Trafffic Problems At Oskosh

[Bill Greenwood]

We have enjoyed fine weather so far this week, blue skies and temps in the 80s.
But despite that it has been really difficult to fly out of Oskosh. Coming in does not seem much of a problem, we sat and watched arrivals Sun and at times it was not even busy with a few minute gaps between planes.

We had no weather problems on the trip up on Sat. We were parking near the motel on the northwest corner and as luck would have it we were told to land on the last dot at the far south end of 18 the south runway. For some reason they would not let us taxi on the taxiway so it was a long trip all the way around on the grass, but we got there safely. Today an ATC controller said that if the radio was not too busy we could have asked to land on runway 9-27,but I was trying to follow normal protacol and not talk on the radio.

There is a real snafu when you try fly out, at least on 9-27. I thought the theory was that it was get in line and first come, first served. But that's not how they are doing it. Almost all the single engine planes are sent to taxi on the grass, all the way from the west end to try to take off on 27 last night, and tonight from where the FBOs are on the east end all the way down to the west end to takeoff on 9.
While the single engine peons are nose to tail on the grass, the twins and jets and large singles are allowed to taxi past on the hard surface taxiway and cut in front of the single line and take off. So much for any pretense of any fairness in departure.
Last night we sat and idled for almost an hour in this line, finally had to give up takeoff due to two lead fouled plugs. Had to pay $58 for a cab to Fon Du Lac and $55 to have the plugs cleaned. No real harm done, and it seemed great to be able to get service at night on plugs.
Today the wait in the grass was again about and hour, while twins, even vfr ones and jets and large singles went right by, including 4 L-39s, lot's of King Airs, etc. I asked ATC ground about it an was told it was due to EAA , not ATC. By the time we got off the ground there were lot's of complaints on the radio and some guys said they had been waiting for over an hour. Most of the singles kept there engine running the whole time. I shut down and had to restart 3 or 4 times.
This doesn's seem to me the way people should be treated. I was not aware of this in the past, but then I have rarely done a purely civilian airplane departure.
I have often urged people to visit Airventure, even fly their plane into Oshkoshif the follow the notam. But I am a lot less likley to do that now, sure could not in good faith advise anyone to try to fly out Sat or Sun afternoon or eve.

[Joe Delene]

We got in & out Monday no problem. It was about 30 min in line for T/O after a bit of the REO concert. Your right about expected lines after the show, Sat eve or Sunday A.M.. I'd try to adjust for that departure. Being an early bird, I try to be going when many are still on their morning coffee.

[FSMP]

The procedues outlined above would seem to be an accident waiting to happen.

Frustration at the apparent unfair departure preferrences, long waits at idle, with potential plug fouling - etc, along with the inevitable attitude, that at last it's my turn, I'm going, no matter what ... is a recipe for a takeoff incident.

The lower priority given to "single engine peons" is both unfair and inappropraite without prior "published" warnings.
I do not recall any such advance information in the Oshkosh Notams, to forwarn "single engine peons" that they can exepct this biased departure procedure.

I await with interest to hear some response from the EAA, and their justification for this unpublished procedure. ( Financialism ? )
It also set a dangerous precedence, when the EAA starts telling the FAA's ATC, how to control traffic.

This is, by far the most upsetting news I have heard out of Oshkosh 2011.

Geoff

[KCPilot]

Were the "twins and jets and large singles" IFR departures? IFR departures are staged at different spots for departure from VFR departures.

[Bill Greenwood]

KC, not all the jets and twins and Piglatus, etc/ were IFR, some stated vfr.
As for staging at a different place, sounds good on paper, but all the planes on the north side came to the runway at the same entrance. The only difference is the single engine smaller ones were sent onto the grass all the way, while the corporate type planes were allowed to taxi on the hard service and bypass and cut in front of the long line of singles. A few of the small planes were ifr too.

Geoff, yes it can be tempting to takeoff even if you might have a rough engine after waiting in line for an hour. But that is just the Devil talkig to you. It's smart and easy to refuse to listen to that guy. In our case my plane was found to have lead fouled bottom plags on cylinder 1 and 4. Flying would not have been safe.

[Fred Stadler]

Bil,
I was volunteering to direct traffic during the time you describe. The crux of the problem is that when the winds require use of runway 9 instead of runway 27, we have no appropriate area to stage the aircraft which require hard surface taxiing. I can assure you that all of the volunteers fly small aircraft, not bizjets and we have no reason to give preferential treatment to heavy aircraft. While your primary interest may be first-come first-served, our primary interest is safety. Often that means clearing out the aircraft with heavy jet blast to protect the number of smaller aircraft and pedestrians in the area.
Volunteering at Flight Line Operations is a wonderful experience and I encourage you to try it. I think it will give you a different (and likely more positive) view of the challenges in safely handling hundreds of aircraft wanting to depart at the same time. Sometimes it's just the "luck of the draw" and if the winds favor 27 instead of 9, the queue will be handled in a different sequence.
I'm glad that you got in and out safely and I hope you are looking forward to AirVenture 2012, just as we are.

[FSMP]

Bil,
While your primary interest may be first-come first-served, our primary interest is safety. Often that means clearing out the aircraft with heavy jet blast to protect the number of smaller aircraft and pedestrians in the area.

Thank you for your Volunteer work -- without volunteers like you there would no Oshkosh.

However, I do not understand the Logic of your explantion.

How does "clearing out the aircraft with heavy jet blast" -- "protect the number of smaller aircraft and pedestrians in the area"

Surely pedestians should not be in the blast area, neither should smaller aircraft. !!

By your logic, the smaller planes should have been let go first (to get them out of the Blast area) , while the pedestians were being moved out of the potential blast area as well , BEFORE "clearing out the aircraft with heavy jet blast".

Also, a "primary interest is safety" would seem NOT to put the smaller planes in an unprepared situation, of being in a non-moving departure queue, for an extended period, with the potential risk of plug fouling etc.

Hopefully, these pilots in small planes, having taxied into line, expecting to depart, were advised of the "EAA's plan" to hold them there for an extended period. ( Not the impression I get from Bill's original post).

While I am sure there was a good reason for how things were handled, your explanation does not appear to be logical.

However, the bottom line must be that everyone who departed, did so safely, so, "well done" to you.
( I appreciate you were only following orders, and I am not trying to shoot down the messenger)

Geoff

[Bill Greenwood]

Fred, I don't know if you are misinformed or intentionaly trying to BS me and others, but claiming that King Airs, Pilatus, Barons, etc, as well as small and medium sized jets are allowed to taxi on the taxiway and circumvent the long line of waiting singles and cut in at the end; has something to do with safety is just BS.

There were no, zero, jets ahead of me Tue night when I pulled out of the FBO and was not allowed to go on the taxiway. A jet coming behind some of the singles is not going to be a safety concern to them. And I live and taxi and fly at an airport that is filled with all manner of large corporate jets.


If you are going to write on the site, which I hope you do, at least be honest and don't give us some phoney explanation. It is pretty obvious that someone, (ATC says it was EAA) made the decison to allow the bigger planes to cut in line. Money does talk,and I think it was speaking very loudly.

By the way, while I have been a marshaller volunteer at Sun N Fun, I have no interest it doing someone's dirty work, and if I did I certainly would not blame it on safety.

[Bill Greenwood]

Fred, another couple of points that make your "safety" claim not valid, is that mostly it did not matter which runway was in use. Either way the smaller singles were denyed use of the paved taxiway and sent onto the grass. On Mon eve it was to taxi from our parking near the west end,all the way on the grass down to the east end to takeoff on 27; just as I wrote on my first post on this topic. The only difference was that for the most part the larger planes were already at the FBOs near the east end. They did not have to taxi from the west end, rather they pullled right out of Basler, and Orion parking and were cleared promptly to takeoff. "Safety" eh? I didn't see any of them waiting for any singles to take off in front of them. BY the time I got to the takeoff point for rwy 27, after almost an hour, all the corporate type planes had already gone. "Safety"?
On Tue eve the direction was reversed for the singles to taxi.
As for a your concern for safety, two things. Do you think it is best to launch planes on 9 over the lake and tell them to continue east and not stay within gliding distance of the shoreline. We just lost two people in the water on Sun, don't know if they would have survived on land, but a better chance probably. I realize this is not your decision, but you are the one claiming a "safety" concern here.
risk of hitting a prop on the ground ( I didn't see any hit) and it adds a lot, up to an hour or more of running at fairly high power and low forward speed and with poor engine cooling. And as happend to me, after that long a time there is the risk of fouling plugs.

[Janet Davidson]

Wow, Bill.

You can read on Fred's post that he is a volunteer working FLO. Therefore, without even knowing him & what he does, it doesn't take the greatest brain to work out that he is probably working very hard during this past week as part of the very large & dedicated team of volunteers who help with the safe operation of aircraft during this week.

Despite that he took the time to try & answer your question.

Then you accuse him of BS-ing, being dishonest & giving phoney explanations.



Seriously?