Thunderbirds at Osh 2013?

[FlyingRon]

You didn't have to be a member to get on the flight line. All you had to do was be a pilot or a member of the EAA or some other aviation group (like AOPA).

[flibmeister]

The rules were changed after the 1998 Ramstein crash where planes collided during a maneuver toward the audience.

While it's true that a lot of air show rules were changed as a result of the Ramstein crash, I'm pretty sure that wasn't the incident that resulted in OSH losing the ability to host jet teams; that change took place several years earlier. I was a controller working OSH the year I eavesdropped on the feds conversation with Bob (in those days, controllers and performers were put up at the same motel and we all drank at the same bar), so that would put it in the time frame of '80 to '91.

IIRC, it had become more and more difficult to ensure that the homes and other buildings on the east side of 18/36 were unoccupied. We'd had problems with that in past years-- homes that were supposed to be vacated instead had people sitting in lawn chairs in the back yard, watching the show. I think the feds just chose that year to go with a strict enforcement policy: there was no way to ensure all the homes were truly vacated, so the FAA refused to issue the Category I waiver. There was no jet team scheduled that year, so Bob's performance in the Sabreliner was the only one affected. There may have been an effort to fix the problem in one of the succeeding years, seems like there was one more year when we had a jet team fly-- but the same problems arose, and there hasn't been an aerobatic jet demo there since (with the exception of the BD-5 Jet, which is considered a Category III, so only needs 500' from spectators instead of 1500').

[PaulDow]

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...in those days, controllers and performers were put up at the same motel and we all drank at the same bar), so that would put it in the time frame of '80 to '91.

I'm shocked; shocked to find that drinking is going on in here!
I don't know how many houses and businesses would need to be cleared, but that's got to be pretty impossible to get 100% to agree and comply. I would think being able to hold a party at your house or business would be a trade-off from dealing with the crowds and traffic for the week.

[Mayhemxpc]

There has got to be ways around that. Some years ago (a few more than ten but less than 15) I was in Chicago at the same time as the wings and water event on the lakeshore. I was on the observation deck of the Sears Tower when the Thunderbirds started their routine. They use the Sears tower as their turning point. It was awesome to look DOWN on the jets as they made the turns.