Oshkosh

I had a bit of a rocky start to Oshkosh 2016.  :)

When we got up, the weather up at Oshkosh had some passing storms and some low clouds, but they were supposed to be gone soon.  They weren't.  They were close to okay, but not close enough, so I had to go file a time slot to get into Fon du Lac.  No problem.   Yes, problem.  They gave me this horrible routing on the ground at OKK, and I just headed for the first waypoint while Steve plugged the rest of it in to the avionics.  One of their waypoints was "from thence the 330 degree radial at the 063 DME".  Are you KIDDING?   Anyway, we get it all plugged in, and find that they are sending us to Michigan.  Literally to Michigan, and right into the mouth of all the storms that had just blown through Oshkosh earlier.  So I call up and say "Unable that routing due to weather".  We continue flying for awhile and they give me another whole convoluted route.  Get that plugged in and find that this time they've turned us around, back towards Kokomo, and then all the way out into the middle of Illinois.  I was so honked.  It's was a 1 hr flight even going to "PEEPS" in the middle of the lake first, with the tailwinds, according to the flight planning software.  When we landed, it was 2.5 hours.  Chicago was so desperate to keep IFR traffic away from their precious airspace, they were moving people going to Oshkosh all over the country.  This is why I don't like flying into/out of Oshkosh IFR.  When we do get to Fon du Lac, the clouds had socked in and I couldn't cancel and come in VFR, I'd totally missed my IFR time slot, and the guy routing us in for the RNAV 36 into FLD did a terrible job of it.  He took me past the fixes and through the course multiple times.  Finally he clears me to intercept the inbound, except he set me up so tight on it that there was no way the autopilot could do it, and I had to disconnect the autopilot, crank the airplane around to about a 60 degree bank, and capture the needle in a hurry.  When I got it captured, and the glide slope in, Steve looked over and said "Excellent job!" then paused and said "Sorry, thought I was the instructor for a second there." Like I said, when we landed it was 2.5 hours later, and I was already tired and annoyed, and it wasn't noon yet, so that's not good.  ;) I got to drop off AE, Steve, Kaylee and Steve T though, and this time I headed back to Kokomo VFR.  I just stayed under the cloud deck and went right past Chicago's airspace and they could bite me.

When I landed at Kokomo, I put away the Aerostar, pulled out the T-6, got it ready, checked the weather, waited for Greg, and eventually we got under way. It was about 1 pm by now and I hadn't eaten, other than a Twix bar I got in Wisconsin. It was particularly hot and muggy, as well. The weather on the way up again wasn't bad, but right away I found a different issue--I couldn't hear well at all with my helmet. It was a big roar. I couldn't talk to Greg, couldn't hear ATC, and that was a problem considering where I was going. So I closed the canopy, and I could halfway hear, it sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher, where you know there's words but you can't figure them out most of the time. With the canopy closed, it became extremely hot in the cockpit, no air flow, sun beating in. It was over 2 hours up there, which wasn't bad, because I chose to go over the water and shorten the flight. The clouds were too low to legally do the "Warbird Arrival", but I did it anyway, and I wasn't the only one. What I DIDN'T know was that the field had been closed for low clouds for most of the day, and I happened to arrive there right as they were letting everyone in, and that was a CLUSTER. It was a mess. There were airplanes everywhere. I had to dive away from a twin Mosquito who didn't see me circling Warbird Island. There was a herd of us at different altitudes and diferent radii circling over this one tiny island. And then 39 T-6s arrived...I timed it just to hit after the Mass Formation T-6 arrivals hit. That was fun. So I circled. And I circled. I'd have run out of gas in Checkertail, but Walt's holds more fuel, thankfully. I also couldn't hear. Bad timing. I was pressing my helmet up against my left ear to try to hear, while holding the stick with my right hand, but the push to talk switch is on the throttle, so I could any two of three things. Either I could hear, fly, or talk, but not all three. Again, this is an actual, real problem for arriving at Oshkosh like that, especially when it's a nutso crazy time. By the time I was able to come in and land, I was exhausted, and dehydrated, and actually at the end of my rope. I was about two circles away from turning around and landing at Fon du Lac and being done with it. I was serriously done. Finally they cleared me to land on the green dot. I was set up great for that, it's more than 1/2 way down the runway, and I'm good. Then three planes are in front of me landing and I'm going...uh...how's that gonna work? And just as I'm on short, short final to the runway, high up and fast to make the green dot, he says "T-6, land on the numbers, on the numbers." Well then. Chop the power, drop the full flaps, and I hit the numbers. Welcome to Oshkosh.

When we parked, and I got out, I was soaked, I looked like I came out of a rain shower. My hair was drenched, everything. Greg was talking to everybody, I just wanted a ride back to my camp, but first I had to secure the airplane, so I got the tie-downs in, got the cover on the plane, hooked up the oil system, all while sweating to death, then our golf cart ride arrived. It was late afternoon, I still hadn't eaten, I had a deyhdration headache, and I was SO, so finished with the whole thing. I started almost snapping at people because it seemed like I could Not get to camp. I had to stop and register at Warbirds, and they didn't want to take my credentials because it's a family membership in Steve's name, and they said I didn't have a membership. I pulled out my card with my name on it and an expiration date of not yet, and eventually they took it. Then we had to drive Greg over to warbird camping, then drive him back out to the plane, and all this time I just want to GO HOME. Well, this week's home, not home home. I've not come so close to losing it in awhile, and there was nowhere I could go to regroup. Sitting on a table at camp, Nathan said "Grasshopper doesn't look very happy". Truth. I chugged about 3 water bottles in a row, changed all my clothes, had a big burger for dinner, had two more water bottles and a Long Island, and THEN I felt like a real human again. ;)

So, just keeping it real here, I have to say, today was not fun on about any level. I did not enjoy the morning flight, with the tons of reroutes and the weather and the 2.5 hours of wandering around, I didn't enjoy the T-6 flight in, with the heat and the noise and unable to hear and the swarm, and I mean SWARM of airplanes all dodging each other. And keep in mind this isn't my first Oshkosh rodeo. I've been here, I know what it's like when it's busy. This was, well, a cluster, and my being unable to hear was just the icing on the cake to top of a trifecta of hazards, including my own physiology. Now that I'm here, I'm glad to be here, but the getting here, well, that was a serious chore.

BUT, enough of the hassles. Now we're here, and the weather cooled off nicely in the evening, and it's supposed to be beautiful Monday, and we have a small but nice trailer, and...away we go!