Oshkosh - No Cheese In Wisconsin

Now this is becoming a routine. Wake up, walk over to the plane taking a different route, and take pictures along the way. This morning went through the vintage section and taking a long look a row of Beech Staggerwings showing respect for the "Do not touch" sign, but zooming in close enough to be amazed. Every bolt and nut even in hard to see places polished and installed without tool marks. Walked on down by Stinsons, Ryans, and was real impressed by three Howard DGP 15s, all better than new looking. Saw a couple of Sikorski flying boats fully restored and painted like African animals, what a treat. Got to N88BK and started to clean up the residue from last nights extra hard rain. Kinda splurged to get an extra lightweight, but fairly large 5x7 backpacker's tent. Quality means something in that with several hard rains, it has stayed bone dry inside. Not so with the plane, there was water standing in the seat and in the tail cone where the maps and logbooks were, it was all soaked. Unfolded and spread it all out the best I could and went on to once again wipe off the water. At least the bird was clean.

Walked out the Mt Sacred Heart food stand to get my cheap breakfast, and what do you know? The president of my home EAA Chapter 35 was in line along with a few other local members that drove up for AirVenture. By now this type of good fortune was just about expected. After breakfast they ask me to meet them back here at 7:00pm to go out to eat with the rest of the chapter members that were in town. This was shaping up as a busy evening, as I already was planning on attending Bill Spring's seminar and going to see Neil Armstrong's presentation on the Wright Brothers. With all this time, was going to have to choose which to do, well that's not till tonight, so lets go on with the fun.

Had arranged with my brother to meet at the Wright Brothers pavilion at opening time so we could try out the simulator. They has a mockup of the Wright flyer to lay on with your hips in the wing warping cradle, and the canard stick for the right hand. Just for fun when we got to the front of the line, we flipped a coin to decide who went first. He won and did real well. Most people would pull the nose up on take off, stall an immediately crash. Keeping the nose down worked, but then you had to steer around trees and buildings. I got it under control and was doing great for about a minute, but couldn't turn fast enough to avoid a building. Glad we don't fly planes with controls like this today.

It is amazing how quick a day can go by, a lap through one of the multi-acre vendor buildings, and its lunchtime. Went to William Wynne's Corvair engine seminar. He recognized me from our meeting at the Alamo Corvair College last February. Said some embarrassingly nice things about my plane then ask me to come up and tell a tent full of people about how it felt to build and fly to Oshkosh. This was especially nice considering he knows I used a VW motor to do it. When I build the BK2.0 the Corvair is on my short list of engine options.

By now it was time for the airshow and since there was no volunteer duty today, could enjoy the whole program. This was a good day with the Aero Shell T6 team, Sean Tucker's 400hp Oracle biplane (amazing), and Patty Wagstaff (also amazing), just to mention the high points. Watched the show sitting on the wing of my plane at show center at my first Oshkosh. Still can't believe it really happened, and still have look at the pictures to prove it to myself. One act was both exciting and sometimes irritating. It was a Waco biplane with a jet motor on the bottom. Not sure it helped the plane that much, but it sure made a lot of noise. An Oshkosh tip, the best time to use the showers is near the end of the airshow, otherwise you might have to wait a while.

Now it was time to solve the problem of what to do tonight. Bill Spring, EAA dinner, or Neil Armstrong. Could not decide, so why not just try and do all three? Let see, get to Bill's seminar early and hope to meet him, run about a half mile to catch the ride to dinner, then get a ride back to the Theater of the Woods to catch a glimpse of the first man to walk on the moon. Vacations should be relaxing, but so what, this could be fun.

Had to wait a few minutes for Bill to get set up before he was free to approach. Introduced myself not expecting him to remember me from the emails we exchanged. He answered every one of my email questions promptly and sent a nice congratulatory note when I sent him a photo of N88BK's first takeoff. The first thing he said was that he had seen my bird on the flight line and thought it looked great. Then he said that he liked my wing tips better than the one's he designed for the plans. Then he asks if the extra weight of the full VW made the bird a little hot on landing. Once again star struck by meeting one of my heros, could barely squeak out an answer to his question. "Yes, it lands hot, could use a little more wing". Felt so privileged to meet him and so honored that he liked my work, he should know, he built two and drew the plans I used. Really wanted to stay, but had to move on.

While riding to dinner with the EAA Chapter 35 crowd found out that it took them 19 hours to drive up from San Antonio, that makes the 12 hours inside that cramped cockpit seem much more tolerable. At dinner the club's president, announced that the chapter was going to sponsor me to go to the Oklahoma City school to become an Amateur Built DAR. It seems that I am the only club member that is both an A&P and aircraft builder. If one takes advantage of the EAA's sponsorship you make a commitment to do inspections for other club members for 2 years just charging for expenses. Seems like a small cost for such a great deal.

Ordered a fried catfish plate with a baked potato, a growing boy (in circumference) need nutrition. Ask for the potato all the way and got sour cream and chives, they must of forgotten something. Half in jest, ask the waitress "Where's the cheese? This is Wisconsin isn't it?" She looked at me like I had two heads and ask, "Do you want cheese?" like she never heard of anyone eating a potato that way. "Sure, down in Texas they take pride in serving real Wisconsin cheddar with a baked potato". So she brought me a little paper cup with some synthetic processed cheese-like substance in it, yuck!

One of the club members was nice enough to leave a little early and drop me off close to the Theater in the Woods, and I was able to hear almost all of Neil Armstrong's excellent historic presentation about the Wright Brothers accomplishment. Afterwards the moderator who was a reporter present at the launch of Apollo 11 played a tape of his report. Then they honored Neil Armstrong's accomplishment in a touching ceremony.

Somehow the mission was accomplished, got to do it all, ending another unbelievable day at Oshkosh. Still wonder where they hide the Wisconsin cheese in Wisconsin.

Thanks, Bruce King

100% + 195 HRS