Waiting area

At the place where Rich and I go to exercise there is a waiting area for the dogs. They are expected to follow a few rules and be quiet. There are beds and water dishes. They look expectantly at the door, waiting for their owners. I think that some of them are hoping that a walk is also part of the exercise plan for the day.

Reflections on Oshkosh

We had a great time on our trip to Oshkosh. Here are a few pictures from our adventure.

Elaine gets a chance to fly with Doug's careful instruction

Devil's Tower, cue Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Mt Rushmore or 4 dead Presidents

Crazy Horse

 Avoiding a thunderstorm

Flying Tiger at Oshkosh Airventure 2012

Minature Flying Tiger

 Warbirds display

Nancy, Doug, Elaine and Rich at Airventure 2012

Last Flying B-29

Mitchell

A storm over the air show. (not my picture)

Next generation of pilots

Miles City, Montana on the way back to Seattle

Flying through Glacier National Park, Montana

Mt Rainier

We would like to thank Doug and Nancy to inviting us to join them on this trip. We had a great experience. 

Day 8, returning from Oshkosh

By 8:00 am we were in the air, leaving Miles City, Montana. It was reasonably clear as we passed Great Falls and on to Glacier National Park. We followed the highway through Logan Pass and crossed the Rockies and the continental divide going west this time. The views were spectacular looking at the sharp edged mountains, with snow in places.

We landed at Glacier International Airport for fuel and to relieve our bladders. On the tarmac was a Boeing BBJ 737 in anonymous grey and white livery. I suspect it was a private plane. Doug contacted flight control of our route back to Bremerton. They mentioned that a plane following our same route was 3 days overdue and could we keep an eye out for it.

Shortly after passing Kalispell, Montana, an emergency locator beacon signal started to warble on the radio. Doug immediately started a 360 degree turn remaining at altitude to try and determine the direction of the signal. He reported to flight control the location and pertinent information as well as when we stopped hearing the signal. We are not sure if it is connected to the overdue flight but we hope the information we provided was helpful. It is similar to when us cruisers here the emergency tone on our VHF radios of a mayday or pan-pan in our immediate vicinity.

We passed over Interstate 90 and through the Cascades and the familiar Mt. Rainier. There was a blanket of clouds from the west side of the mountains until SeaTac airport. We touched down at Bremerton airport. After cleaning the bug splatters off the windows and wings and tidying up the airplane and stowing it in the hanger we stopped at the airport cafe for a bite to eat.

While we were glad to be back, we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Oshkosh. We want to thank Doug and Nancy for inviting us to share this adventure and airventure. It was an amazing experience.

Day 7, returning from Oshkosh

We left Outagamie Airport, Appleton, Wisconsin, shortly after 10:50 am. We say goodbye to Oshkosh, the Airventure, and Nancy, who is flying back commercial from Green Bay. The Boeing B-17 crossed the runway prior to our takeoff. It was a fitting last glance at the amazing air show and the impressive restored planes we saw flying during the last 3 days.

Imagine the Seattle Boat show on steroids with most of the attendees arriving by boat and having somewhere between 14,000 and 25,000 boats anchored around the outside of the show with dingies and small motorboats moving the sailors to and from their boats to the show. Add to that image several 100 boats of various sizes and types on display as well. The air show has the advantage of being on dry land (unless it rains, which it did during the show and at night). Rich and I decided that we have never seen anything before that would compare to this, from the restored aircraft, to the planes on display, to the planes of the folks attending and then to the aerobatics each afternoon. We could certainly relate to the vendors selling everything under the sun.

We started out with a course direct to Bozeman, Montana, cruising at 8,500 ft, speed over the ground is 120.7, airspeed is 130 knots so we have a headwind of about 9 knots. So unlike the trip out we are not making as good progress. We stopped at Aberdeen, South Dakota to refuel the plane and ourselves.

We planned to go to Billings, Montana, but we continued to fight headwinds (seems just like cruising), so we stopped at Miles City, Montana, a burg of 8,400 souls. We are staying at the Sleep Inn, a new hotel that just opened a month ago and the nicest place we have stayed at yet. Dinner was at the Ribs & Chops, where we had, yes, you guessed it, ribs and chops. Now we are watching the Olympics.

Tomorrow we want to get an early start to head west.

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Wisconsin drivers

As we were driving up to the airport at Appleton to get on the plane back, we saw this on the freeway. Luckily it was just a semi being towed backwards, but it did look very real at first.

Day 6 at the Oshkosh Airventure

Today was our third and final day at the Oshkosh Airventure. Having seen most of the booths we went through the 'Fly Market' section. It is very similar to a flea market but of course oriented to the 'flying crowd'. We saw many booths or tents with people selling airplane oriented T-shirts, DVDs, memorabilia, tools, nuts, bolts, carved wooden signs, hammocks, whirligigs for your garden, mattresses, jewelry, plus much, much more. Rich bought a digital caliper, LED work light some wire with alligator clip ends. We also picked up some souvenirs such as T-shirts, coffee mug, and I got a charm for our boat necklace. We also gotta Go Pro camera for the boat.

In the afternoon we watched another air show which included the only flying B-29. There was an F-18 that did low passes down the field, more parachutists and aerial aerobatics. The most interesting was the mock re-enactment of the bombing of Pearl Harbor with plenty of noise, smoke and fire.

Tomorrow we will be adieu to Oshkosh and over 25,000 airplanes and make our way back west.

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Day 5 at the Oshkosh Airventure

This morning we got up early to hear a talk by a former shuttle astronaut who is now working at Space X. It was a great presentation and we enjoyed hearing the talk and answering questions. It I was just getting out of college now, this is a company I would be interested in working at.

Today we went through the hangars full of vendors. It was like attending the boat show except since the focus was for airplanes and pilots we did not feel the pressure to look at everything. There were a lot of things that we were not interested in, which is very different from when we go to boat shows with the exception of the ski boats and ski boat paraphernalia. We skipped over hangar doors, riveting tools, information on flying in Russia, Dominican Republic and New Zealand, helicopters, aircraft instrumentation, flight schools, condos with hangars, alternators for airplanes, etc. we did stop to look at SPOT and GoPro cameras. We did stop by and say hi tonDan and Dave of Paraphenalia, who manufacture the "Softie", an emergency parachute for aerobatic pilots.

After we had gone through the 4 hangars worth of vendors, the rain started. It was time to catch a bus to the EAA museum while it rained outside. We got a chance to see Dick Rutan's Spaceship One as well as Voyager which he flew around the world non stop without refueling. Pretty amazing.

We returned to the main site and watched part of the afternoon air show, with included wing walking and an aerobatic helicopter.

Tomorrow will be our last day at the air show before heading back.

"I'm a basketball jones"....

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