BK1 Oshkosh 2005 – Return to OZkosh

What a difference a day can make! Woke up in Mexico, Missouri, to a blue sky and mild temperature. Could not have ordered it better. Took off in smooth air and soon crossed the mighty Mississippi. From there miles of green farmland, grain elevators, and these silver topped silos everywhere, beautiful country, but not to many landmarks that I could find on the sectional.

Started to mess around with my new Lowrance Airmap 500 GPS in which was loaded the detailed map data for a 50 mile wide path between San Antonio and Oshkosh. Never really investigated what that would do for me, so started pushing the zoom button until it was on the 8 mile scale. There you could see on the screen farm roads, medium size cattle ponds, and cell antennas. Occasionally an antenna would not show up, but usually the 300 ft ones. If my flight path crossed an intersection so would my actual path, still amazed by this. Pressed the zoom again, and now the farm road names appear. Guess if pressed it again it would tell me the names of the farmer’s kids. Had to zoom out quite a bit to find landmarks to help find my place on the sectional, but with the GPS having the airspace lines, airports, runways, gas availability, and closest Burger King information, one begins to wonder what good the map is. Then the little voice says, “The map will not go blank if some electronic component goes belly up.” Oh yeah, tend to forget that sometimes. So the game is let the GPS keep it on course, and let the map back that up.

There was about a 8 mph headwind component so it looked like a stop at Dodge County airport would be needed like in 2003. But about 70 miles out could see Lake Winnebago and Ripon clearly ahead like they were laid out on some giant map. Looked at the gas guage and decided that we could go on into Oshkosh with a solid VFR reserve. Using the Oshkosh approach information up we went to 2300 ft and called Ripon approach. No answer, guess they don’t start that on the Friday before, rats, will have to do it the hard way, by calling ATC. 99.9% of my flying outside of controlled airspace, and admit to having terminal “mike fright” when forced to talk to them. Oh, well, what can I do but embarrass myself with ATC and everyone else on the frequency. Got ATIS then called “Oshkosh tower, experimental 988BK with information yankee, altitude 2300, 6 miles out over the railroad tracks from Ripon.” Instantly they answered, “988BK report 2 mile base runway niner.” Repeated their instructions, could see the runway clearly. Turned on base then called “Oshkosh 988BK on 2 mile base runway niner.” “988BK cleared to land” was the instant reply. Wish it was always this easy.

Once again had to control my excitement, there was Oshkosh lined up on my nose, thinking to myself, “Fly the plane, get it landed, then celebrate.” One ugly landing later, turned off runway 9, and called ground, “Taxi to homebuilt area?”. They replied with a long set of confusing instructions to turn left here, right there, go to there, etc… Was trying to follow their instructions, but could see where I needed to go. Then saw the “Follow Me” Gator up ahead to save the day. Long way to taxi, so I called home on the cell phone to report to HQ, “On the ground at Oshkosh.” Hope it never stops being so much fun.

There were only a handful of planes there, but the “Follow Me” Gator turned in about 4 rows back from the front. What’s the point of getting there 3 days early and not taking the early bird privilege? So just kept taxiing up to the front row and pulled into the front spot of the “New Designs” area, felt it was my destiny. The Gator driver had a puzzled look when he came over, but when I explained that I took off three extra days for this he said, “Sure we want everyone to be happy”. Well he was right about the happy part.

Thank, Bruce King

www.geocities.com/dbk4939

dbk4939@yahoo.com