I'm with you 100%. We were south of airshow center near the former Hangar Cafe. Both night airshows, the friggin' music was louder than the fireworks. Note to whoever is running the PA system: Those are public address speakers. They have a limit and whatever you are driving them is more than they are capable of handling. The speakers are pretty much just buzzing. I'm at OSH to hear airplane noise.
Most of the Airventure grounds is a hayfield in the offseason. They switched to using a very heavy reaper/bailer machine and for practical purposes it runs perpendicular to the rows causing bad rutting any year it's the least bit soft (which includes this year and last).Originally Posted by jjhoneck
Every year I bitch about no wifi in Vintage and the EAA IT guys swear it works, then I tell them I'm behind the Hangar Cafe and then they admit that it will never work there because they put some piece of junk consumer grade thing that will never be upgraded.2. WiFi. It was pathetic, as always. We ended up setting up a hot spot with my 4G phone most days, which worked just fine. Either do Wifi right, or save the money and skip it entirely.
[Vintage shoots every plane that arrives and if you're a member you get a plaque with the picture. Lobby custom and the north 40 for the same concession.5. Still no arrival photos. If EAA contracted with four photographers to take pics of every arrival, and put them up on the EAA website (in low res, of course) for purchase, they would make a freaking fortune. Every pilot I've mentioned this idea to has said they would buy a copy in a heartbeat, because flying into Oshkosh during the convention is such a badge of honor amongst pilots.
Best bit was the night airshow / fireworks on Wednesday.
Food on offer was fine - ate at the subway in homebuilt area which was fine - girls there were very good.
Worst was the revised crowd lines for Thunderbirds. It would have been better to allow the normal crowd line to be available for the warbird show then a break to get people to move back. Or put the Tbirds on first and then open the crowdline. To me having the crowdline where it was for the entire show was a poor decision and certainly spolt any photography opportunites on those days for departure shots as the aircraft are far closer than the display line they use.
Also agree with the comments about golf carts - even saw people texting whlst driving them.
Toilets did seem to be kept clean etc but did run out of water very quickly
Already looking forward to 2015.
As chairman of an organization that has a booth and an event at the show, some of us rent a house on the west side of town and "commute" to the grounds. In years past, I have been nearly reduced to apoplexy trying to figure out why "they" couldn't get the traffic in and out of the field ("We're gonna be late to the booth!" and "We're gonna be late to meet our sponsor at the restaurant!"). And it didn't seem to matter what time we started out.
This year - wow! Traffic moved, quickly and efficiently, even the 0830 (we were late after breakfast at Perkins) congestion at 20th street. Kudos to the city, the police, and EAA for improving this!
Anxiety is nature's way of telling you that you've already goofed up.
While I'm probably in the minority I could care less about the WiFi. I even shut my cell phone off at times so I'm not distracted but I know some folks (including my kids) that almost panic if they can't get the internet, facebook or whatever.
If God had intended man to fly He would have given us more money!
The plaque from Vintage is cool (my son got one the year he flew our 'Coupe in), but that's not what I mean. I want an action shot of my plane flaring to land on RWY 27. Or three or four shots -- I'd buy them all.
Heck, the Cherokee Pilots Association did this at their national fly-in 13 years ago, made a gob of money -- and they were using film cameras! Imagine how simple this would be today, with digital cameras.
Given the number of amateur photographers I see at OSH each year, I suspect this would be a pretty simple deal. Heck, you could probably automate the whole process with a motion detector.
I bet EAA would gross $100K+ on such a venture. Figure 10,000 planes, ten bucks a picture. Who wouldn't buy it?
Last year I had my wing mounted Go Pro fired up and ready to do the whole shot from Fisk into approach and landing on 36. I got so involved in watching for traffic, etc. I forgot to turn the remote on....... until I was on the ground. Very unhappy to say the least. Didn't fly in this year due to weather.
If God had intended man to fly He would have given us more money!
Same here; however, we need to attract younger people, and they expect functional WiFi.
Thankfully, the cell companies did an admirable job of bringing in extra cell towers. 4G coverage was excellent, which enabled us to set up WiFi hot spots as needed.
The WiFi problem was really a serious issue. Unlike years past, this year, EAA promoted their app that had all of the forums, workshops, twitter feeds, etc. The problem was that you needed internet connectivity to make it function. My personal experience is that is seemed significantly harder to get a good wifi link than it was last year, even when right next to a hotspot. I am going to assume that they increased capacity over last year, anticipating greater use through both the greater use across the board of internet apps and because they were promoting use of their own app. Regardless, capacity did not come close to meeting demand. As a result, beginning on Monday, I found the EAA app to be worse than useless.
Agree that cell phone reception was excellent throughout. (Which meant no valid excuses for not responding at work email…other than, "I am on vacation!")
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