michael(at)flightsked.com
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 Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 10:17 am Post subject: fly-ins |
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I've been to a number of fly-ins, including Oshkosh at both the main field
and Fond du Lac, Sun-n-Fun, AOPA, and some local events. My observation is
that things tend to run smoothly / safely at the extreme ends of the range,
and get disorganized / scary in the middle of the range.
At OSH, they've been doing it long enough and enough people are involved
with enough interest in everything going well, that it is well-planned and
well-organized. There is the occasional glitch, but it's occasional and
generally minor, and any real accident (like the T6 last summer) attracts a
lot of attention because it is so rare.
The biggest problems at OSH seem to be pilots who don't read or understand
the NOTAM. It's kind of large, but well-presented and logical, if you spend
some time studying it. I always print it out in a half-page booklet and
highlight the important-to-check-in-flight things like frequencies and
checkpoints.
I think that everyone is concerned about being the bozo who screws it up, so
nearly everyone does understand and follow the procedures. I'm actually
impressed how well it works.
My biggest pet peeve at OSH is the grass taxiway surfaces. They're uneven
enough that the tiger with a load of camping gear in back can get a kind of
harmonic bounce going with the nose gear. They like you to taxi a bit fast
there, which makes it worse, and sometimes I just have to stop to damp the
oscillation. I wish they'd roll out the grass taxiways to smooth them out,
but I guess that's a minor thing.
The small local events seem to just not attract enough traffic to overload
the normal ability of people to stay alert and work out the right thing to
do, so with a little advance planning and thought about easing the flow, it
works out ok.
Scary things happen in the middle. S-n-F has (IMHO) a really poor arrival
procedure, with indistinct landmarks and a structure that encourages cutting
the corners. Real easy to get the sequencing confused.
I guess that since it's not "the big show," there's a significant number of
pilots who either don't know about or don't care about the notam, and just
kind of blunder in announcing their arrival and asking what to do. What
makes it worse is that the controllers will talk them through it. (If you do
that at OSH, they'll tell you the notam is available at x, y, and z
airports, so go land there and read it.) Lots of chatter and confusion.
Once you arrive at S-n-F, you find that the parking / camping area is pretty
poorly prepared. It's evident to me that they consider the folks who drive
in with their big camper vans and RVs (not the planes) to be their main
customer base, as that's where all the amenities are.
I really like airplane camping, and I think that the tiger is especially
well-suited for it (as long as you're not thinking backwoods strips). I got
turned on to it at Oshkosh, and would highly encourage any competent pilot
to make the trip. It's a ton of fun, and the best part is just being
immersed in aviation - sitting next to your cooler enjoying a cold soda pop
watching the airshow, waking up in your tent to the sound of big radial
engines, all that good stuff. The smaller events are fun as well, and
heading out on your own is best of all.
Michael
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