OSH 2021

aggie06 said:
EAA security actually got kind of angry with me on Sunday with my bike. They let me in from the N40 and then when I got to the exhibit areas on my way to vintage, one of the guys got all upset and told me I must have snuck the bike in and that now I have to walk it to where I’m going. Apparently his memo said Saturday was the last day bikes were allowed.
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Must have been the same guy who yelled at me Sunday afternoon
 
Strange question, but for those who fly in for the whole week, how do you feed yourselves? Giant cooler? MRE's for a week? On site vendors?
 
Bill said:
Strange question, but for those who fly in for the whole week, how do you feed yourselves? Giant cooler? MRE's for a week? On site vendors?
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There are many food vendors, like A&W, Chick-Fil-A, Papa Johns, as well as local restaurants in a walkable distance like West End Pizza, Friar Tucks, etc., and there are several temporary markets (convenient stores) set up in the camping areas.
 
2021 Stats Posted
Over 600K attendees, within 5% of 2019, 12,000 combined camping. With the weather, I am guessing lots of planes scooted out Wednesday, as Thursday onwards felt light.
 
mcdewey said:
Neat picture! We were at row 509 (you were 504), so I can see where my tent was by doing some counting. We arrived at 4 pm on Thursday before the show for those who want to get a feel for where you get parked if you arrive then. As I remember, it filled up pretty quickly on Saturday.
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And we arrived Friday (23rd) mid-day and were in row 517, at the west end of the green shower house. The forecast dictated our Friday arrival as we figured by late Saturday/Sunday parking would at least be down by/past the red shower house. I was real surprised when either later Friday/sometime Saturday (I can't remember) they started parking folks on the north side of 27/9. That was fast, even knowing that they were leaving space for the Mass Arrivals between the green and red shower houses.
 
Bill said:
Strange question, but for those who fly in for the whole week, how do you feed yourselves? Giant cooler? MRE's for a week? On site vendors?
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I was in Scholler with a car, but the basic idea was the same. It just meant I could drive more than walk and I could go to Walmart OR Target.

1) room temperature food. This year I favored peanut butter and bagels for breakfast. There are also some really good dried packages in the grocery store - Knorr Sides and various dried soup/chili mixes can be really good or really bad. You boil water and stir.
2) go off property for some meals. Take the bus around to the pedestrian gate and get past Friar Tucks. The more you are willing to walk/Uber, the better you can do. Jeff's on Rugby is a fair distance away, but I think well worth the trip. If you can make it to downtown Oregon st, you have dozens of choices.
3) cooler + Pick-n-Save (bring your Kroger card). Make insulation covers for the coolers out of ventilation/joist insulation duct taped together. Done properly, a good cooler + good insulation can keep ice for several days. I've heard of 7 days, but I'd believe that when I see it.
4) learn where the better food vendors are. I like Sacred Heart outside the main gate by the bus terminal. I know people like SOS Bros too. If I'm forced to eat with a show vendor, I try to eat lighter. Chick-fil-a was there this year.

The only thing you gain for Scholler is the ability to have a wood or charcoal fire. In airport camping you're limited to camp stoves.
 
Bill said:
Strange question, but for those who fly in for the whole week, how do you feed yourselves? Giant cooler? MRE's for a week? On site vendors?
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I brought a cooler full of food and drinks. I had a loaf of my really good sourdough bread and lots of things to put on it. Lots of bottles of soda and a couple of booze. Worked perfectly. Went out to dinner one way or another most nights.
 
luvflyin said:
So how does it work? You leave and come back. You are "...GAC could be N40 or S40..." but you need to get to a particular spot. They wave you to S40 but you need to get to N40. You don't have a pop top.
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The GAC / GAP signs predate the South 40 existing. But the truth of the matter is that the sign ends up being merely a preference. There were times when all GAC was going South, for example. The North side tells the guys on the taxiway (Papa Ops and Vintage) what they're accepting and we send the GA accordingly.
 
Bill said:
Strange question, but for those who fly in for the whole week, how do you feed yourselves? Giant cooler? MRE's for a week? On site vendors?
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We've done it just about every way. Some years we've pretty much eaten the show food (or gone out to dinner) all week. Other times, we bring in food and cook it. Now we're in sort of a hybrid mode: breakfast and coffee at camp, volunteer food for lunch and then whatever the group wants to do for dinner. A few nights preshow we have organized things (brats, fried chicken, lasangna, fajitas, ...).
 
kyleb said:
I took the EAA/Northwestern survey that led to revamping the tram routes. As I commented on the EAA board at the time, the questions didn't do a great job of dealing with the realities of the show, like the tens of thousands of folks who flew in and camped with their aircraft. All of the questions pertained to which parking lot you parked your car in, and where you went on the grounds from there. No consideration to people who were "inside the fence" for most or all of the week. There were several other obvious omissions in their survey, but I don't remember specifics at this point.
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I mostly rode the blue tram this time. At the stop closest to the Hangar Cafe, nobody would get off the tram, so those waiting were getting very frustrated. You could walk a little ways South to the Ultralight area and a lot of people would get off. The other issue is having the Sea Plane bus pick people up at the end of the Blue Tram line. They could reduce congestion on this tram dramatically by moving this pickup point. Overall, I felt the trams were no better and no worse than in years past.

As usual, there were not enough trams. Not sure if this was because they don't have more or lack of volunteers to run them.

The biggest mistake they make in my mind is with the night airshow. It ends at 10PM and I think the trams stop at 8PM. The busses keep running, but they can't begin to keep up with the number of people trying to get back to the South 40.
 
I was in row 510. Also got there Thursday afternoon.
 
For food, I bought a box of hard pretzels to snack on. Otherwise breakfast was Sacred Heart. Other places, Friar Tucks, The Hangar, West End Pizza, Ardy & Eds, The White House (in Butte des Mortes) and once at A&P. Somehow lunch every day turned out to be a chocolate/vanilla swirl ice cream cone.

Edit:
Oops forgot Culvers and Fox River Brewing Company.
 
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mcdewey said:
For food, I bought a box of hard pretzels to snack on. Otherwise breakfast was Sacred Heart. Other places, Friar Tucks, The Hangar, West End Pizza, Ardy & Eds, The White House (in Butte des Mortes) and once at A&P. Somehow lunch every day turned out to be a chocolate/vanilla swirl ice cream cone.

Edit:
Oops forgot Culvers and Fox River Brewing Company.
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I ate corn on the cob everyday
 
I would have thought hookers and blow would be one of the answers. Weird..
 
crash7 said:
After not being able to catch a bus, too tired for the hookers. After a few $9 cheeseburgers and $3.50 drinks, no money left for blow...
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well I'll be ridin' on the bus til I cadillac
 
bcool said:
Maybe it's just me, but it seemed they didn't have their act together with the transportation options (or maybe it was just because we were there from Sat-Tues and they hadn't figured things out yet?
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Like somebody else said above, Friday was equally bad. Then on Saturday after the night show, the camping bus line was stretching far in past the gate. I chose to walk the mile back to our camp site and didn't see a single bus pass me.
 
I went for the day on Tuesday and didn’t spend any money. Where do I turn in my Pilot Certificate? :)
 
Used to go for 4 days. Then went to 3 days. We now cover everything in 2 days. It's great, but 2 days seems to hit the mark.
 
Wish they allowed us to ride bikes closer than the outer gate. Buses/trams are annoying, would much rather ride a bike around.
 
UngaWunga said:
Wish they allowed us to ride bikes closer than the outer gate. Buses/trams are annoying, would much rather ride a bike around.
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I understand what you're saying, but seeing the number of bicycles parked at the gate... I'm glad they don't allow them! It's already crazy watching the golf carts cutting through crowds.
 
I got an email yesterday pointing to a poll about my AirVenture experience. I mentioned the buses issue, but more importantly I mentioned that they needed to bring back the place that had scooped ice cream instead of soft-serve.
 
Another cooler trick is to bring two-one you use for your food and use ice. The other, fill with extra ice to refill the first, and dry ice to keep that ice frozen. The dry ice will keep your extra ice frozen for a long time, especially if you only replenish your food cooler when necessary so the ice cooler stays closed.
 
Omalley1537 said:
Another cooler trick is to bring two-one you use for your food and use ice. The other, fill with extra ice to refill the first, and dry ice to keep that ice frozen. The dry ice will keep your extra ice frozen for a long time, especially if you only replenish your food cooler when necessary so the ice cooler stays closed.
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Cool trick! Now I just need a second airplane to bring in the second cooler, and also a second pilot. :)
 
mcdewey said:
I got an email yesterday pointing to a poll about my AirVenture experience. I mentioned the buses issue, but more importantly I mentioned that they needed to bring back the place that had scooped ice cream instead of soft-serve.
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Hmm, I mentioned that the ice cream I bought was melted.
 
Lowflynjack said:
I understand what you're saying, but seeing the number of bicycles parked at the gate... I'm glad they don't allow them! It's already crazy watching the golf carts cutting through crowds.
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Yeah, they should have much fewer golf carts as well.
 
Omalley1537 said:
Another cooler trick is to bring two-one you use for your food and use ice. The other, fill with extra ice to refill the first, and dry ice to keep that ice frozen. The dry ice will keep your extra ice frozen for a long time, especially if you only replenish your food cooler when necessary so the ice cooler stays closed.
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The ice truck (cart) comes around fairly often. We just tell people around us to fill our cooler and we'll fill theirs, that way we have a better chance of keeping our coolers full. It's $3/bag and worth it!
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
At 11:38 PM, I got a tornado warning alert on my phone.

I had dinner with a meteorologist that evening and he stated that this was all over blown. He gave me his prediction which seemed to be pretty accurate however then the alert came in, I got a little nervous.
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My RAGBRAI instincts kicked in when the severe weather warnings came in, and I rode my bike to the nearest bar - in this case, the one inside the Hilton Hotel, where a hundred or so pilots waited out the storms in safety, in comfort, and well hydrated. :)

- Martin
 
we all were herded into the girls hockey locker room......It was quite an experience. lol :D
 
Martin Pauly said:
My RAGBRAI instincts kicked in when the severe weather warnings came in, and I rode my bike to the nearest bar - in this case, the one inside the Hilton Hotel, where a hundred or so pilots waited out the storms in safety, in comfort, and well hydrated. :)

- Martin
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That sounds crowded. Almost half as crowded as the museum was, and we did not remain adequately hydrated. Smart move. Now for the acronym decoding…

Run Away, Get Beer, Remember to invite Ari If this happens again.
 
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