As in life, the journey (to Airventure Oshkosh) is just as important as the destination.
Like many others, Airventure Oshkosh is an annual family reunion based around airplanes, aviation, and all things of the sort.
Growing up in suburban Chicago, the flight or drive up to Oshkosh is close as things go. My earliest memory of attending the air show was getting ice cream on a hot afternoon with my dad at age 7, watching the airplanes fly overhead under the shade of a small tree.
With the passage of time, trees have gotten bigger, but there’s still quite a bit of sun as it’s an airport first that becomes a city within a convention for one week a year.
Thousands of pilots fly into Oshkosh for the annual convention and air show, necessitating an orderly process for airplanes to safely approach and land at Whitman Field.
The approach itself is subject to a multipage publication revised each year for the convention. It rivals procedures in place for airports like O’Hare and Los Angeles for their size and complexity. Considering the aircraft flying into hubs like ORD and LAX are on IFR flight plans and flown by Commercial and ATP-rated pilots trained to higher standards as part of their livelihood, it’s understandable the orderly manner flights usually fly into and out of those airports as a normal course of the day.
Flying into Oshkosh is many pilots’ dream; landing on a colored dot with the controller’s ‘welcome to Oshkosh’ after each arrival is a heartwarming gesture of warmth intermixed with the professionalism of the controllers that vie for the requested position each year.
Increasing arrivals with the standardization of procedures is nothing new; how the process is put in place for Oshkosh is what makes it stand out.
Arriving at Fisk, airplanes are told to rock wings by a controller sitting on the ground and directed to which arrival they will be using; use of radios is extremely limited due to the volume of aircraft.
In recent years, holding points have been added for higher volume times due to summer weather constraints.
I was 13, the first year Dad and I flew Sis into Oshkosh. Deemed old enough to help look for traffic, Dad felt it was time to land on a dot.
Sis is a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza model 35, one of the first 1000 off the assembly line. For all intents and purposes, she is my big sister as I have grown up flying with her and now am her caretaker.
Coming in from over the lake and landing to the west on runway 27 we were cleared for the first dot (now orange, not sure if it was then), then taxiing by the show center featuring the Concorde that year before taxing down to vintage to park.
I have landed on a dot both with Dad and as PIC over the years; having multiple sets of eyes and patience with the process are both necessary (in addition to lots of fuel for contingencies) to complete the arrival.
The idea of landing on a dot doesn’t end with the annual air show; during a night cross country while working towards my multiengine commercial rating, I had been cleared to land on runway 9; my instructor asked the control to clear us onto a dot instead. The controller, without missing a beat, cleared me to land on or before the white dot.
My trek to Airventure will be on the ground this year, but Sis and I plan to land on a dot again.
The restorer has also flown into Oshkosh using the NORDO (no radio) arrival procedure. Per the procedure, he landed at Dodge County Airport and called the tower on the telephone. They told him to fly to a specified place on the shore of Lake Winnebago to wait for a light gun signal.
If green, proceed to runway 18L, the taxiway converted to a runway adjacent to runway 18 (18R for Airventure). Pay no mind to the aircraft landing abeam on the adjacent runway. If red, return to Dodge County for further instructions.
On that day, the restorer in his clipped-wing cub received the green light and was cleared into Airventure – while not landing on a dot; he was able to choose his spot and land long as there was a significant taxi to the south end of the runway where he was able to join the taxi into parking.
This year’s dots have been repainted, and airplanes have begun to arrive ahead of the official start. The airport that becomes a city is starting to rise from memories of years past for another year of camaraderie and airplane noise.
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