I had a great 5 and a half days at Oshkosh, Sunday to Friday morning. Great turnout of aircraft, although the warbirds were a bit down and met up with many many friends, always great time.
But as is often the case (think this was my 28th Oshkosh) the biggest disappointment and frustration is the airshow. It seems to me that far too much emphasis is given to the established airshow acts or sponsors aircraft, but not to what is unique to Oshkosh, the interesting aircraft that the members bring. The airshow is also too long with too many aerobatic acts all very similar that go on for ages.

Most frustrating was the GeeBee QED, to many the highlight of Oshkosh this year, they only flew one day (perhaps their choice) but then just took off, did one pass (which was great for photos thanks) and then landed on 27 rather than 36 infront of us, I don't think that was their choice, the wind was very light. I imagine it was due to the airboss who wanted the next act on the runway. The next act was yet another aerobatic act (Orange CAP/Extra etc) which had at least twice the time the GeeBee did. Surely the GeeBee could have done 3 or 4 passes, even if they were fairly straight and level, much more interesting to see. Earlier a BD5 variant had done 10 or more very similar mildly aerobatic passes, taking a lot of time, but they were an established act with sponors I guess.
We even had the TBM900 doing a much longer display, of little interest to most people, but a sponsor, so I guess that is why they get a longer timeslot.
Similarly the Fairey Gannet only did one pass and then landed, at least on 36.

I did like the Breezy fly-bys this was probably the highlight of the airshow, but again they could have flown by more than once, as could the homebuilts in the homebuilt review.
The vintage review was a big disappointment, seeing this on the list earlier in the week I was hoping we were going to return to the good old days of the Vintage parade of flight which lasted 30-40 minutes and featured many vintage aircraft. This year we could have had some good choices with the Lockheed 12s, Fairchild 71s, Vega, Travelair D4D, Travelair B14, Staggerwings, Howards, Wacos etc. But then saw it was only 15 minutes! And even more disappointed when we saw just 5 or 6 Classics were to take part! We really need to make more effort to try to get some of the more interesting vintage aircraft flying in the show. Obviously some owners don't want to fly, but surely some do.

The warbird shows are also particularly frustrating. Monday as we wanted to see the Gannet, we stood by 18/36 and waited for the warbird arrivals, they came in their formations,quite a few high flybys and a couple of lower fly bys, then started to break off to land. Now time for some good landing photos we thought!! But, no, they all landed on 27! Wind wasn't a factor and for the first 10 minutes of them landing there wasn't anything happening on 18/36 at all, just the announcer continuing his talking. Even when something did happen it was just yet another aerobatic act. Surely it would be much more interesting for the crowd to watch the warbirds land. Tuesday we stood by 27 at the end of the warbirds and had a much better show with nearly everything landing infront of us, the added bonus here being well away from the speakers, so we could hear the aircraft rather than the announcers.

Ive long found the style of the warbird show disappointing, the big formations of trainers are OK, but cant they do anything else (of course the Trojan Horsemen are a notable exception) The liaison/trainers fly around in circles miles away, one close lower pass would be better! and then the fighters (Very few this year) also just do fast straight passes far away, pulling up at the end, then circle round and do the same thing again and again.
The one improvement this year was the formation of 4 T33s which were great to see. The next best "warbird show" were the 4 Stearmans who did 4 or 5 different formation passes down 27 during Friday morning.

I missed the "big" Friday warbird show as I had left by then, but a friend told me it was very poor with no fighters, the only bomber being an OV-1 and no Liaisons either, a lot less than Tuesday. We did notice many warbirds had left on Friday morning.

Perhaps someone needs to visit Duxford or La Ferte Alais in France to see what can be done for a warbird airshow, although at Oshkosh 2013 the Texas flying legend showed how it could be done.