Oshkosh in the Cirrus

I got the chance to attend AirVenture (Oshkosh) this year as an exhibitor - we ForeFlight-ers had our first booth ever at the biggest general aviation airshow there is!

My dad joined me for the flight up to Osh. We flew on an IFR flight plan from KUZA up to KCEV first, for a cheap fuel and bathroom stop. A CFI was manning the small FBO there and gave me great instructions on parking by the self-serve pumps - he went so far as to pump the gas for us before he started a lesson with a student. He wouldn't accept the tip I tried to give him, instead he set me up in his office so I could check the weather. They're giving southern hospitality a run for its money up there!

The airport was gorgeous, surrounding by lush farmland, but we didn't have time to soak it in - soon we were blasting off for KFLD (Fond du lac) and talking to Dayton approach to pick up our clearance.

As we neared Chicago they routed us well west of the airport, adding 10-15 minutes of flight time to the trip and throwing a quick "figure out this new route" problem my way. ForeFlight Mobile made it easy to sort out what waypoints to add to the 430 GPS, and after a few traffic vectors we eventually were cut loose to go direct to KFLD. When I say "cut loose" I mean it - I was told that if I didn't cancel by the time I was near Madison they'd cancel IFR for me - I didn't have a IFR reservation slot.

However, when I did cancel the nice controller offered to keep giving me traffic advisories so I stayed with him another 10 minutes or so before getting ready to land at KFLD.

Once we canceled services with ATC we dialed in the ATIS at KFLD. Since traffic was heavy there (soggy grass had lots of people going to KFLD instead of KOSH) they had standard patterns to enter for landing on runway 36. In our case we went east over the city and entered a downwind leg. You don't talk back to the tower controller when it's that busy - instead you rock your wings. So as we entered the pattern he called out "white cirrus, number 4 for landing, if you hear this rock your wings" and so we rocked.

We followed the line of aircraft in the pattern until we were just over the numbers. We were much closer to the airplane in front of us than I would normally allow - but when it's that busy you just have to be up on your "game". I was starting to flare when the tower asked me to land long, so I put a decent bit of power in and we kept flying for another 1500' feet or so. After that I decided I wanted to get my wheels on the ground (the end of the runway was fast approaching) so I landed and got on the brakes just enough to make the taxiway.

Ground had us taxi over to the east-west runway to park off the taxiway with the others. We slowly taxied by all the aircraft, nervous that a wing tip might tap another planes prop, and then shutdown. The folks working the parking pushed us back into the grass but it was quickly obvious that the SR22 was too heavy for wet grass parking. We were stuck with the nose still out in the taxiway a bit. Time to call the tug.

It took the better part of an hour for the tug to arrive so we just had to wait it out in the sun. I hovered over the prop to guard it from other aircraft taxiing by. One guy in particular taxied by so fast I actually yelled at him - he was doing 15-20MPH in an area with inches of clearance and people walking all around. Luckily he didn't hit anything. It sure did make me think that some folks don't have enough sense to fly an aircraft though.

In that same vein the guys parked next to us decided it would be a good idea to crawl into the back of their small RV aircraft - an aircraft that was parked on an incline. When the the guy plopped himself in the backseat to get his luggage - BAMMM - the tail smacked into the grass. They just picked up the tail and shrugged it off - I stood there wondering if they had managed to break something structurally important.

Eventually the tug arrived and took us to hard surface parking. Again I tried to tip the tug operator but he'd have none of it - instead he promised to find a tie down spot for me as soon as he could.

The gentleman whose house ForeFlight rented came down from OSH to pick up us in his car. He even helped us unload the airplane and put the cover on.

We had finally arrived - happy but tired and ready for a late lunch!

...More on my OSH trip in the next post!

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