Roost Air Lounge => Aviation related topics => Topic started by: Mike on August 27, 2007, 05:07:35 PM
Title: How was Oshkosh?
Post by: Mike on August 27, 2007, 05:07:35 PM
Did anybody from in here go?? If yes, how was it? What's the latest news?
And is anybody going to Reno?
Title: Re: How was Oshkosh?
Post by: Turbomallard on August 27, 2007, 06:25:33 PM
I can only speak for myself, but it was incredible, as always. There was way too much to do; I wanted/needed to be in two or three places at once most of the time. I got to see a lot of friends, but all too often it was all too brief. Many outstanding moments, many of which were related to my book which came out that week. In some cases it was strange... somebody would start talking to me about something I wrote about that happened 35 years ago and after me giving them a blank look for several minutes realized I had no idea who they were. One guy about my age told me how reading about John Monnett's early days took him back. I had no idea who the guy was. Well, when John first got married in the late 60s he and his wife rented the top floor of a house; the owner of the house/landlord lived down stairs with his family. John was builiding a metal airplane evenings (a Midget Mustang) using things like rivet guns and eventually the landlord would knock on the upstairs door and ask John to finish up for the night so his boy could sleep. Being the clever guy he is, John got the boy interested, and he would often spend evenings "helping out" upstairs to negate the father's noise complaints. As you can guess by now, the guy who was talking with me at Oshkosh was the "boy" in question. And, in a wonderful twist of fate, he and HIS son are now building a Sonex!
Then there was the fun of being interviewed on the announcer stand (one of the announcers is a Sonex builder and was interested in helping promote the book). I was on the mike going live all over the show site when some guy in a CT sportsplane came screaming in to land, very fast and very hard. I could see what was going to happen and started gesturing to the announcer, who was facing me but had his back to the runway and didn't see the impending accident. Somehow, I didn't miss a beat as I watched the CT slam onto the runway, rip its right main gear off, and skid a few hundred feet in a cloud of dust. The announcer finally figured I was gesturing about something he needed to see and turned around just as the CT skidded to a halt. When I got done with the sentence I was uttering he cut me off and said how nice my book was and thanked me for coming and then shut the audio down while we tried to figure out what happened (turns out the pilot (a bad one who made serious bad judgements) was unhurt; I think the airplane was repaired by the end of the week).
And then there was the rest of the week... it's all still a blur now. Phew!
These got messed up on uploading somehow... there are duplicates and not everything got uploaded. Yahoo doesn't seem to care since they're shutting down the service in about three weeks.
TM
Title: Re: How was Oshkosh?
Post by: Rooster Cruiser on August 28, 2007, 01:20:17 AM
Did anybody from in here go?? If yes, how was it? What's the latest news?
And is anybody going to Reno?
Didn't make it to Oshkosh (as usual, I'm always working during that time frame!), and I was just at Reno last week for the Vegas to Reno off road desert race. Bad news... the Boss' Trophy Truck (#27) broke down and didn't even get as far as Tonopah!
Title: Re: How was Oshkosh?
Post by: want2fly on August 28, 2007, 01:43:25 PM
I was up volunteering the week end before the convention and the last day. It was incredible! Also, I was up there on Friday with my parents.
Title: Re: How was Oshkosh?
Post by: want2fly on August 28, 2007, 01:44:17 PM
