This month’s issue of Skywriter is a little late, but I do have a great excuse…

OSHKOSH!

After returning from Oshkosh last summer, my wingman, Steve Whitenect, and I started talking about AirVenture 06. We had such a great time taking in the sights and sounds of aviation’s greatest event that we just had to return. Unfortunately, Steve sold his airplane to one of our members at the end of August 2005. That didn’t faze Steve. He also had a Murphy Rebel under construction that he finished in June of 2006. He completed his 25-hour flight test period on the 17th of July, which left him less than a week to prepare for the flight to Oshkosh! With the additional payload that the Rebel offered, Steve planned to take a fellow Rebel builder, Gilbert Tessier, to help share the costs.

Of course, I would be taking my faithful steed, Chrissy, the Franklin-powered Christavia MK 1. This year was to be even more special as Dad and his brother were planning on driving to Oshkosh from Halifax. Dad was on the prowl for an engine for his Murphy Rebel, and my uncle was looking for a project to start. Unfortunately, my uncle pulled a back muscle in June and was out for the count. Dad and I talked about how we could get him to Oshkosh, and we finally decided that he should fly to Calgary, and we would drive to Oshkosh with the truck and camper. I was a bit disappointed that we wouldn’t be flying, but there was no way to carry Dad, fuel, camping gear, and my trim body in the plane and still stay under gross.

Fortunately, I attended the EAA 1410-chapter meeting in High River and discovered that there was a group of guys heading to Oshkosh, and several were driving. I checked with Jack Dueck, the chapter president, and he agreed to haul the heaviest of the gear to Oshkosh for us in his fifth wheel. Suddenly, we had everything we needed for a father/son flight to Oshkosh!!!

Steve and I decided that we would leave on Friday morning, July 21, and meet at Kindersley, our first refueling stop. Dad had arrived the previous Tuesday, so by 6 AM Friday, we were packed, fueled, and ready to fly! With a light tailwind, we arrived in Kindersley in about 2 hours. We picked up Steve on the radio about an hour back from Kindersley, and we arrived there about five minutes apart. Last year, Steve and I were pretty closely matched in speed and endurance. This year, Steve could easily outrun me by a margin of 30 mph or more. His endurance was also about twice mine, especially when he reduced power to 2300 RPM to match my 95-mph cruise. Despite all that, our bladders and butts still have a 2-hour endurance, making the Rebel and Christavia good travel partners. I would try and get in the air first and let Steve catch up. Steve would then scoot ahead of me when we arrived at our destination.

At Regina, our second stop, we filed a flight plan and checked in with US Customs to arrange our border crossing. While Steve was relaying my birth date to the customs guy, they finally realized that it was my birthday! We planned to make our first landing in the US at Minot, North Dakota, but we were a little worried about making the +/- 15-minute arrival time given the 200-mile stretch we had to fly. The Customs officer was very friendly and said that he was good as long as we updated FSS with our ETA and we were within an hour of our arrival ETA. Off we went with instructions to get a discreet transponder code from the US FSS before crossing the border. That sounded simple enough but proved to be quite a challenge!

We tried to raise FSS on the radio about 30 miles from the border but had no luck. We were getting closer and closer to the border and still had no transponder code. We were trying every frequency we could find. I ended up making a couple of 360-degree turns climbing from 6500’ to 8500’ where I finally got through to FSS and got my code. I’m sure that must have looked suspicious to anyone monitoring our flight on radar! The customs guy turned out to be as friendly in person as he was on the phone, especially when he found out that Dad and he shared the same birthday.

After clearing customs, we were on our way to our overnight stop in Grand Forks. Just before landing at GFK, we had to pass over the Grand Forks AFB. That afternoon, the AFB had been the site of an airshow. We had a great view of the ramp as we flew over, which was covered with the latest in military hardware and airshow birds. We were met in GFK by one of the friendliest controllers of our flight. I think he was actually trying to hitch a ride to Oshkosh with us. After 8+ hours of flying, it was great to relax at the Ramada for the night.

With 700 nm of our 1150 nm trip under our belts, we decided on sacrificing a little time to enjoy a cooked breakfast the next morning. While packing the planes, I noticed a rescue truck heading my way. The uniformed driver got out and inquired whether I was the plane’s owner. “Hmmm, this can’t be good,” I thought. It turned out that the driver was also a pilot and was halfway through building a Christavia of his own! We had a nice chat before heading out.

We got in the air about 9 AM and refueled at Longville, Minnesota, where we met a nice guy with a beautiful Husky on amphibious floats. We got into Hayward, Wisconsin, at around noon and borrowed the airport car to grab lunch in town. When we checked the weather on our return to the field, we found that the Oshkosh TAF was calling for severe thunderstorms at our predicted ETA. We made a couple of calls and found another Ramada with rooms available for the night. We spent a nice afternoon in the pool and hot tub telling lies about hunting, camping, fishing, and flying. After a nice supper, we hit the hay for a late morning departure.

The next morning, we arrived near Ripon (the first waypoint for the VFR arrival procedure) at around 11:00 to find that the hold patterns at both 1800′ and 2300′ were full. Steve and I were in formation as we approached, and I started to hold over a point on the ground as stated in the NOTAM. After one turn listening to the chatter on the approach frequency, we discovered two things. First, aircraft had been in the hold for almost 2 hours, and second, the pilots were completely out of patience. The frequency that was supposed to be reserved for Fiske control had been taken over by angry pilots yelling at one another! By the time we arrived, the controllers were trying desperately to empty the hold, but the pilots were just not cooperating. This forced the controllers to wave off aircraft back into the hold. We heard a couple of pilots call for immediate landings due to critical fuel conditions.

Steve pulled ahead of me in the Rebel and started heading north away from Green Lake, and we followed. We landed at a small airport called Waupaca, about 35 miles north of Ripon, where we found another 4 Canadian aircraft and about a dozen American aircraft waiting out the mess. We found out that there was a fatal crash at about 9:30 AM on the approach to 27 that had closed the entire airport. We waited for about 2-3 hours enjoying the hospitality of our hosts in their air-conditioned terminal and ordered a feed of pizza. We kept in contact with Oshkosh ATC using the NORDO aircraft phone number in the NOTAM. This proved quite effective, and when we finally made our second attempt, we had no problems at all. Talking with seasoned pilots at Oshkosh suggested that the conditions in the hold Sunday morning were the worst ever experienced at Oshkosh. I later talked to one of the FAA controllers (a 10-year veteran), and he also confirmed this opinion. The one suggestion we made was that the ATIS should have been updated describing the situation. This would have given pilots approaching Ripon the information they needed to make the decision to divert somewhere else.

Finally, we landed at OSHKOSH! Dad was completely overwhelmed by the sight! Who wouldn’t be with up to 10,000 planes on the field at any given time! We set up camp and contacted Jack Dueck. Jack was fortunate enough to have been issued a golf cart for transportation around the field and was able to run our gear over for us.

The week at Oshkosh was overwhelming. We were kept busy at building seminars and looking over all the new toys at the exhibition halls. Dad bought a new David Clark ANR headset to make his trip home a bit more comfortable. I bought a second Temperfoam seat cushion for the rear seat like I got for the front last year.

Dad was a little disappointed since his Hurricane didn’t show up. Dad hauled the Hurricane off of a bog in Newfoundland in 1972. It has been restored by its new owners, the Lone Star Museum of Galveston, TX. The plane is flying and has about 10 hrs on it. However, it has been disassembled for painting, which will be finished by the end of the year. We did have a great chat with the head of the museum and the director of maintenance. They had brought in their Corsair and B-17. We got to tour the B-17 and had a great visit. It was really neat to see how these guys hung on to Dad’s every word as he described the original recovery of the plane.

It was HOT throughout the week with temperatures in the 30s almost every day and humidity near 100%. Unfortunately, this spawned thunderstorms most evenings, but our new, lightweight MEC tent kept us quite dry. Granted, placing the tent under the wing and draping a tarp over the wing certainly helped keep us dry. Many of the Cessnas at Oshkosh this year were sporting a lightweight tarp that stretched over the wing to form a tent. The neat part was the phrase printed on the tarp “Reason # 23 to own a Cessna”! I have to find out where to get one of those!!!

The High River EAA Chapter 1410 underwrote the cost of bringing in the Lancaster from Hamilton, Ontario, to Oshkosh, which arrived on Wednesday afternoon. We had a great time visiting with the pilots. I helped out in the Lancaster booth on Wednesday afternoon collecting donations to recoup our costs. The overall project was a success, and everyone enjoyed the sight of the big bombers flying in the airshow. It’s surprising just how much bigger the Lancaster is over the B-17 and B-24 it flew with.

Before too long, it was time to head home. Dad had to catch a flight back to Newfoundland on Tuesday morning. Accounting for possible weather meant we had to leave Friday morning. We were packed and ready to leave at 6 AM, firing up as soon as we were allowed. Just like last year, we were up before the EAA marshals were out. With no wind, we decided to taxi to the end of 18R simply because it was the closest runway to where we camped. A quick call to the south tower and we were given a clearance for a formation take-off. Without the pressure we had during our arrival, we were able to enjoy the sight of Oshkosh spread out below us as we departed. Steve quickly formed up as we continued south out of the control zone before heading west. Since arrivals are not permitted before 8 AM, we climbed out to 3500’ and crossed directly over Ripon before turning back on course.

Our first leg to Hayward found us with a 10-15 mph headwind extending this leg to the longest I’d ever flown in Chrissy… 2:44! We filled both our planes and our tummies before heading out on the next two legs that would take us to Grand Forks. Dad and Gil switched up seats for these legs so that Dad could try out the Rebel on wheels. Once again, we battled headwinds along with high temperatures, arriving in Grand Forks in the early afternoon. Interestingly enough, the plane parked right next to us on the ramp was the Calgary Flying Club’s Piper Arrow!

After checking the weather, it was obvious that we would be spending the night in Grand Forks again. Fortunately, there was space at the inn again, and we had a comfortable evening debriefing the day’s flight.

Saturday morning looked better, except for some low stuff and showers between the US border and Regina. We were looking at a 200-mile leg from Minot to Regina with predicted marginal VFR weather. I was worried about having to land in Canada before clearing customs in Regina. We decided to change our return flight path to go through International Peace Gardens to clear customs. This turned out to be a very good plan. We had a beautiful morning flight and even had a nice little tailwind. The only problem we had was some confusion around our flight plan. Flight Services had our flight plan, but the departure controller did not. This prompted a couple of condescending remarks from the departure controller until she found out that I had filed a flight plan, and that Flight Services had activated it. Finally, she gave us a discreet transponder code for our border crossing.

The customs guy was friendly and cleared us quickly, which gave us time to get an updated weather briefing. It was still not that great but VFR. Fuel is not available at International Peace, so we decided to stop at Deloraine, Manitoba, for fuel. After a few phone calls, we got one of the local club members to meet us there. This was our cheapest fuel stop in Canada at $1.25 per liter. The flight to Regina was mostly uneventful until we got about 70 miles back. The engine suddenly went rough. I immediately pulled on the carb heat and went full rich on the mixture. After about two minutes, everything smoothed out. It was most likely carb ice as we were around 10-15 degrees and very moist.

After lunch, we checked with Flight Services. They were calling for light CBs out of Regina but clear VFR all the way to Kindersley. However, the forecast from Kindersley back to Calgary was downright scary! An upper trough was forecasted just west of the Alberta border with real nasty weather associated with it: towering CU’s and CBs with tops to 42000’! Steve decided to take his leave of us and head directly back to Edmonton. I decided to head to Kindersley and get another forecast. Worst case, we would spend the night in the little terminal there. We filed a flight plan through to Bishells’ with a one-hour stop in Kindersley.

We took off in 25 kts of wind and followed Steve out. Despite the high winds and nearby CBs, we witnessed a student pilot as he performed his very first solo flight. Wow, what memories that brought back. As we got about 20 miles away from Regina, we entered clear blue skies. Before landing in Kindersley, we took a good look to the west and saw… nothing! No CBs or no TCUs, just clear blue skies! We made a quick fuel stop and pointed our nose for home. We passed the border and still had clear skies. We finally saw a CB on the horizon ahead as we came up to Hanna. While passing Hanna, I made a traffic advisory on 123.2. In response, I heard the faint but familiar voice of Mike Sweere! He and Glen were just departing Carstairs for Linden. I got a quick weather update and decided to continue on.

As we passed Drumheller, we picked up a 25-mph tailwind push, but we were right under the south edge of a HUGE CB. Rain was heavy less than 10 miles north. Once we had Carstairs in sight, we made a call to FSS to close our flight plan. We were told that the CB had produced golf ball-sized hail and funnel clouds in the Olds/Didsbury area! We gave them an accurate PIREP describing the extents of the CB. The storm was only about 5 miles north of Glenn’s place, so I decided to attempt the approach, but I was ready to head out of there at the first sign of turbulence. Fortunately, the landing was uneventful, and we got the plane put away before the rain started.

For me, it was the trip of a lifetime. Gil, Steve, and Dad were great travel partners. We logged about 30 hours of airtime over the 8-day trip. I would definitely like to return next year, but I might truck it down with my wife and spend a couple of days volunteering rather than just participating. Time will tell.