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.