khodges

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I was extremely lucky this year and got invited by a friend who has a plane to go to Airventure '08. I've wanted to go for years, never thought I'd get a chance. We wanted to leave Wed. afternoon, but couldn't get past some weather until Thurs. Got back this afternoon.

Wow. Beyond that, I'm speechless.

Let's hear from others, tell your stories about your trip.

JoeAirPort

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My buddy went. All I got are these cool pictures.

divergoff

Just got back Saturday. Flew a 62 235 Apache out. khodges, did you camp?

GarySS

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Didn't go this year, but was lucky enough to flyin and camp in 2001, 2003, and 2005. My ride was a 1949 Cessna 170. Its owner will probably not attend any more as it is quite a trek from the Phoenix Area and gas prices are now very steep.

khodges

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Yes, we were in row 528 on the North 40, about 200 feet from the west end of runway 9. It was a great place to see departures and arrivals, as they were very low and very slow. My buddy has a '78 Beech V35B, real sweet ride. We came in Thursday evening and left Sunday morning. We tried to get out Wednesday afternoon, but there was a big wad of weather sitting over Kentucky that stretched from Arkansas to D.C.. He filed IFR to go down to SC, GA and AL and then turn north through western TN. Thursday it looked a bit better and just as we got to Asheville NC, ATL came up and vectored us through a break in the system around Knoxville. We were in and out of the soup at 8000 for a while, and had to dodge several big cells, but it cleared out in about 175 miles and we had clear sailing the rest of the way. Our original plan had us going west of Chicago, through Madison , but there was this other nasty looking thing that came rolling out of N Dakota and looked like it was going straight to OSH. Instead it went a bit south and creamed Chicago. On radar it was about 100 miles wide and the entire leading edge was magenta, and the biggest part of the rest was red. We did an enroute change and went east through South Bend, crossed the lake and landed at Sheboygan and refueled, waited for OSH to reopen after the airshow, and got in around 7pm local, they brought us in on 18L (the taxiway). It felt like it took longer to taxi all the way across the airport than it did to fly there. Took us 5-1/4 hours flying time to get there, we had as much as 35kt headwinds going up.
Going home was severe clear all the way to NC, we picked up a 10 kt tailwind, had a groundspeed of about 185 kts part of the way, made it home in 3-1/2 hours.

What did you think of the shows? Did you get to see the "jetpack"? Wasn't that a hoot. I'll bet they will stand proud as one of the few things ever boo'ed at AirVenture. I enjoyed the rocket powered E-Z, and of course, the F-22, warbirds, etc. I'd sure like to know what Patty was doing on the flightline late at night that got her arrested.

Iflyglow

My Feedback: (79)

Khodges,
Was that Patty W. that you are referring too. She got arrested, how did you find out? I live 45 minutes away, and was there thursday,friday and saturday and did not hear anything on the news.

divergoff

Not a bad ride. We had to park at Basler b/c they claimed the grass was too soft for twins, which was bull since we taxied in grass half way to basler. I only saw video of the jetpack, seemed like a joke. And after watching the airshow once it's enough. The only part I watched was the f22 and the Rocket Velocity, which was super nice. We came up early thrusday, wheels up at 0530 LCL in MD. Held at OSH for 2 hours after a lancair crash. Left Saturday morning, fuel stop in Lancing MI. Yup right across the Lake. Made it home for dinner. We may be a bit slower than the Bonanza at 155 kts true, but w/ 2 big old 235's on the wings, with 4 guys, 144 gallons of gas and camping equip we were still about 50lbs short of gross. Not that I have ever in my life flown over gross....

Anyone else see the new amphibian LSA. Can't remember the name but had the foldable wings w/ a trailer. Tell you what hope that works out cause I'll definitely be buying one, once college is done and I get one of those good engineering lobs and start making bank.

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

Funny thing. We had returned to NC, went to a small airport near HKY that has a little restaurant with great mexican food, and met a guy who'd also just come back from OSH the day before us. He told us what he had read off some website about her, and I looked it up on the AirVenture.net site. It happened Thurs. night, no details, but Patty Wag..... was quoted as saying she was in a place at a time she had no business being there (somewhere out on the flightline, after 11PM). Airport Security confronted her and subsequently arrested her. "On advice of counsel" that was all she had to say. I'm sure the rest will eventually come out.

Divergoff, your TAS was about 8 kts faster than ours, we were averaging about 146-147. His Garmin flight computer was giving us our groundspeed as anywhere from 155 to 198, depending on the headwind/tailwind/crosswind component.

His Bonanza has tip tanks, and total fuel is 120 gal, good for over 8 hours unrefueled with little to no headwind. He flies direct from western NC to Key West and Bahamas quite a bit. We took on about 85 gal in Sheboygan on the way up. We pumped it ourselves and got it (100LL) for $4.85/gal. Funny to call that cheap, but was the best we saw on the trip.

Going in, we were on the Fisk approach, and got behind a 172 that didn't seem too sure what he was supposed to do. He was following the highway instead of being over the tracks was about 150 feet higher than us and kept slowing to about 75 kts. Here we are in a low wing that won't go as slow as the 172, we had full fuel and the back seats and luggage area was stuffed, gear and flaps down. We're trying to maintain position, but kept creeping up, and finally Jay started doing S-turns to keep our separation. hell, we were flying formation for a couple of miles, probably less than 500 feet between us, and I don't think he ever knew we were back there. He finally got it steady at 90 kts and we made it in fine. We got shifted to the taxiway when we made the base to final turn, Jay greased it in just as we rolled wings level, got a great attaboy from the controller.

I was really sorry to hear about the Lancair. We heard he was short on his approach , got too slow and instead of adding power or going around, tried to extend and stalled it. What did you hear?

divergoff

All I heard was he crashed on final. Guessing he got too slow and stalled it. Not really sure.