If you haven’t heard, EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh” for purists) was held at the end of July. And here is where, for the last 50-plus years, we would add the comment “as usual.” But since Oshkosh 2020 was canceled and OSH 2021 was iffy until mid-year, EAA president Jack Pelton noted most succinctly that this year, like last, he was reflecting on the fact that he no longer takes AirVenture for granted – and this pilot/T &T writer agrees. After attending almost every year since 1972, I feel a renewed sense of gratitude. We all lost much to the pandemic – some lost everything. For the band of brothers and sisters who call themselves aviators, the return of fly-ins, pancake breakfasts and conventions like Oshkosh is a homecoming salve for our pilot soul.
Freedom is what EAA is all about.
Freedom is what EAA is all about.
Freedom to create and build, to dream, to fly.
EAA Founder Paul Poberezny
By now, you’ve read more than a few recaps about the EAA gathering. Suffice it to say, Oshkosh is back and EAA membership now tops 258,000. In what has become an unwelcome trend over the last few years, however, a severe thunderstorm hit the field the Saturday before the event. Trees were downed in one of the campsites and by Sunday, many dumpsters were filled with ruined tents. The weather during the rest of the week was the best in years: mostly clear skies, moderate temperatures during the day, followed by cool nights. The daily flybys and airshows were plentiful and spectacular.
This year’s AirVenture was a year of anniversaries: 75th for the USAF and the Beechcraft Bonanza, 50th for Vans aircraft as well as a handful of other early and now famous homebuilt aircraft including Burt Rutan’s VariViggen, 40th for ultralight part 103 (which established regulations for ultralight vehicles marking the beginning of ultralights as we know them), 30th for the Young Eagles program and the 15th for EAA’s WomenVenture. Vans aircraft unveiled the new RV-15, and in celebration of Vans 50th, a few of the days provided multi-plane formations of RVs, which often numbered in the dozens. Of course, there was much talk of new products and innovations, including a replacement fuel for 100LL. And, as usual, Oshkosh provided the perfect venue for the renewal of friendships and the exposure of younglings to the industry.
You are truly home when you find your tribe.
Srividya
I once introduced a young man to aviation. He would say it’s my fault he was bitten by the aviation bug. Flying or maintaining general aviation airplanes never has been a fortune builder. Michael jokingly blames me for getting him hooked on a money-losing career. Who can blame him, though. Aviation has that mystical allure. It also has a high expense-to-pay ratio. When I learned to fly twin-engine airplanes, I was paying 40 times my hourly salary for each hour of flight time. The ratio has become worse since the olden days of the 1970s. When my military and airline career finally led me back home to Michigan, Michael was there and all growed-up (tear in my eye). He was married with children. He had his single and multi-engine ratings and instrument and flight instructor certificates. He was a college graduate and an airframe and powerplant mechanic. He had swallowed it all – hook, line and tie-down chain. It was Michael who exclaimed the significance of Oshkosh the year we missed it because of a cracked engine case in the Duke when he quoted the movie Apollo 13: “We just lost moon.” Such is it with the thousands that attend Oshkosh.
Through EAA, I’ve learned much more about people than I ever have about airplanes.
Paul Poberezny
Last year, we were sitting just off the Oshkosh flight line at the campsite of a fellow retired AA pilot waiting for the night airshow to begin. The picnic table we sat at was one of many available for campers to borrow and transport to campsites. I was shocked that no one but me noticed or recognized the carved signature on the tabletop. I wondered why the table wasn’t across the field in the EAA museum. I took a picture of the signature with my phone and later showed it to another retired AA friend who had known the signatory for decades. They verified its authenticity: it was Paul Poberezny. This year, just as the convention was about to begin, we heard the news of Tom Poberezny (Paul’s son) passing. I’ve been attending Oshkosh since 1972. While I skipped a few years to fly the F-16 and a couple of times for maintenance and weather, it’s been a welcome constant in my life. And over those 50 years, it’s a given that you will lose friends, acquaintances, innovators and supporters along the way. While new friends are made yearly at Oshkosh, it’s never easy to lose old ones to age, illness or retirement; such as it is with Senator Inhofe.
After 35 years in congress, aviation friend and supporter senator Jim Inhofe, (R) Oklahoma, made his final trip to Oshkosh as a U.S. senator. He relayed the two aspects of AirVenture that he enjoys the most: the people he’s known all of his life that he only sees once a year, claiming, “It’s the most enjoyable thing I do every year,” and second, the support he is able to gather for aviation-related legislation. Among the legislative goals he sees remaining is the transition to unleaded avgas. Senator Inhofe’s legislative support and constant involvement in aviation will be sorely missed – as was Burt Rutan several years ago.
Usually, the wacky people have breakthroughs.
The ‘smart’ people don’t.
Burt Rutan
In the early 1980s, I was an F-16 crew chief for a test squadron at Edwards AFB. The first time I met Burt Rutan was at the Mojave airport which was only a stone’s throw away from Edwards. Well, after the 30-minute drive just to get off base followed by another 30 minutes to Mojave, that is. Burt was wearing latex gloves, holding a paper cup of goop in one hand, and a wooden stir-stick in the other. The aroma of epoxy filled the room. His dark, mutton chop sideburns were instantly recognizable. Outside the hangar that day was a boat-of-a-car. I don’t remember the model, but it was big – maybe because my ’76 Honda Civic looked so small parked next to it.
The license plate on the boat-of-a-car said something like Eze-1. On the ramp side of the hangar, resting on sawhorses, sat a VariEze wing piled with sandbags used for stress
testing. I had met him in the early 70s at Oshkosh as he was beginning his rise to fame with his VW-powered VariViggen and the original VariEze. The rest of his career is now world famous. My military career took me away from the EAA for a while, so it was good to soak in the feeling at Mojave. There are many such innovators and inventions on display at EAA’s annual gathering. Some of them will fade away, but some will go on to change the aviation world. It’s amazing to watch the transition from what is often called wacky when first introduced to a new normal for a component, system or procedure.
Airplanes bring us together, but friendship keeps us together.
Paul Poberezny
Have you ever created something from nothing: comedy, music, literature, a painting or sculpture? Something functional, maybe like a piece of furniture, birdhouse or even an airplane? Something from your mind, an original idea, like John Nash’s Nobel Prize-winning odyssey in governing dynamics: Equilibrium. Do you recall the most difficult part of those original idea projects? For me, it was trying to decide what to write or what to make, thinking of a concept and getting started – the beginning. Airframes and airfoils, powerplants, avionics, instrument approaches, aerobatics, construction materials and techniques, flying songs, poems, stories and manuals – all these things at one time were nothing. They did not exist. Someone at some point said to themselves: “I wonder what would happen if…” Then they performed the first outside loop and the Lomcovak, or made an airplane out of molded foam and fiberglass, or flew an approach without any outside visual references.
Someone made an airplane out of cloth and someone discovered how to weld aluminum. Someone soldered components that had never been soldered together before…and that was the beginning. The ability to transfer fuel in-flight from one airplane to another was developed. Someone figured out that you could design a spaceship that can re-enter the atmosphere based on the drag characteristics of a badminton birdie instead of a flaming meteor. An airplane was flown on instruments for the first time, and an author wrote a masterpiece about a seagull named Jonathon Livingston.
Creating something from nothing: the beginning. That’s a very difficult place to be. Once you pass the beginning, often the rest of the project is simply busy work, making the picture in your mind become a material thing – doing the research, testing, problem-solving, trial-and-error and, heaven forbid, the editing. We often take so much for granted. Oshkosh reminds us how much work and how many smart, courageous people went before us and got us to where we are today.
I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The left engine, cylinder #5 in the Duke swallowed an intake valve in June, so it’s out of commission for a while. The in-flight failure was mostly uneventful except for an extremely delayed response from ARFF (more on this in an upcoming T &T). While the Duke gets fixed, I’m grateful to have the Part 135 gig to release my mind from the tyranny of petty things. As I finish this article from the “breezeway” of my tent at Oshkosh, B-17s and B-25s flying laps overhead, I’m already looking forward to next year. We need to be grateful for the events, innovators and legislators supporting our passion for aviation. I know that I am. And after a week of camping at Oshkosh, I’ll also be grateful for a real shower and bed.
