Oshkosh Diary 2008
by Bob Collins

Many of you know I wasn't going to go to Oshkosh this year; I just couldn't seem to work up a heck of a lot of enthusiasm for it. If it weren't for a couple of fellow RVers, a crushing amount of pain in my shoulders from crouching over my computer in my day job, and J.W. French, I wouldn't be going. I'd be working on that RV-7A canopy. At the reception for J.W. French the other night, fellow RVer Paul Hove looked at the project and said, "man, you have a long way to go; you haven't even started the systems yet." It was at that moment that I realized that my project is years away from completion and while spending a week working on it is not only necessary, but therapeutic, it was nothing that was going to make a big difference in the big scheme of things. So what, really, do I have to lose by sitting in a field for a week, watching planes and hope people stop by to say "hello."

This diary has become an annual tradition of the RV Builder's Hotline. I'm starting the writing a day early so that I can talk a little about camping in Camp Scholler. Every year on Van's Air Force, a newbie or two will ask about camping at Camp Scholler. Not many people ever write about it, possibly because it's old hat. So this year I'll write about it and next year -- when my RV-7A project will still have a long way to go -- you can Google it. So if you're reading this in 2009, don't tell me who won the presidential election. Let me surprised. For everyone else, there's a drop-down at the top of the page to help you navigate around the stuff you don't want to read about, and quickly find the things you do.

Friday July 25, 2008
Dateline: Woodbury, Minnesota. It's muggy as all getout, some thunderstorms are passing to the north and normally I'd be putting up the tent in a muggy field in Oshkosh. But I decided to wait a day. It's not that important that I stake out my usual spot in Camp Scholler on 12th Street between Lindbergh and Elm, because I'm not doing the RV Builder's BBQ this year (Note: It's been surprising how many e-mails I've received this week from people asking if I'm doing the BBQ. It's a reminder that a lot of folks don't read this blog, get the RV Builder's Hotline, or peruse Van's Air Force or Rivetbangers.).

With the price of gas being close to $4 a gallon (it actually dropped around here to $3.65 today, a day after I filled the tank.), I'm taking the 2004 Cavalier rather than my wife's AWD, but lousy gas mileage, Subaru. This requires me to pack a little light this year. I figure if the RV-7A project ever gets done, I'm going to have to get use to living light, since the baggage payload is only 100 pounds.

And, guess what, it fits? So what do you need to set up a good campsite at Oshkosh?

A tent
One of those bit canopies you get at Fleet Farm
An air mattress
A cooler filled with a couple of frozen jugs of water (the ice concession is a rip-off in the campground)
Shorts and T-shirt
Tons of bug repellant an sunscreen
Cooking stove, plates and all that
The Van's instruction manual
A GPS if you have it with weather
A computer, and digital camera (if you have a blog or a newsletter that a lot of people don't read)
Binoculars
All the usual toiletries and such

That's pretty much it. What? No food? Pointless if space is at a premium. You'll be spending as much time over at the WalMart across the street. Why carry it over?

There are a few spots where you can camp under or near trees, but Camp Scholler opens in early June and people actually drive to Oshkosh to stake out those spots. Resign yourself to the fact you'll be camping out in the bright sun of the open field. But that's OK. Here's my secret. Out in the middle of the field at Oshkosh-- which doesn't fill up until late Sunday or early Monday -- there's a creek. EAA divides the field up into "streets," but because the creek bends in the middle of the field, there's one area where they can't fit in an extra "street." So the campsites (which are supposed to be something like 20 x 40, but nobody ever seems to check) are actually twice as big there -- 20 x 80.

Back to our story. Surprise! It all fit in the car.

There's free wiFi at the campground but as more people show up, it becomes somewhat problematic. It wouldn't hurt to pick up a $20 Starbuck's card and register for the free 2 hours a day of service at Starbuck's. There's one on the frontage road. Don't bring too much clothing. The Maytag coin-op laundry in Oshkosh also has free wiFi.

I've been getting e-mail already from companies and such that want to do interviews while I'm there (I'm media). On Saturday, there's a Chevron-sponsored event with Barrington Irving, the first black pilot to fly solo around the world, and someone who tries to encourage young people to strive to achieve their dreams. If that's through aviation, so be it. But that's not the prerequisite. Unfortunately, it's at 11 a.m. and I'm not leaving here until 8, which should put me in a muggy field just in time for the afternoon thunderstorms.

Saturday July 26
Son of a gun. It is like coming home. I arrived at Oshkosh around 2 -- a 4-hour trip from St. Paul. Using the trusty GPS, I found "my" spot. I said yesterday I was getting used to packing light, in anticipation of making this trip in an RV airplane someday. I have a lot more learning to do on the subject.

In the old days, when my wife and kids came over, this is the part where I'd get all upset about something and Carolie would say, "let me take care of it," and I'd go for a walk and come back and the tent would be up. Those days are gone but over the last few years I've gotten pretty good at it. The tent -- and it's like an old friend that comes here once a year, too -- went up in about a half hour and the big canopy took a little longer, thanks to the typical Oshkosh wind. But in due course, "my spot" was "my home" once again. A lot of friends aren't showing up at Oshkosh this year and as I was about finished setting up camp, I was thinking this was the first year in many that someone didn't venture out to the middle of the field to see if I was here. When I turned around, there was Rich Emergy of St. Charles, Mo. (or is it Illinois, anyway it's basically St. Louis), one of the first people to stop by every year (Larry Frey, are you here?). Rich was one of the big organizers and volunteers of the BBQ and it was great to see a friendly face. Rich, who is one of the volunteer chairmen here, says there aren't as many airplanes as usual on the field yet. I noticed a very, very quiet sky as I was driving in, and here in the campground, I'm seeing more tents and pop-ups this year, and few of the big land yachts. Take this anecdotal evidence for what it's worth. Since I camp out in the middle of the field at the EAA grounds, I see the campground fill up as people eventually reach my location around Sunday afternoon or evening. I'd say, so far, it's about the same as last year. (As I wrote that, three big land yachts just showed up a couple of 'streets' over. They're setting up in a "compound" formation, so it looks like we'll be having some parties nearby. Good. Rich, who recently retired and is building an RV-7 airplane, had a nice chat and we engaged in the campground version of watching people land. We watched people struggle putting up tents in the afternoon Oshkosh wind. As is the nature of Oshkosh, we eventually helped the poor kid get his rig set up. I give it one good rainstorm before it sees the dumpster. The EAA, bless their hearts, has again provided free wiFi, so here I sit in the middle of a field, connected to who knows who, who knows where?

As I said before, this year I'll be writing a bit more about the unique experience that is Camp Scholler. For those who've never been here, getting in is easy. There's many volunteers to move what looks at first to be a long line into a short registration process. I was into the front gate and onto my spot (I used the GPS for the exact coordinates) in under 10 minutes.

For veteran campers, you'll be pleased to know the South Africans are here again. They fly a charter over and set up in a huge area and they do not observe the usual 10 p.m. curfew. They observe the 10 p.m. curfew on South Africa time. They party, bring in bands and booze. We'll be stopping by to say "hello." On the other side of the emotional spectrum, I've received this from John Porter:

Well, it is with deep sadness that I tell you I won't make it to OSH '08. We had three big trees ( two oaks and a hickory) punch holes in our house in a recent storm. We made the cover of the Cherokee Ledger..............big score!! And since my deductible for wind and hail is $4500, we will be laying low for this year. Bob, thanks again for all you do. I really look forward to next year.

That's a real shame. John was one of the many pleasures of last year's Oshkosh. Veterans RVers will remember him as the brains behind this shirt (and that's John holding it up): I had at least one Ask Mr. Oshkosh question this morning but at this hour of the afternoon (sunset), it's nowhere to be found. More as it happens.

Sunday July 27

Chad's Compound
One of the many traditions -- all of two years, I believe -- is Chad Jensen's "compound" just across the creek. He asked me to stake it off and today that was one of my early priorities.

You can see the ultra luxurious Casa Collins resort in the background. The other priority today was picking up my media credentials and that has also been accomplished, as has the first run for ice. The $1.20 price for a bag at WalMart is much better than the campground store, although I notice the price tends to go up later in the week. I'm a one-cooler guy this year so I won't be spending a fortune on ice this year. Of course that also means I only am able to ice 3 or 4 beers at a time so if you're in the campground and you intend to join me for a Happy Hour, get here early.

Darwin checks in
Darwin Barrie called an hour or so ago and it was a very nice surprise to hear from him. You want a Mr. Oshkosh (to me)? That's Mr. Oshkosh. I wish he and Glenn Brasch could be here but next year should be quite special. As of 10:30 this morning, Darwin reports it's 91 in Chandler, Arizona. But, you know, it's a dry heat. Two items from Darwin: A heat wave is apparently heading for Oshkosh. That speaks for itself. And Darwin said he talked to Jeff Point earlier today and the reason the "North 40" is 75% full is about 25% of it is unusable. They had something like 14 inches of rain here in June and some of it is reportedly flooded. I'll have to check that out. It appeared there were a substantial number of RV airplanes already in the homebuilt section as of 10 a.m. I'm heading down there now to see some of the RVators. I'm taking a laptop, tape recorder, camera and chair with me. It's been years since I've sat by the side of the runway and watched the Sunday arrival traffic but this is the only plan I have today.

Formation arrives

I'm not much of a formation guy. I know it takes a lot of work and a lot of practice but if you don't fly formation and have never practiced it, you have no appreciation for flying formation. To me, one formation looks like the next and I don't mean that at all as a negative. There's a really crappy photo of the RV arrival at Oshkosh, although now that I look at it in its bluriness, I'm not sure it is; but I think it is since it showed up around 1:30, the assigned time, I believe. The other thing about pictures of formations? Since you can't shoot anything on the ground, one looks pretty much like the other.

RV Corral -- The movie

Not really, but I have been over talking to RV airplane builders and/or pilots in the homebuilt camping area this afternoon and I'll be putting together an audio slideshow this afternoon. I'm not sure I'll have it done by dinner (I'm going out to dinner with the guys from Trio Avionics), but I'll try. I'm in the press headquarters now dumping the images. I have to go to WalMart to get the right audio cable. Fingers crossed, but I think you'll enjoy it when it's done. I did run into Mark Chamberlain. He's arrived from Arizona, obviously, but the guy with two emergency landings under his belt (he says he's gone a year without one) is shy of cameras and microphones. Great guy.

RV safety

Rick Woodall has an interesting thread going on Van's Air Force. While most pilots are safe, you just have to wonder why the FAA doesn't just haul off and pull the certificate of some pilots.

Forum on wiring
I attended the "aircraft wiring for smart people" forum this morning. That's the first forum I've attended this year and one more than I attended in 2007, and 2006. Greg Richter (above) of Blue Mountain Avionics was the presenter. I've written an article for RV Builder's Hotline which you can find here.

SteinAir
A quick trip to the SteinAir booth this morning netted a picture of a couple of smart electrical engineer types attempting to smile. For you non-aviation Minnesota types who are following along, Jed and Stein are based in Farmington. At least one of 'em, I believe, is a former Northwest employee. Stein made his money in the radio business like everyone else and then, subsequently not needing to work for a living, decided to build instrument panels for homebuilders. At least one of those statements is not true.

Tuesday July 29

It's a spiritual experience, some aviators say, about coming to Oshkosh. I'm not ready to quite go that far, but in recognition that, yes, AirVenture is a spiritual experience for some people, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Dear Lord: If I ever start making the old man noises that the guy in the Port-A-Potty next to me is making, please kill me. Amen

This being Oshkosh and all, let me take a stab at this whole "looking at the sunny side of life" thing. It was cloudy this morning, rain of some sort is due, but at least the early morning sun didn't heat up the tent to ridiculous temperatures. Yeah, great, that certainly changes the possibility of a flood-out. Camping at Oshkosh requires -- nay, demands -- that you suffer through at least one interminable night of rain. There are two problems with this: One is the obvious one that everything you own and were too stupid to put in the car is now useless. The other is the next day people in a camper will tell you, "I didn't have a problem. I'm totally dry." I've got your positive thinking right here, Sparky. Whether we get that sort of rain today, I don't know. It started out cloudy, the sun has come out, and my wife told me this morning that the weather radio in the Twin Cities went off three times overnight. Maybe -- maybe -- whatever's heading our way went north of us, but that would be very unOshkosh-like.

These experiences of Oshkosh have prepared me a little more since the days when Patrick and I gave up shoveling towels against the tide and headed off to the Mexican restaurant to await our rain-soaked fate. Are you supposed to spray your tent with some sort of water preservative? Every year I tell myself that I'm going to do that -- if you're supposed to do that -- before the next Oshkosh. Most of the incoming flood comes through the zipper on the door. I'm going to duct tape that up tonight (at least the one on the wind side) and see what happens. I'll have Camp Collins looking like the runup to Hurricane Katrina in no time. And, finally, I'm going to put just about everything in the car except for one pillow and one sleeping bag. I'll let you know what happens.

The other part of the Oshkosh experience is your fellow campers. There's always one guy whose car alarm -- beep.... beep.... beep -- goes off around 5:30 in the morning when he's fishing around for something. Yesterday, I was that guy. I was only good for about 7 beeps, but I was still that guy. Geez. I've got the crying baby next to me this year. A young couple (obviously) with full camping gear and a crying kid. They've obviously done this before; it's not like most "crying baby families" where it looks like the couple thought it would be a nice get away so they stopped to pick up the Acme model tent and by the end of the first day, the kid is crying and the parents are yelling. This one isn't so bad. The kid is crying but Mom seems to be handling things well. The most upsetting part is, perhaps, that Dad thinks keeping the kid from crying is Mom's work. I give the marriage 6 years.

The ultralights are up flying around this morning so you it's not a washout, at least not yet. One of my goals this year is to spend more time over at the ultralight area, watching powered parachutes at dawn or dusk. Today's goal is to try to get into one of the composites (fiberglass) workshops just to mess around a little more with the stuff. When Oshkosh is over, I need to tackle the fairing at the front of the canopy. Then I'll go check out some more RVs to see how the smart people do it.

My friend, Warren Starkebaum, who camped with me last year and was on the reasons last year was the perfect Oshkosh (except for the rain) was at this stage last year so he shot a bunch of pictures of canopies. You can find the slideshow here.

There's good news and bad news for the wireless system in the campground. The good news is the signal strength is terrific; it's much better than last year. The bad news is getting onto the system fails about 25% of the time, although judging from the reaction of my neighbors, it's 100% of the time this morning (I'm writing this offline). You're usually greeted with:

Sorry, but we're currently experiencing technical difficulties. 
The present error condition is:

    Preparing to reconnect with messaging system.

For assistance, please contact:

    unknown

Additional information:

    SSID: 
    AP MAC Address: 00:0e:0c:b9:xx:xx

Wednesday July 23, 2008

This was "me" day today at Oshkosh. I've got a few things to do and I didn't have any appointments or "deadline" stories to write, so I did whatever I felt like doing. I was going to go to some of the RV-based forums; I blew them all off. I did put together a little slideshow of RV "art" -- both nose and tail. You can find it here. If you're at the show and you shot a picture of some nose or tail art, I'd like to add it to the slideshow. Please send me a copy.

Reality check

You can probably tell by the piece I did on aircraft judging that I've been pretty well wow'd by some of the workmanship of RV airplanes here, almost to the point where it feels like I should go home, and leave the airplane building to the people with talent. It's that good. I knew I needed a lift and so I stopped by the Van's tent to look at their demonstrator models, knowing I'd feel better. This -- my airplane -- is, afterall, a "working man's RV." Sure enough, the empennage fiberglass tips that the instructions tell you to fill are not filled. That's really all I needed to see, just a confirmation that these planes can fly without a complete investment of my waning years and children's inheritance.

Composite 101

Among the more valuable things at AirVenture are the short workshops intended to get you used to a building material, whether it's sheet metal, fabric, or fiberglass. One of my goals this year was to go to the composite workshop. Mission accomplished. We made a little laminated sheet that's along the lines of something we'd have brought home from school as kids. But you know, I think 90% of building an airplane is the confidence to do so and I feel a little better about fiberglass now.

On the flight line

I haven't sat down by the side of the flight line along to watch planes go by for years. So I did that today. From my seat I got to see the RV formation flight. It looked pretty bumpy up there and as I've said before I'm not really in to formations, but this was really impressive stuff. Most impressive to me was the overhead break to landing and the sight of four RVs in single file, handling a hellacious cross wind as if it were nothing. And, I'd guess, for these guys, it was nothing. Some of the best pilots in the world are here, and these are a few dozen of them. I'm sure the RV groups will be littered with pictures of it, but they do it no justice. Only the naked eye and an appreciation for precision as maneuvers change can provide that.

Ardy & Ed's Drive in

Ardy & Ed's drive-in has been ranked as one of America's best. It's not just a throwback to an earlier time -- it has waitresses on roller skates and you can eat in the car if you wish -- it's got great food and it's situation not far from the runway at Oshkosh, you get a steady diet of airplanes while you ruin your diet. I'd intended to head there this week to hoist a root beer float in honor of the friends who couldn't make it to Oshkosh this year. And so this afternoon, I did. I elected to have mine inside, at the soda fountain... The place actually looks really cool at night, all lit up in neon. So, anyway, to all of you who couldn't be here this week, this float's for you.

BBQ weather

Interesting to note that had we done the BBQ this year, it would be an absolutely perfect evening to do it because, well, it's an absolutely perfect evening. The last two years we've had thunderstorms move through right at the start. Figures, eh?

Non-aviation events dominate nighttime

I never went to the Beach Boys concerts at Oshkosh and I couldn't possibly care any less about Foreigner this year. But my youngest son, Patrick, instructed me that I simply must go see Jeff Dunham, who performed Wednesday night. I'd never seen so many people! The act was very good. I arrived a couple of hours early and got a seat in the "shed" (as we used to say at Tanglewood) and it wasn't until I was trying to get out of there after talking to my wife about Pat's run-in with a gunman that I realized how many people were out on the lawn. There was no safe exit from the Theatre of the Woods. There were no aisles. It was like the Coconut Grove. Anyway, I enjoyed the opening act more than Dunham. It featured "guitar guy" And, yeah, that's a picture of a picture because I happened to be sitting right behind the cameraperson for the TV feed. And here's a lousy shot of Dunham doing his thing with his character, Walter. Guitar Guy's act, by the way, is almost word for word what is on YouTube.

More impressive to me -- and I think more in the old spirit of Oshkosh -- was the community band that played prior to the show. It was made up of just plain folks attending AirVenture who happen to play a music instrument. Here's their performance from a year ago. They sure deserve a lot of credit.

Early exit

I had to leave Oshkosh very early this morning (Thursday) because of a family emergency. Apparently, my youngest son was held up and robbed at gunpoint at his apartment.

If I've made one mistake -- and for the record, there are days it seems like I've made nothing but mistakes -- it's that I never quite taught my trusting, loving children to be absolutely paranoid about the jerks that are out there. My son found a game console on Craig's List and made arrangements to buy it, but he got a guy with a gun instead.

So parents, teach your kids about Craig's List. I know a lot of people swear by it, but do what you can to simply put it out of business. One guy shouldn't be making a good living by providing the vehicle for crime.

Update: When I finally got home (Around 3:30 in the morning I had to pull off to a rest area about 120 miles from home to sleep for a few hours), there was a voicemail waiting for me. It was from Doug Reeves, who had read online about the predicament and called to be sure everything was OK. "I just wanted to offer you some friendship and tell you I'm thinking about you and your family."

And though that phone call was placed from Texas, and I was in Minnesota, that's what Oshkosh is all about.

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