How Was The Trip Home?

weirdjim

weirdjim

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weirdjim
OK, gang, for those of us watching the webcam this morning with drool coming out both sides of our mouth equally, how was your trip home?

Jim
 
Mine was good.

Heading towards the north east we had to re-cross the cold front that passed through OSH yesterday and busted my tent! We had to keep an eye on buildups the whole way home, but it all worked out decently.
Shot the GPS-A approach to a few hundred feet above minimums to drop Justin off, then headed to home base, which was a bit better after getting up through the layer and beyond an area of light to moderate precip.

All in all a great time!
 
I left on Friday. The departure was easy from vintage parking with a quick takeoff on 36L, right turn to 150 heading, and off we went (a coworker's son was passenger on this flight). We landed in Milwaukee (KMWC) and had lunch with Moxie and Marty Burian. I had a great time (how can one not with that group?) and gave Marty an Aztec ride before my flight back to Williamsport. Filed for 11,000 direct and got it. A visual approach back home and we were good.

I had a great time getting to see everyone, and am just sorry I didn't get to spend more time with some others I wanted to see. Hopefully next year!
 
We're home, safe & sound (Sunday afternoon), after 7 wonderful days camped next to Atlas, our Pathfinder. Mary flew home, an uneventful 2 hour flight up at 8500 feet, in the smooth, cool air.

Our Saturday fly-in pool party was a terrific success, we led a flight of 9 aircraft into OSH '09 on Sunday -- the most ever -- and our Wednesday night N40 party was well-attended and great fun!

In between, we scored another pair of Zulus, updated all the databases on the 496 (we came THIS close to picking up a 696, but the AirGizmo panel dock is 1/4" too big for my right side radio stack, dammit), and purchased all sorts of cool goodies for the hotel decor.

A truly wonderful week! More on it later...I'm beat!
 
Just went for Saturday. Was given a tour of the OSH tower by the chief, who is a friend of mine. It became VERY clear as I was up there that this was a MOST unusual honor.

Very professional team working very smoothy. My host is retiring this year, it was go or never experience it.

Thank you, Dave. Whatta View!
 

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We completed the drive at about 3:30PM. I was tired so Leslie drove half the way, after Pete helped us break camp. It looked so empty without the Taj Mahal standing there proudly! We came home planning to have the Mustard and Rosemary Lamb Chops with wild mushroom risotto that were planned for Friday, but found that the lamb had gone off, so we had to replace them. We have decided that the Pick-N-Save is good enough that we can rely on it for most of the items we'll need on a regular basis at OSH, so we won't pack them in with us next time.

For those who were asking, the cookbook Leslie was using for many of the recipes is:
Campfire Cuisine: Gourmet Recipes for the Great Outdoors by Robin Donovan.
The recipes Leslie made included:
homemade blueberry pancakes
California grilled cheese sandwiches with artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives
barbecued Peking duck wraps
Orange Herb Salmon
Goat cheese quesadillas with tomato and corn salsa and grilled shrimp
vegetable couscous
cucumber salad
Mediterranean breakfast wrap

Not from that cookbook were:
vegetarian chili
jambalaya
four-bean baked beans
french toast
Mediterranean scrambled eggs
and a few other things.
 
The flight was good. Departed ~10:30AM (Eastern) on Wednesday, stopped in Aurora, IL for fuel and a weather update.

There was widespread IFR, precip, and some convection across the southern end of Illinois and Indiana that stretched well into KY. There was also convective stuff SW of Atlanta, which was bad because we were headed to the NW corner of Atl.

So we headed south anyway and the nasty stuff had dispersed enough that we picked our way through at 8,500' with a little help from Flightwatch and landed at VPC about 3 hours after leaving Aurora.

In essence, it was the same situation we'd faced going to the show on Sunday, only with us headed the opposite direction.
 
Clear skies and tail winds all the way. Most memorable event was the near miss of a VIP TFR over Chicago. Stopped at Valpariso Indiana for discount fuel and lunch for my buddy (no burgers for yours truly) and we were back by late afternoon. It took an hour to get out of Oshkosh, but I have to say it was the most entertaining hour of the whole trip. My compliments to the Oshkosh controllers, they were amazing.
 
My trip home was nice, although it was just to KMSN via KFLD (visit the parents). Departure was pretty sweet as I was lined up on the orange dot right next yo a nice T-6. Got to follow him out of OSH.
 
Flew in/out of KFLD on Friday, and took the shuttle bus to OSH. Took my 4 yr old to the show, so no camping for us yet... maybe next year.

For those looking for an easy/flexible way to get in/out of the show on the same day, KFLD is a great alternative.

It was a beautiful day and evening, and a quick trip back to 3CK from FLD. Listened to OSH tower for most of the way home... and heard a poor guy in a Centurion who arrived after OSH tower closed. He pleaded his case (he had a reservation at the Hilton) but OSH tower would not even respond. He ended up diverting/landing at FLD.
 
We had a great trip back. I had filed IFR with a confirmed slot time for Friday morning. We had to return to the Philly area for a wedding on Saturday so we had to leave a little early. I received my clearance but was delayed on the engine start due to Milwaukee not wanting to take any more IFR traffic. After 40 minutes of not being allowed to start, I asked clearance delivery to keep my flight plan open and I'd depart VFR and pick up my IFR approach Muskegon. That worked out perfectly and there was not even a 1 second delay departing VFR on Friday morning. Granted the weather was only marginally VFR with some drizzle, but we departed and east of the small lake began a climb to 7500. I called up Muskegon 40 NW of MKG, received my clearance to Ashtabula OH and all was well. Majority of the first leg was IMC and flew the Ashtabula to Wings leg VFR dodging clouds the quick 2 hour flight home from there. Had a great tail wind and was seeing ground speeds of 140 knots from time to time. I'm writing up a blog entry now for the whole trip and will post a link when complete. We had a great time, just wished we could have met up with the Schoeller Gang for dinner. Next Year!
 
nyoung said:
Listened to OSH tower for most of the way home... and heard a poor guy in a Centurion who arrived after OSH tower closed. He pleaded his case (he had a reservation at the Hilton) but OSH tower would not even respond. He ended up diverting/landing at FLD.
Click to expand...

One year I was listening when the EAA photo plane was turned away from the field at 8:01 PM. It was hilarious/sad. I presume he spent the night in FLD.

What I don't understand is why they close the field at 8 PM instead of 9 PM. It's still light outside, and no one has toddled off to bed while the sun is still up. At the other end of the spectrum, they allow departures starting at 6 AM -- a time of day when I would prefer to be snoozing, especially after all the late-nights spent with old friends in OSH. I'd prefer them to push departures back to a more civilized 7 AM.

Maybe we can get a petition started, advocating moving the airport hours back 1 hour?
 
Yeah - a 1 hr shift would make sense to me. Having said that - we all know that in the summer, starting a flying day early can be a really good idea to avoid buildups. So perhaps that is part of the motivation.




Jay Honeck said:
What I don't understand is why they close the field at 8 PM instead of 9 PM. It's still light outside, and no one has toddled off to bed while the sun is still up. At the other end of the spectrum, they allow departures starting at 6 AM -- a time of day when I would prefer to be snoozing, especially after all the late-nights spent with old friends in OSH. I'd prefer them to push departures back to a more civilized 7 AM.

Maybe we can get a petition started, advocating moving the airport hours back 1 hour?
Click to expand...
 
Jay, I don't disagree at all. That said, it really wouldn't matter what time the field closed there would be someone trying to get in 2 minutes late. Still, keeping the field open another hour or even half hour does seem like a good idea.

-Jon
 
Heard a guy with engine troubles land on a road on the way back as well. I think he made it OK.
 
Do you think the early close time is really necessary to keep aircraft from taxiing closer to dark. They'll still have an hour to get where they are going (on the ground), repositioned, and tent(s) setup. Just thinking it may not be the airborne portion they are concerned about and more so, the folks licquored up walking around spinnin' props.
 
Opening the field at 6am is a little annoying if you had half a bottle of Crown, and some horrid Everclear/Gatorade/Red Bull concoction the night before, but it is kinda cool to be woken up by a pair of P-51s taking off in formation :D
 
The drive home (60 miles) at midnight Saturday... sucked.
 
OtisAir said:
Do you think the early close time is really necessary to keep aircraft from taxiing closer to dark. They'll still have an hour to get where they are going (on the ground), repositioned, and tent(s) setup. Just thinking it may not be the airborne portion they are concerned about and more so, the folks licquored up walking around spinnin' props.
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:yes:
 
vontresc said:
Opening the field at 6am is a little annoying if you had half a bottle of Crown, and some horrid Everclear/Gatorade/Red Bull concoction the night before, but it is kinda cool to be woken up by a pair of P-51s taking off in formation :D
Click to expand...

Sounds familiar... :D
 
Jay Honeck said:
Yeah, well, that was revenge for those God-awful gin & tonics (really just gin and...gins!) that your wife made me drink. Uff-da...

:p
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Well, I brought plenty of good beer, so you didn't have to drink the gin:drink:! (Of course, I think you were well into it by the time I got there!:D)
 
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