BONANZAS TO OSHKOSH

Review of 2005
A Week of Excitement

Each year brings its own surprises and rewards.  This year was no exception.  We had the largest formation since the record breaking year, the best parties, the best raffle, the most notable AirVenture experience and the longest duration, most severe thunderstorm I can remember.

Once again training sessions were held around the country in Massachusetts, New York, Texas, Indiana, California and Oregon.  Weather played a significant role.  The New Bedford regional was cancelled twice.  The third try required arrival in low IFR conditions, but weather lifted following the briefing.  North Carolina was cancelled because of weather, but anyone needing training there was handled on an individual basis.  The Advanced Texas Seminar had to cancel most of the FFI qualification flights and all the flying the last day because of low ceilings.

Early arrivals Thursday at Rockford, our rendezvous site, did the initial preparation work.  Nothing happens without advance preparation.  Scott Thomas had already ordered the beer, hamburgers, and buns before our arrival.  Scott and Mike Sealey did the bulk of the early shopping Thursday buying hundreds of dollars worth of the fresh food supplies and beverages.  Early Friday the kitchen at Emery Air was a beehive of activity with Mike Mangum, Kathrynn Valdez, Ann & Larry Goldfield, Roz & Bob Weinstein, Jesse and Bob Siegfried II, Thelma Jean and Reinhold Siegfried, Paul Carroll, Gwen and Art Brock and I slicing and dicing what seemed like a ton of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, basil and cheeses, heating up the baked beans and setting up serving trays.  At the same time final shopping for the hamburgers, beer and other necessities was underway.  Paul Carroll and Ken MacDonald found time to get pizzas for lunch for the working crew.   By early afternoon the first crew of volunteers for shirts and caps (Mike Mangum and Kathrynn Valdez, Bob Weinstein, Jerry Winchester and Erika Wiebener) had sorted the shirts by size and organized the delivery process.

Yes, the day was hot and humid, but not as bad as some.  The support staff at Emery Air led by Matt Spinello did a great advance job of emptying out their hangar and arranging tables, chairs and banners, obtaining ice and helping out in every way they could.  The hangar environment was great and the party a great success.  Tom Madding has been supplying our B2Osh banner for years and was finally able to join us this year.  While Paul Carroll and Ken MacDonald slaved over the grill cooking all the burgers and dogs, the rest of us ate, drank and socialized.  The fun of the hangar party, the camaraderie of getting together with old friends and meeting new ones is why the hangar party gets larger each year.

Saturday brought the final arrivals swelling our ranks to 101 aircraft for the formation flight.  Weather kept a few from joining us, but most of them made it by the Ripon arrival and joined us at the Oshkosh.  The biggest problem facing us was weather and winds.  Heavy thunderstorms, especially in the Oshkosh area, led to a preliminary briefing, a delay of two hours and a final updated briefing just prior to departure.  Although the thunderstorms had dissipated, it appeared tailwinds for runway 36 might force a different arrival pattern.  The key row leaders and formation trainers met for an hour prior to the briefing going over the changing weather pattern, following its progress, evaluating the potential wind on arrival.  By final briefing time the consensus was that the tailwind component at OSH would be manageable and allow our standard three ship formation.  John Wiebener, the lead pilot for the formation this year, again did the briefing.  Mike Babler, the lead instructor at the Grayson Advanced Formation Training Session, was introduced as the lead pilot for the 2006 formation.

Taxi out and line up on the ramp was uneventful.  Take-off progressed uneventfully until element 13.  As element lead advanced his idle lean mixture to rich for take-off his engine stalled.  The ground crew did a great job getting him off the runway allowing the remainder of the formation to depart with only a few minutes delay.  The next row leader assumed lead of the last two thirds of the formation until the formation rejoined.  The stalled aircraft was able to depart with the tail end of the group.  Once again we landed all aircraft together in less than twenty minutes and without incident.

            Kevin O’Halloran worked with Carol Casper and her ground crew laying out our parking area and did a magnificent job handling us.  Kevin again supplied us with gallons of margaritas and beer on our arrival.  Only those doing the detail work know how invaluable they were to the success of our arrival.  Tents and screen tents up, we could finally relax.  The two hour delay in departure let us avoid heavy downpours and strong winds putting up tents.

            Sunday morning brought high winds, sufficient that we delayed setting up the gazebos until afternoon.  Thanks to all the volunteers, the setup progressed normally.  Scott again managed the shopping for the wine, soda, water and incidentals and had prearranged the beer truck (yes, a refrigerated truck with four spigots dispensing various beers) and the pig roast.  Our caterer did a great job again this year with two whole roasted pigs, corn roasted in the husk and dipped in a great tub of butter and all the side dishes.  Without question this was the best party yet and we are grateful to our primary sponsor, GAMI, for their support.  Once again we were welcomed by Tom Poberezney who made all of us feel that we were an important part of EAA.

Our raffle was the best ever with an incredible list of prizes from GAMI, Raytheon, BPPP, Advanced Pilot Seminars, Mike Busch’s Seminar, Goodyear, Micro Aerodynamics Vortex Generators, XM Satellite Weather and many others.

Monday brought the beginning of the EAA AirVenture and with it a great demonstration of our formation proficiency by the Texas V-tails and the California Beech Boys, the former in an eight ship formation, the latter in a five ship formation.  Doing the announcing I can attest that everyone on the announcing platform was truly impressed.

Monday evening brought the only unpleasantness.   Almost non-stop thunderstorms from six o’clock to three a.m. kept the Pioneer Princess cruise at the dock and drenched the campsite, destroying a number of screen-tents and a few tents.

AirVenture had its great moments of historic proportions.  We were thrilled to inspect Glacier Girl, a P-38 restored beautifully to flying condition, and even more thrilled to see it fly in a four-ship warbird formation of old and new.  Impossible to top, yet it was with the arrival of White Knight and Space Ship One followed by GlobalFlyer.    What a time to be on the flight line.

The ABS tent was a popular hang-out for many of us, a source of great forums and a place to relax, refresh and renew acquaintances with those not in the B2Osh formation.

It was another great year of camaraderie, flying and experiences.