Warbird Show Question

[John Leidel]

In my 42 years attending Oshkosh I have noticed a significant decrease in the number of Aircraft participating in the Warbird shows. I am curious why this is. Is it the cost of the fuel, or certain qualifications to participate or insurance or politics? Granted we were spoiled with years like the "Tribute to Valor" in I believe 1995 . I am not criticizing, just curious. It just seems in the past the Warbird area pretty much emptied out during the show and now most of the planes stay parked. Also, I know it is a timing issue, but I really, really miss when ALL of the Warbirds would take off and recover in front of the crowd. Nothing more beautiful to see or hear than all those big beautiful engines running up on take off. Unfortunately Oshkosh is my only opportunity to get my Warbird fix in, so I wait all year for it to happen.

[Bill Greenwood]

John, just my guess, but it is a few things. First, the warbird flying has been pretty restricted in the past, mostly you took off, went about 4 times around the same pattern and landed. So not as good flying a some other places. Next the big formation groups came along and they want to be in the air, even some who might not be as much of a crowd draw. And they want you to come practice with their group and have to have a card to fly with that group. Some make this a grim process and can often exclude people as much as include. And no one is getting paid to fly at EAA, other than show fuel so it might cost you $500 to go fly the show as for as engine time, insurance, maintenance, etc.On Wed I saw a sight I never saw before, someone making a pass on 36 and a LEFT TURN. I wanted to do it for years, only had right turns, and only 36.

[Mayhemxpc]

Here is the inside baseball info. Bill has a point, but that is not all of it. We had more warbirds come this year that in the past several. At one point there were 22 P-51s on the field at one time. As of Thursday, 310 warbirds had registered with more expected over the weekend. Two things may have created a precetion of reduced participation. The first was trying to cram a wide variety of acts into a limited time. This included finding time for the A350 demo and the F-22 team. These were great and well worth the time given to them, but it means other things have to fall out. Friday, the warbirds portion was given precisely 52 minutes of time. The air boss had to try his best to get as much action as he could into that limited period. I think he did a good job of it. The second element was outside of his control. Weather. Last year on Friday the warbirds show was effectively weathered out. This year, although the sun shined every day and temperatures were excellent, you may have noticed that the wind was a bit brisk. Many pilots made the safety decision on one or more of the windier days not to challenge some rather severe crosswinds. On some days there were 26 kts direct crosswind gusts, challenging for any conventional gear aircraft. Personal note: I fly an O-2A. The Skymaster is notorious for the rear engine overheating. We spent 30 minutes on the ground before take-off Tuesday and Friday. I had no problem overheating. Just point the nose into the wind and the oil temps stayed right at 2/3 the whole time.

Bill, the L-Birds are not a big draw, but they are still very inclusive. If you want to fly, you can. Friday was originally supposed to be ONLY SEA war airplanes, but the Air Boss made a last minute change in plans to allow all of the WW2 era trainer aircraft to make a couple of (high) passes.

[John Leidel]

Thank you for the responses gentlemen. I have a little better idea of what goes on behind the scenes now. And thank you Chris for participating, a good friend of mines dad flew FAC in an O2 during Vietnam