It had been three years since I went to Oshkosh, and I was getting a hankering to go again. Carl Forman and I had a conversation late last year about how nice it would be to go to Oshkosh and have a bed to sleep in instead of camping under the wing. We tentatively decided to give it a try, but neither of us got around to shopping for a place to stay until about March.

Since we knew, we would have to rent a car, it didn’t really matter if we stayed somewhere outside of Oshkosh. Carl did the phoning to secure a place to stay, and I called around looking for a rental car. Carl found a reasonable place ($79/night all up) in Waupaca, WI, a 40-minute drive from Oshkosh. This isn’t all that bad when you consider that camping under the wing sometimes requires a 30-minute wait for the showers in the morning. I then went to work on a rental car. This was a little more difficult since there are no car rental places in Waupaca, although there is a nice little airport. So, I backed up one more town with an airport to Stevens Point (20 miles west of Waupaca). They had rental cars at the airport at not too bad a price ($50/day with unlimited mileage). The plan was to fly into Stevens Point on Sunday of Oshkosh week, leave the airplane there, and drive to Waupaca. Then drive into Oshkosh and back each day. When leaving, we simply drove back to Stevens Point, dropped the car, and took off.

Not only was this to be an Oshkosh trip with different accommodations than normal, but we only planned to spend two days there instead of the normal four. Carl had a mission – his final shopping spree for avionics for the RV9 he is building. For me, flying there is half the fun, and wandering the flight line and the exhibits is the other half. I’m not into the air show and other stuff, but I did have two specific objectives, which I’ll come to later. So, with the plan in place, we asked Bernie Kepse if he would like to make a quick trip to Oshkosh, and he did. The trip there and back went pretty much according to plan.

I give Oshkosh mixed reviews this year. In spite of what EAA might say about attendance, I found it less crowded than normal. This applies to the people, exhibits, and display aircraft. My mission was to look at the Thatcher and buy a Zulu headset. Here’s how that didn’t go.

On my last trip to Oshkosh in 2006, I came across a gentleman displaying an all-metal single-seat aircraft called a Thatcher CX4 (oddly enough, his name is also Thatcher). It was a pretty little aircraft bearing a striking resemblance to a Chipmunk. (See more at http://www.thatchercx4.com.) There was a really good article on it in EAA Sport Aviation a few months ago.

Thatcher was only selling plans for the aircraft, but one of his early builders has decided to start building and selling some of the components, like ribs, landing gear, etc. I really wanted to see the aircraft again and speak with Thatcher himself. Unfortunately, he did not attend Oshkosh, so that was a failure. Coincidentally, I ran into someone who is building a Thatcher CX4, so we had a good chat about it.

My other objective fell flat too. Of course, there were several avionics dealers there displaying and selling headsets, so I had lots of opportunities to look at the Zulu ANR headset. But to my complete amazement, they were all quoting list price and adamant that they would not sell for less. I also visited the LightSpeed booth, and a factory rep told me they were not allowing their dealers to sell below list, which was $850 US. This ticked me off to the point that I called Calgary Pilot Supply from their booth and got a price quote of $899 CAD. The exchange rate was at 11% at that time, so it was cheaper for me to buy one when I got home, which I did.

Carl, on the other hand, located all the stuff he was interested in getting demos on and considered his shopping trip to be successful. He didn’t buy anything, but by the time we left, he had a firm list of what he was going to order.

Bernie and I spent the second day wandering through the aircraft parking areas. I particularly love the vintage area. There weren’t very many biplanes for us to ogle, but we saw some really nice restorations, which is a highlight for me. The number of aircraft in this area was definitely down from previous years. We saw a particularly stunning WACO QCF-2 restored by Rear Aircraft. It was for sale until I asked the price, definitely a collector’s item. We saw lots of interesting aircraft (see photos). I lusted over many while Bernie gathered ideas on what his next aircraft might be.

Two aircraft arrived ceremoniously while we were there. The first was Virgin Galactic’s White Knight Two, which is the carrier vehicle for the first commercial space flight venture, designed and built by Burt Ruttan. This aircraft spent about 20 minutes flying around demonstrating its maneuverability and grace. I found this really impressive with its dual fuselage design. It looked like an optical illusion.

The second arrival was the Airbus A380 two-story airliner. This was quite a sight. It also spent about 20 minutes flying around doing steep turns, climbing turns, and low passes. It seemed like a graceful whale dancing in the sky. This reminded me of 1969 when I was working in LA and witnessed the first commercial flight of a 747 landing at LAX after flying from New York.

Our Mynarski Lancaster from Hamilton was there. I didn’t see it arrive but gave it a good look over at Shell Aero Square. This is an amazing restoration. I understand they re-engined it this past year. That must have cost a few pennies.

So that was our quick trip to Oshkosh. Vendors seemed fewer than normal, and crowds seemed thinner. But it was still lots of fun.