The Spirit of Aviation

The day started early for me as I rolled off the couch at Cindy and Mark's at 5:30am.

For the past 20 plus years, Cindy and Mark have been opening their home to EAA AirVenture travelers during the last week of July. Now they orchestrate a little compound in their neighborhood consisting of 3 houses. They rent out every available sleeping place within going from bedrooms to couches to the foam padded tops of hot tubs. It is a great community of people that gather and we all share in the hospitality that Cindy and Mark offer. Their house is only a mile away from the airport and they give us rides over to and rides back from the event and provide us breakfast and set up dinners with the group. It is great fun for everyone and a good community of friends.

Anyway, back to 5:30am. You may wonder why in the hell I needed to get up that early. It was not was not because I was bouncing out of bed to see more planes. My early rise was due to the fact that months before EAA had sent out an email to it's members requesting that if any of us were going to be around for AirVenture they were wondering if we would be able to help them out modeling some clothes for their annual clothing catalog. I responded and now fast forward 5 months and the reality of the situation was staring me in the face way to early in the morning!

One of my fellow housemates, Tex, drove me over to the grounds at 6am. I met a great couple from Texas who were getting photos at the same time. The three of us went out in the early morning light with the photographer and the coordinator and had our 2 min of fame in front of a few cool old warbirds. By 7:30am it was all over and another day of soaking it all in was in front of me.

I met up with Jerry and we headed down to the ultralight area. Even though I was here last year for an entire week with my dad I never made it down to the ultralights. There is just so much to see that in that whole week I felt like I only saw 60% of what was available, if that much. Jerry and I checked out a lot of cool things but we never did find what we were looking for. Jerry used to have a powered parachute years ago (http://buckeyedragonfly.com). We found the powered parachutes and such but we never did find the the powered paragliders. This is what I am interested in. Any time you want you can just strap one on your back and go. This is what I want to do! Enjoy the music! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYhYkrQ18_Y&feature=related. Oh well. I am still getting one! :)

Later in the day Jerry and I took advantage of a free helicopter ride that we had come about the day before. It was short but great to get up above the crowds and see the whole event from the air. Today's picture is from that 5 min ride.

After looking around at a few last things I joined my friend John Eckel to watch the day's air show. We were amazed as always. At the end of the air show they opened up the airport again to landing traffic. As we began to walk back to the car a little after 6pm we heard an unusual sound from the runway we turned around and saw a business jet making a very steep left turn to the runway only a couple hundred feet above the ground. It was unusual but the jet seemed to recover and descend to the runway. We continued on our way but then heard another unusual sound. We turned around but could not see anything because of the parked planes. We just continued on and wrote it off. When we got back to the house we found out that it had in fact been Jack Roush (famous NASCAR team owner and aviator)and that he had crashed his plane on landing. Both he and his friend survived the crash but the plane was totaled and he was hurt pretty bad. Seems like he will be okay but a scary situation all around. We won't know what happened until the investigation is completed but from the little bit that I saw it seemed like he was far from a stabilized approach. I wish him the best of luck in his recovery.

We finished up the evening at a great restaurant called Kodiak Jacks. As we were eating we realized that they were starting a karaoke night! Jerry was excited and jumped up in no time to sing a song and dedicate it to his wonderful partner of 14 years, Susan. Very sweet. later after a few more drinks and many more laughs Jerry sang a song to our hostess Cindy. Cindy has a personality bigger than any room that she is in and an incredible sense of humor. That is why Jerry knew that he could get away with singing her the song, "That Lady is a Tramp". It was a riot and the whole restaurant was laughing so hard that they were wiping away tears at the end. In the end I tried my hand at the karaoke mic for the first time in what has to be 15 years. Let's just say that it left a lot to be desired. :) The last time that I even saw karaoke was when I was crossing the north Atlantic on a merchant ship in 2002 and the Philippino crew would get drunk and sing "The Rose" while sobbing and crying. It was quite an experience. :)

This was my last day in Oshkosh for this year but no matter what I will be back next year for sure. How could I not come? This place truly is the spirit of aviation and that same spirit resides within me.

Tomorrow: home and into Amy's arms.