to the planet's largest warbird gathering. It saddens me that a handful of you won't be there.

[Mark Allen M]

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.

[k5083]

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.

August

[k5083]

In my last post I wrote:

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.

It occurs to me that in this day and age, there ought to be a network of guys communicating in real time about what is happening on the grounds. Things like "Looks like they're preflighting the P-40C!" or "The Stearman 4E is about to depart" or "A Grumman Goose just splashed down at the seaplane base." Does such a thing exist and, if not, do we have time to set one up? It could be as simple as a list of twitterers who can mutually subscribe to each other's feeds and pledge to tweet what they see going on. Or whatever. It just seems like harnessing the power of social media would make it a lot easier to cover the often unannounced and unscheduled movements around the field.

There is an official text-message alert service somewhat along these lines but it can only cover so much. http://airventure.org/news/2012/120628_textalerts.html.

August

[Mark Allen M]

In my last post I wrote:

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.

It occurs to me that in this day and age, there ought to be a network of guys communicating in real time about what is happening on the grounds. Things like "Looks like they're preflighting the P-40C!" or "The Stearman 4E is about to depart" or "A Grumman Goose just splashed down at the seaplane base." Does such a thing exist and, if not, do we have time to set one up? It could be as simple as a list of twitterers who can mutually subscribe to each other's feeds and pledge to tweet what they see going on. Or whatever. It just seems like harnessing the power of social media would make it a lot easier to cover the often unannounced and unscheduled movements around the field.

There is an official text-message alert service somewhat along these lines but it can only cover so much. http://airventure.org/news/2012/120628_textalerts.html.

August

I would think some sort of alerting system would be outstanding for most of us who simply enjoy watching such events, but I think your proposal would suffer from a double edged sword more times than not. I would imagine there are folks who would not want too many others knowing of a particular warbird's preflight action or activity at first until those same folks completed their photoshoots etc. Not saying all are that way but you know how some of these "photographers" are about their "space" ... and then you add the owners/pilots, groundhandlers and crowd control people to the equation. I would assume all those folks would rather most people at Oshkosh not know about pre-flighting until after taxiing simply to keep from any disturbances. Just a thought.

[k5083]

If it upsets that type of "photographer", that's an additional benefit! 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.

Still, I'd rather keep the network small and serious, because I don't want to read updates about what someone ate at the Warbird Cafe. Maybe the mutual twitter following is best. I'm not even on twitter, but if I can get it working on my blackberry, I'd be willing to join up and tweet what I see if other wixers would do the same.

August