Gripes

[mmcgrew]

Wasn't there a shower trailer there, like in past years? That's where I was parked last year, and it was conveniently located near the fence--and actually provided better showers than the new shower house.

On tail to tail parking in the North 40, that's the way it was done on the first Saturday when I flew in. All of the south side of the North 40 was packed by Sunday evening. But curiously, people started flying out as early as Monday, and by Tuesday there were many vacant areas, and yet instead of "refilling" them, the volunteer guides were sending airplanes to the north side of the North 40--there were vacancies in the row I was in all week. I suppose it's a little easier to do that, but in past years when I couldn't come until later, like on Tuesday or Wednesday, I was still parked in vacant spaces on the south side of the North 40.

On food at the Seaplane Base, Haase's North 40 Cafe was excellent--good and relatively quick service, friendly staff, excellent food--where else can you get a rib-eye steak sandwich for the bucks? But at the Seaplane Base, same vendor, but the food choices were more limited, and yet I have to agree, the hamburger I had was excellent, as was the potato salad. But it did take a long time in line, perhaps because they didn't have enough grills going. Most of the staff were pleasant enough there, but there was a largish woman who (whether she was a manager or not) acted as if she was in charge, and she was obnoxious, boorish, sarcastic (to both staff and patrons), and had I been "the boss", she would have been canned on the spot--there's no excuse for her behavior. So perhaps Haase's needs to be told directly that some of what they did was top-notch, but some very definite corrections need to be made for next year.

Still and all, the positives for me far outweighed the negatives, and so long as I can fly, I'll be there each year. There were so many improvements this year, and I appreciate that a lot.

Cary

No shower trailer was gone this year

[Inspector Fenwick]

Our wait at the Sea Plan Base food line was 1.25 hours. It just did NOT move!! And I didn't want to bring it up, but I don't like seeing people carrying my plate (or your plate) of food from one side of their tent to the other, with a FREAKING CIGARETTE HANGING FROM HER MOUTH. Yes, she needs other employment.

[FlyingRon]

I suspect the Seaplane base like the Vintage Tall Pines Cafe is operated by volunteers rather than one of the food service outlets.
Still there's no excuse for that.

[I_FLY_LOW]

Our wait at the Sea Plan Base food line was 1.25 hours. It just did NOT move!! And I didn't want to bring it up, but I don't like seeing people carrying my plate (or your plate) of food from one side of their tent to the other, with a FREAKING CIGARETTE HANGING FROM HER MOUTH. Yes, she needs other employment.

Oh yea... If I saw that, I'd have told her to keep it...

[Chuck Arnold]

If folks can stand another comment about lawn chairs parked along the flight line with no owner in sight, I'll add this: Aren't they actually a bit of a hazard in the event of a sudden storm? Unexpected high winds are not unheard of at Oshkosh, and I really wouldn't like my airplane to be downwind of a hundred or so bouncing, flying lawn chairs. Isn't that reason enough to ban unattended lawn chairs?

[keen9]

This was my 24th Oshkosh, and certainly the tide has turned back this year. Improvements were evident all over the place.

The Good:
1) The quality of the food. With little to no increase in price, the quality of the food was dramatically better than Zaug's.

2) After several years of promises, finally, the vehicle traffic was actually reduced. I did not have a single issue with a car or golf cart the whole week. The only time I was worried about the mix of pedestrians and vehicles was after the Wed night airshow. There were so many people all leaving at the same time along with some vehicle traffic, but fortunately the cars near us were being cautious and courteous. I'd still suggest a 30-60 minute no drive time on the grounds after the night shows especially (the exodus is less sudden for day shows).

3) I loved all of the homebuilt (granted almost all RV) action in the airshows, but the part that was really excellent was the narration talking about Joe Shetterly's actually building his RV-8, and how you can do that too! It's like I was at an EAA convention or something! If we're going to let the masses into our convention they better leave knowing they can build an airplane in their garage, and this year that was true!

4) The trams were much improved this year both in not being part of the vehicle issue (were they actually encouraged to run people down in previous years?) and availability.

5) The generally attitude of everyone represent EAA was welcoming. The sense of the entitled few seemed to disappear from last year.

The Bad:
1) Where did the "Protect-Our-Planes" volunteers go? I saw lots of baffoonery around people's aircraft. Is it going to take an accident caused by crowd induced damage before more is done? I will never park an airplane of mine east of Wittman road unless is well south of the center.

2) The lack of garbage on the ground at OSH used to be one of the great wonders of the world. Alas, that greatness has passed. I saw some garbage last year, and now lots this year. I can no longer afford to stop to pick every piece I find up. Near some of the food areas that would take an hour per visit!

3) The service of the bathroom facilities used to also amaze me. Not so much this year. They were not always clean, and I was unable to start the process I wished to achieve at one of the large exhibit halls due to the entire facility being out of TP.

4) Had a forum that was accidentally canceled on learning to fly. Unfortunately, my wife was excited to attend (I've already learned to fly), but the forum location was accidentally canceled. It's too bad that there was not even an opportunity to reschedule the forum at another time.

The Ugly:
1) The chairs left along the flightline. Three months after the Boston bombing, and EAA has a kabuki bag check at the main entrance (come on, these are worthless), but allowed hundreds of folding chair bags to be left along the flight line. In high winds these can become missiles, and who knows which one may be a bomb. I was tempted to start carrying as many as I could to the lost & found. Any bag, chair, etc left unattended should be immediately removed. Any other policy is simply unacceptable.

2) Some of the food venders were not ready for prime time in terms of service. Monday we ate at the Vintage Cafe. Maj Goolsby's did not have a system for accurately filling orders depending only on the aggressiveness of the individual filling your order to grab the required item when it came up, and then when after several complaints we finally got the wrong item. It took another 10-15 minutes to get the right thing. They obviously fixed there issues or the forum would have been filled with complaints. Also had an issue at one of the A&W locations. It was clear that ordering a sandwich without fries was a recipe for not getting your order filled without complaint.

All in all, it was one of the better years for Oshkosh.

PS your all welcome for the good weather. Murphy guaranteed it when our groups wife's booked a house for the week after camping for 20+ years!

[FlyingRon]

The potential to blow unattended chairs in a storm was the justification we used to use to remove them from the flight line. However starting last year we were just told to lay them down. Frankly, your plane is likely to be crapped on by worse things than the lawn chairs. Twice I was the number #1 plane up on the flight line and the behavior of idiots out there is rephrehensible. Too bad they did away with POP.

Actually the food at Maj. Goolsby was pretty good and the several times I stopped in there I guess it wasn't busy enough for the service to be a problem.

[Mayhemxpc]

Could Keen9's wife be persuaded to book a house again next year? The whole family will be coming up to camp for the whole week and I sure would like a repeat of this year's weather.

[N222AB]

To follow up with Keen9...

The good:
1) I'll agree with the food improvement. Better selections and, based on my limited samples over the week, better quality.

The bad:
2) I also gave up trying to pick up garbage. I don't recall this being as big a problem before. Also, at times the garbage containers on the grounds seemed to get full to overflowing before WM emptied them at times.

3) Also agree with the restroom problems. This never used to be a problem.

The ugly:
1) What's the point of the cursory look at a few bags and backpacks at one gate? The people who looked at my camera bag each morning didn't seem to have much idea what to look for. Plus, they weren't there all the time. I think an event like Airventure is basically unsecurable. There are ten thousand things on the airport that could be used to bring something on site to do great harm. Annoying a few folks at the main gate doesn't do much except maybe satisfy some DHS mandate or dictate from the local police department.

Oh, and whoever at EAA was in charge of the weather this year - Great Job! :-)

[s10sakota]

Did anyone notice all the people smoking this year? I've never ever seen a smoker on the grounds before and this year, it seems like every corner I turned I was choking on cigarette smoke. Not on the flight line, but all the building around the tower. People sitting out smoking everywhere. Since when is this allowed?