In the summer of 1980, about to start my second year as an A&P student, a new friend, another student, told me about AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. "If you're going to be a pilot, or a mechanic, you have to go to Oshkosh", Scott told me. I intended to pursue both and I've learned not to argue with flawless logic so we started to plan.
Cash-strapped, neither of us dared take time off from work, so we planned to finish our normal Friday shifts and then depart southwest Michigan, in Scott's car, for the six hour drive to Oshkosh. Finishing my UPS shift at 11:30 pm, I cleaned up and met Scott sometime before 1:00 am. It made perfectly good sense to us. Work all day. Drive all night. Do Oshkosh all day. Drive home all night. Normal schedule Sunday and Monday.
Scott worked at the little airport in Niles, Michigan as a lineman. A middle aged man had showed up on that Friday afternoon and asked if anyone around the airport was heading for Oshkosh, and could he ride along? Proving that age does not insure acumen, our plan sounded reasonable to him, and so, he signed on and we split the gas three ways. 1980? I'm thinking that ran maybe eight dollars each. Round trip.
I don't remember this older man's name. He was quiet and friendly and it seems to me now about sixty years old. I didn't call that middle age in 1980 but thirty four years later it seems that generosity in such matters is at least as virtuous as accuracy. He rode in the back seat of the old Saab. I expect we visited with a casual consideration, and learned about his family and his vocation and his interests; not because I remember that, but because I don't know how generosity to myself should be any less virtuous than to another. I do remember thinking that the impetuous addition of this complete stranger increased the quality of the adventure, and considered his contribution to our community a genuine gain.
Neither Scott nor I slept. I don't think it even occured to us. We arrived in Oshkosh around 6:30 or 7:00 am. I suppose we had stopped for breakfast. Who wouldn't? We parked, marched to the gates and discovered that they opened at 8:00 am. An hour to wait, I laid down on the sidewalk, pretty much first-in-line, and fell asleep. The three of us swaggered through the gates right at 8:00. In those days, a visitor with an FAA certificate could pay a small extra fee (was it ten dollars?) and get up-close access to the flight line. A student pilot's license counted and I had one. Scott, was already a real deal pilot. Ordinary men, women, and children were kept back from the display aircraft and I hope I found no extra satisfaction from the policy. That peculiar restriction was abandoned long ago and AirVenture is better for it.
Our hitchhiker went off on his own. Scott and I stuck together most of the day. I remember walking through a crowd, mid-day, and noticing an older gentleman lying next to a building in the shade; sleeping. We knew that he'd not gotten a lot of sleep in the cramped backseat of the Saab. With the tens of thousands in our coterie, we let him be.
How to describe Oshkosh to someone who has not been there? Go there. It is aviation overload. It is gloriously too much to take in. Like Templeton at the Fair, like Imelda Marcos at Miu Miu, is AirVenture to a pilot. No amount of stamina, drive, or vitality will sustain you to the end. You look until you just can't care anymore.
I trust the hundreds of airplanes we looked at, were a fair representation of the hundreds we did not get to. Panels, and experts, and heros, and legends, along with vendors, and hawkers, and entertainers were always at our elbows. The mid-day airshow was as good as any anywhere. I probably ate lunch and dinner. You'd need to, just to keep moving. At the end of the day we settled in at the Theater in the Woods to listen to flyers talk about flying. Around midnight, they projected The Dawn Patrol onto a screen. By then, I was the last of the trio standing. My two crewmen had retired to the car. Having sensible forced on us by exhaustion, we'd abandoned the idea of driving back that night.
The old man (I promise you he felt like one at this point) claimed the back seat. Scott slept in the grass, where I recall he had quite a battle with mosquitoes. I sat upright behind the steering wheel. I couldn't make lying across the bucket seats easy, and I was too tired to work at it.
We drove home Sunday morning. A great trip.
I have no photos from that trip but I do have a picture of Scott and me at AirVenture 2014. Same two guys thirty-four years later. More rested. I hope more sensible. I promise better fed. Middle age seems more generous than accurate but I see no reason not to show Scott the consideration I would show a stranger, and how am I to prevent my benefiting by association?
Cash-strapped, neither of us dared take time off from work, so we planned to finish our normal Friday shifts and then depart southwest Michigan, in Scott's car, for the six hour drive to Oshkosh. Finishing my UPS shift at 11:30 pm, I cleaned up and met Scott sometime before 1:00 am. It made perfectly good sense to us. Work all day. Drive all night. Do Oshkosh all day. Drive home all night. Normal schedule Sunday and Monday.
Scott worked at the little airport in Niles, Michigan as a lineman. A middle aged man had showed up on that Friday afternoon and asked if anyone around the airport was heading for Oshkosh, and could he ride along? Proving that age does not insure acumen, our plan sounded reasonable to him, and so, he signed on and we split the gas three ways. 1980? I'm thinking that ran maybe eight dollars each. Round trip.
I don't remember this older man's name. He was quiet and friendly and it seems to me now about sixty years old. I didn't call that middle age in 1980 but thirty four years later it seems that generosity in such matters is at least as virtuous as accuracy. He rode in the back seat of the old Saab. I expect we visited with a casual consideration, and learned about his family and his vocation and his interests; not because I remember that, but because I don't know how generosity to myself should be any less virtuous than to another. I do remember thinking that the impetuous addition of this complete stranger increased the quality of the adventure, and considered his contribution to our community a genuine gain.
Neither Scott nor I slept. I don't think it even occured to us. We arrived in Oshkosh around 6:30 or 7:00 am. I suppose we had stopped for breakfast. Who wouldn't? We parked, marched to the gates and discovered that they opened at 8:00 am. An hour to wait, I laid down on the sidewalk, pretty much first-in-line, and fell asleep. The three of us swaggered through the gates right at 8:00. In those days, a visitor with an FAA certificate could pay a small extra fee (was it ten dollars?) and get up-close access to the flight line. A student pilot's license counted and I had one. Scott, was already a real deal pilot. Ordinary men, women, and children were kept back from the display aircraft and I hope I found no extra satisfaction from the policy. That peculiar restriction was abandoned long ago and AirVenture is better for it.
Our hitchhiker went off on his own. Scott and I stuck together most of the day. I remember walking through a crowd, mid-day, and noticing an older gentleman lying next to a building in the shade; sleeping. We knew that he'd not gotten a lot of sleep in the cramped backseat of the Saab. With the tens of thousands in our coterie, we let him be.
How to describe Oshkosh to someone who has not been there? Go there. It is aviation overload. It is gloriously too much to take in. Like Templeton at the Fair, like Imelda Marcos at Miu Miu, is AirVenture to a pilot. No amount of stamina, drive, or vitality will sustain you to the end. You look until you just can't care anymore.
I trust the hundreds of airplanes we looked at, were a fair representation of the hundreds we did not get to. Panels, and experts, and heros, and legends, along with vendors, and hawkers, and entertainers were always at our elbows. The mid-day airshow was as good as any anywhere. I probably ate lunch and dinner. You'd need to, just to keep moving. At the end of the day we settled in at the Theater in the Woods to listen to flyers talk about flying. Around midnight, they projected The Dawn Patrol onto a screen. By then, I was the last of the trio standing. My two crewmen had retired to the car. Having sensible forced on us by exhaustion, we'd abandoned the idea of driving back that night.
The old man (I promise you he felt like one at this point) claimed the back seat. Scott slept in the grass, where I recall he had quite a battle with mosquitoes. I sat upright behind the steering wheel. I couldn't make lying across the bucket seats easy, and I was too tired to work at it.
We drove home Sunday morning. A great trip.
I have no photos from that trip but I do have a picture of Scott and me at AirVenture 2014. Same two guys thirty-four years later. More rested. I hope more sensible. I promise better fed. Middle age seems more generous than accurate but I see no reason not to show Scott the consideration I would show a stranger, and how am I to prevent my benefiting by association?