Jay Honeck
Touchdown! Greaser!
Several groups who attend OSH annually store their camping/party gear in/at OSH. The "Women Fly" group does this. Others do, too.
After three decades of attendance, I am finally pursuing this option, since our party needs never seem to be fully met, no matter how much crap we can fit inside Atlas... :wink2: The idea of being able to just hop in the plane and GO, packing nothing but our clothes, is very appealing.
Rather than renting a "boat barn", a group of us are working together to purchase a covered trailer, similar to U-Haul's smallest. One of our group (actually, all of us are former Rec.Aviation regulars) is a farmer in Wisconsin, and has offered to let us store the trailer in one of his barns for the 51 weeks per year that it won't be needed.
My questions revolve around how to handle that 52nd week. We will store all of our camping and party paraphernalia inside said trailer, which will be water- and critter-proof, of course. Our gear will be clearly labeled, so everyone knows who's-is what's-is.
We're all good with this, thus far.
Here's where things get fuzzy. Our friend tows the trailer to Airventure on the Sunday before the show, and we somehow meet up with him after landing and schlep our camping gear onto the North 40 from...wherever he's able to park. The Hardee's parking lot across from the opening in the N40 fence is our working plan, for now.
(Actually, this year we were able to drive our party gear out onto the field without difficulty, but this year was weird in many ways. Security was at its lowest level, yet, in an attempt to make life easier for all the campers who were "squatting" on any piece of dry/high ground they found -- so we can't count on being able to drive-on every year.)
This all works great, IF we all arrive at the same time. However, our group is made up of pilots from CA, OH, MN, and TX. This guarantees a staggered arrival time at OSH.
Obviously we can't keep the trailer in the Hardee's lot all week. Our thoughts range from "tucking it in a corner of the Red Lot" -- and forgetting about it for a week -- to trying to park it in the CAP area (two of us are CAP officers) -- to parking it in the old Wal-Mart parking lot (that EAA used for motorhome parking this year). Of course, this means that any late-comers will have to hike over to the Red Lot (or wherever) to get their camping gear -- not an optimal solution.
We're trying to minimize the "ground support" effort involved, since we don't want our friend having to move the stupid thing all over Wittman Field throughout the week to accommodate staggered arrivals.
Is anyone on P of A already doing this? Anyone out there storing their OSH stuff IN Oshkosh year-round? If so, how do you get your stuff from storage onto the field?
Thanks!
After three decades of attendance, I am finally pursuing this option, since our party needs never seem to be fully met, no matter how much crap we can fit inside Atlas... :wink2: The idea of being able to just hop in the plane and GO, packing nothing but our clothes, is very appealing.
Rather than renting a "boat barn", a group of us are working together to purchase a covered trailer, similar to U-Haul's smallest. One of our group (actually, all of us are former Rec.Aviation regulars) is a farmer in Wisconsin, and has offered to let us store the trailer in one of his barns for the 51 weeks per year that it won't be needed.
My questions revolve around how to handle that 52nd week. We will store all of our camping and party paraphernalia inside said trailer, which will be water- and critter-proof, of course. Our gear will be clearly labeled, so everyone knows who's-is what's-is.
We're all good with this, thus far.
Here's where things get fuzzy. Our friend tows the trailer to Airventure on the Sunday before the show, and we somehow meet up with him after landing and schlep our camping gear onto the North 40 from...wherever he's able to park. The Hardee's parking lot across from the opening in the N40 fence is our working plan, for now.
(Actually, this year we were able to drive our party gear out onto the field without difficulty, but this year was weird in many ways. Security was at its lowest level, yet, in an attempt to make life easier for all the campers who were "squatting" on any piece of dry/high ground they found -- so we can't count on being able to drive-on every year.)
This all works great, IF we all arrive at the same time. However, our group is made up of pilots from CA, OH, MN, and TX. This guarantees a staggered arrival time at OSH.
Obviously we can't keep the trailer in the Hardee's lot all week. Our thoughts range from "tucking it in a corner of the Red Lot" -- and forgetting about it for a week -- to trying to park it in the CAP area (two of us are CAP officers) -- to parking it in the old Wal-Mart parking lot (that EAA used for motorhome parking this year). Of course, this means that any late-comers will have to hike over to the Red Lot (or wherever) to get their camping gear -- not an optimal solution.
We're trying to minimize the "ground support" effort involved, since we don't want our friend having to move the stupid thing all over Wittman Field throughout the week to accommodate staggered arrivals.
Is anyone on P of A already doing this? Anyone out there storing their OSH stuff IN Oshkosh year-round? If so, how do you get your stuff from storage onto the field?
Thanks!