2015: Good and Bad

[Low Pass]

My best Oshkosh yet. Been going 15 years or so. No qualifications. Not even about the port-o-let cleaning schedule or the WiFi bandwidth.

Good - almost everything. Showers, port-o-can cleanliness, food quality, organization. The Jet Waco was excellent. The new Goodyear Zeppelin was fun to watch. Enjoyed the shade it provided us down in HBC occasionally. The A350 was awsome!! I rode the trams 1 or 2 times in 7 days. Walked an average of 12 miles a day, says my pedometer app. (This was good!)

Bad - Too many flip-flop acro acts. Seriously - I'm sick of these. I'd rather watch anything other than boring flip-flop acro. And bring back Team Aerodynamix. An old Blue Angel pilot told me this is one of the best acts he's ever seen. And I agree.

[wyoranch]

My best Oshkosh yet. Been going 15 years or so. No qualifications. Not even about the port-o-let cleaning schedule or the WiFi bandwidth.

Good - almost everything. Showers, port-o-can cleanliness, food quality, organization. The Jet Waco was excellent! The new Goodyear Zeppelin was fun to watch. Enjoyed the shade it provided us down in HBC occasionally. I rode the trams 1 or 2 times in 7 days. Walked an average of 12 miles a day, says my pedometer app.

Bad - Too many flip-flop acro acts. Seriously - I'm sick of these. I'd rather watch anything other than boring flip-flop acro. And bring back Team Aerodynamix. An old Blue Angel pilot told me this is one of the best acts he's ever seen. And I agree.

How about flying more of the unusual, rare or new aircraft. I get the aerobatic show to a certain extent but I would much rather see more of the heart and soul mixed in to the show. I also understand that a flight of vintage bipes tooling around in circles does not draw the general public. What I am saying is that I personally would stay and watch the show if there was more than 'flip-flop' acro (great way to describe it!). I don't have the answer as I don't need to balance the plate on a stick compromise of gate draw vs keeping the EAA members happy. Just a personal opinion.
Rick
P.S. Am I crazy or do I remember a 'Manufacturer Showcase' before the show? I did not hear a mention of that this year (I was not there but I also don't remember it last year and I was there lol) It could be old age setting in.

[mazdaP5]

One of my gripes the last few years was mixing the showcase in with the airshow. I love the showcase (more than the airshow), but I think showcase really slows down the airshow. I also think the airshow is more for the public, the showcase is for the members.
That's really a minor gripe though. The fly in was fantastic this year, everything was clean, improvements were definitely noticed. great job EAA and volunteers.

[Floatsflyer]

The Good:

Great event overall, always the pinnacle of superior organization, I'm always impressed with this aspect.

Feel the same as everyone else regarding all the new johnny on the spots(portapotties) and servicing. Next year how about AC in them :>). There were times on those extreme humidity days when I felt I was in the Hot Box from the movie Papillon.

Found a fantastic salad at the Celebration Way food tent: Ginger sesame with grilled chicken and it was a large portion.

Attended 2 really good historically themed Forums( I usually don't go to forums). The Mustang vs. the Me109 and Battle of Midway.

Relaxing, cool, fun time at the seaplane base as per usual taking in demos of Icon, Super Petrel and Searey.


The Bad:

I concur with all who are fed up with so many acro acts. I've said this for years. B-O-R-I-N-G!!! How many lumshevacs and katrinkayarbutses can one see in a day? Ugh! Honestly, I would much rather see the new Airbus 350 making more high and low speed passes or 3 airliners in formation like a few years ago. I now only sit and watch 2 day shows and one night show.

This has nothing to do with EAA, but I was disappointed at the complete lack of any new aircraft introductions from my perspective.

Didn't connect with Hal although I tried twice, leaving notes. Busy guy.


The Ugly:

The picture posted on the smoking thread of the woman smoking on Boeing Square while sitting on her stroller. Oooooeeee, now that's uglyyyyyyyy.

[Hal Bryan]

Didn't connect with Hal although I tried twice, leaving notes. Busy guy.

Sorry I missed you this year, Floats!

[Floatsflyer]

Sorry I missed you this year, Floats!

Next year, god willin' and the creek don't rise.

[Mayhemxpc]

I am still decompressing and mulling things over. While mulling, I will chime in about the flip flops.

I agree completely with the comments above. I like to see one act, but several in a row doing the same things in similar airplanes gets boring FAST. My suggestion is that there needs to be variety. A good airshow, especially one that caters to the general public, needs to be a well orchestrated variety act. If you have more than one acro show, there has to be something unique or at least fundamentally different about each routine -- not the same flip flops just done by a different person. Formation acro by the RV's for example, is different than that done by the AeroShell team because the former are EA-B aircraft and not professional airshow pilots. That, I think, appeals to the EAA target audience. On the other hand, formation acro by Aeroshell or the Aerostars…what is the difference? (Other than the announcer saying the Yaks are "Cold-War trophies" -- which is embarrassingly untrue.)

There IS variety in the airshow already, and I appreciate it. There is also a tremendous amount of repetition, which should be trimmed.

[mmorrison123]

As always the EAA and volunteers did an amazing job of pulling everything together. I really liked the Lancaster and some of the other rare WWII equipment. But I do echo the flip-flop airshow comments. I don't even watch them anymore. I would love to see a homebuilt showcase brought back with fly-bys including a variety of old and new designs. A few years ago I was at Airventure with friend and mentioned that it was great, but I was disappointed with the variety of aircraft. He stopped in his tracks and stared at me. Certainly there is a bigger variety of airplanes at Airventure than any where else, but the older homebuilt designs are not normally seen (Volksplanes, Teenies, Playmates, Playboys, Minimaxs, Pups, and so on). I don't know what could be done to attract owners to bring them. And as much as I love RVs, they dominate homebuilt camping to the point that you can't find other designs. Maybe the first couple rows of HBC could be reserved for "other then RVs".

Malcolm Morrison
www.wienerdogaero.com

[Paul Chandler]

Another great Airventure - as a Brit I really enjoyed seeing the Lancaster, Mosquito and psuedo Spitfire fly but the inane commentary just kept coming making recording a video pointless. When a plane with a unique and wonderful sound is flying, let the spectators hear it please. Also the commentator kept refering to the Shorts SD330 as a Skyvan which is a different type altogether. Agree with the earlier comments regarding the aerobatics made earlier - too many similar acts that fill the airshow time when there are many other types that would be more interesting to see - 70 Ercoupe's on the ground that barely featured - yet the 5 Howards did.

The use of smoke on in the displays can also be a nuisance especially with an 'on crowd' breeze - the Tora Tora Tora display was obscured much of the time due to smoke and must have made it interesting for the pilots taking part.

Still found it difficult to get a listing of the airshow acts - but could an approximate list be put in the EAA daily paper? I appreciate that the acts are subject to change etc but it would give people an idea of what to expect.

Still many cases of chairs being left unattended on the crowdline to reserve a spot for the show - if you want to get on the crowdline then at least have a person stay with your gear. One group had actually roped off an area by the south CAP tower yet did not turn up to occupy the space until near show time.

Burn line needs to be better defined as by mid week it was getting difficult to be clear where it was.

A friend of mine in the UK usually keeps a watch on the daily video highlights but was not able to get anything to work on his home or business computers for some reason.

[FlyingRon]

Alas there is no policy about removing empty chairs (at least not south of show center). We were told to leave them alone (at most fold them down if they look like a wind hazard).

I agree with the smoke and commentary. One other thing I would add: MUSIC *OR* Commentary, not both. It's nearly impossible to make out either one when they attempt to play them together.

I'm not sure what you mean by definition of the burn line. It didn't appear to be a problem. I had much less problems working airshow crowd control keeping legs and things back behind compared to previous years. The burn line is really a dead piece of the grass (well alfalfa really) that had been made by spraying with glycophosphate (generic Roundup). How much contrast there is depends on how well the non-burned grass is doing.