OSHKOSH from a first timer's perspective.

Massive. Sprawling. Ordered chaos. I had heard about Oshkosh from numerous people who went there, had read article after article about what it was like, and saw the pictures and video tapes. None of that was preparation for the "real thing." The sheer size of the display areas, the "Fly Market," the static aircraft displays, and the air show staging, took hours to walk through. Days later, my typical pilot's out of shape muscles still felt the wear. But it was most certainly worth it!

The first part of our Oshkosh saga was also not as we expected. After a careful study of the procedures, we filed a routing that we thought ATC wouldn't have a problem with, plotting across Detroit to Green Bay since we didn't have a reservation into our destination of Appleton. We didn't think we were quite ready to actually land at Oshkosh, and had followed the leads of our future housemates, the veterans on this trip. Although it was the first day of the show, we were cleared as filed, released almost immediately, and took off from Gaithersburg, Maryland (GAI) in a Beech Baron 55, heading for Appleton, about 20 minutes behind the Navajo which carried our well seasoned companions.

The flight itself was relatively uneventful. This was a surprise, since I expected we would have to deal with a significant amount of traffic and delays due to the high volume of visitors to the show. Instead, we saw very few aircraft along our route, received one reroute which actually brought us more direct, and suffered a last second runway change while we were on final at Appleton.

MaxAir at Appleton was well prepared for the crowd. We were given hard surface parking, had a van to take us and our baggage to the FBO, and were greeted with pleasant helpful employees. Once we unloaded, representatives from the rental car companies had tables outside. There was also a small food concession where we found beer and the eternal Bratwursts available in abundance. We caught up with our housemates, had some refreshment, picked up the rental vans, and drove the 20 minutes or so to our house in Oshkosh.

Like many other families living at "ground zero," our gracious hosts, the Demlers, move into their basement during the week of the show and rent out their home to aviation enthusiasts. Ironically, the person who set up the house rental for us and had stayed with the Demlers for the previous 10 years, Mike Whitcomb, was unable to attend at the last minute. That left 12 of us comfortably staying on trundle beds, air mattresses, and regular beds in the mid sized ranch house. Admittedly, 2 bathrooms for 12 people made for long lines in the morning, but you couldn't beat the hospitality. After dropping our things off, we made for the show, hoping to purchase our admission wristbands early and beat the crowd.

Wednesday was the first day of the show, and we expected long lines, and difficult parking. Traffic was lightest on Wednesday, but steadily increased, peaking on Saturday and Sunday. The expert traffic control personnel at the show prevented delays, and got us parked conveniently near the main gate. The EAA staff quickly got us through the registration process, and we were proudly wearing our "Wednesday" wrist bands. Before we knew it, we had bought a program, were inside the grounds, and immediately had no idea where to begin. It was overwhelming. The group split up, leaving my partner and I to our own devices. We pulled out the map. There were forums, and static displays, and vendors, and hangar displays, and seminars, and author signings, and air show performances, and more than any human could possibly keep up with. We flipped a coin and headed for the vendor displays. We hoped we'd actually be able to get through it all in the four days we were staying.

I had wanted to go to Oshkosh for the vendors and static displays. I was not very interested in airshows. Airshows, to me, meant sitting out in the sun and watching old, lumbering aircraft struggle off the runway, to fly overhead a few times and land. I did not plan much time to watch the air show performers. We instead planned a strategy to cover as many of the vendors as possible, in hopes of purchasing fabulous new doo dads, seeing new technology, and drooling over aircraft we could never afford. We started off by meandering through some vendor's tents on the way to the display hangars.

As with all great plans, some flexibility occur. Somewhere between the AOPA tent and the National Association of Flight Instructor's test, something caught my eye. Looking up, I saw a mostly white Extra tumbling through space. I stopped dead in my tracks to watch. My partner tripped over me, then followed my stare to see what I was looking at. Just then, the announcer started talking about "Patty" and describing some of the figures she was flying. Of course I had heard about Patty Wagstaff, and had even seen her book for sale in one of the EAA shops, but I was certainly not prepared for what this woman could do with an airplane. The rest of the "plan" forgotten, I just stood there, mouth open, watching. I'd had just enough aerobatics training (a whole 5 hours) to know that what she was doing was amazingly difficult. So much for getting to the hangar displays. I stood there dumbly through Bob Hoover's performance, Sean Tucker, and the Northern Lights. I found myself buying Patty's book, and noting the time and place I could get her to sign it. So much for the air show performances being "boring." The schedule was modified to include as much of the performances as possible.

In the following days, I learned that we should have scheduled more time. That way, I could have taken more breaks from the incessant walking, the hot sun, and the crowds. As the days went on, more and more people swelled Whitman Field, we saw some rather amazing things. I drooled on the Ultimate Arrow (owning half of my own Arrow III, my pocketbook ached at the look of its panel). Of course, I had already renewed my AOPA membership, so I have a chance at winning it. No time to daydream about what I would do with it though, since there were so many other things out there to see.

Lust seemed to be the order of the show. There were plenty of things to lust after. The turbo jet conversion for the Malibu Mirage offered by Rocket Technologies was certainly "lustworthy." As were the aerobatic aircraft. I tried not to leave fingerprints on the Extra 300 or the brand new Pitts Specials. Of course, all the GPS companies were there, with gorgeous little IFR approvable panel mount GPSs. Garmin, of course, waited until I had bought a Gamin 195 to come out with their brand new GPS III (well mine has more buttons, so there!). Arnav had their wonderful multi function display that shows stormscope data, weather radar, GPS tracks, and more. I'd love one of those, but my panel doesn't have room yet. It was mind boggling just how many wonderful aviation trinkets, books, instruments, avionics, flight bags, magazines, hangar doors, paint shops, cleaning equipment, drill bits, kits, and t shirts one could buy at Oshkosh. A friend even ran into a vintage yoke for his Ryan Navion!

As probably goes without saying, we bought and bought. Just as tromping along the grounds with too many packages got to be too overwhelming, we found a stand at the "Fly Market" (not the Flea Market, as we were immediately corrected by an Oshkosh Veteran) that sold luggage carts. This made the rest of the day's shopping far easier.

No account of Oshkosh would be complete without some of the presentations and seminars that were given. On the first day of the show, I had bought Patty Wagstaff's book, Fire and Air. I had noticed that she would be signing her book later on in the week. She and her co-author gave a short seminar about the book, about aerobatics, and about Patty's philosophy of life. Later, we lined up for her to sign our books. I felt like a little kid waiting for a rock star's autograph. We also attended the NTSB hearings that were held outside of Washington for the first time. Although rather contrived (the agenda consisted of accidents and issues that would be of great interest to homebuilders and GA crowds) it was quite interesting to see how the NTSB holds hearings. We were also privileged enough to attend a seminar on the effects of G forces, which turned into a small group question and answer session in which Curtis Pitts made an impromptu appearance. It was fascinating to see the man who created the Pitts Special that I had been lusting after a few days before.

Four days was not enough time to see everything. I'm sure that we missed something somewhere. By Sunday when we decided to leave, however, our legs hurt, our feet hurt, we were sunburned, and we were really looking forward to our own beds with our own bathrooms (sans lines). It certainly was an adventure, and one will will be repeating. Maybe we'll stay longer next year.