I awoke Tuesday morning to beautiful weather.  I felt kind of like a chicken leaving so early but I didn’t want to chance getting stuck in Wisconsin until the weekend.  All that was left to do before my departure was pack up my tent, get a weather briefing, and go.  I went for the briefing first.  The guys from Lockheed Martin were located at the base of the tower.  When I walked up there was no one there so they were more than eager to help.  The briefer asked where I was headed, I told him Modesto California by way of Idabel Oklahoma.  He gave me a big grin and told me he learned to fly in Lodi (about 40 miles north of Modesto).  He gave me a very thorough briefing using the Lockheed Martin resources.  Then he said he also liked to use another “unathorized resource” to get detailed weather information.  The resource in question: http://www.runwayfinder.com .  I thought that was pretty cool.  He clicked on the the pushpin markers at several of the airports along my route to Oklahoma and the weather reported at each location was good.  Weather was moving in from the west but I should have time to outrun it.  He gave me his card and told me to call him anytime during my flight back and he’d try to get me updated weather.  Very cool young man.

On my way back to my campsite I stopped by Homebuilders Headquarters to get a refund for my unused camping nights and was promptly refunded the money.  Then I headed back to my campsite to finish packing.  The previous day I had asked about the procedure for taxiing out for departure.  I had my “VFR” sign ready but I wasn’t sure how to get from the tiedown spot to the taxiway.  I was told to just pull my plane out into the aisleway and a volunteer would spot me and guide me out. I did just that and about 45 minutes later I didn’t see one person on a scooter or golf cart.  An RV-10 was in the same predicament.  I started walking up toward the main taxiway and finally got someone’s attention.  After I got my course programmed into my GPS and got Foreflight all set up on the iPad I started my engine and he escorted me to the taxiway.  It was a two mile taxi down to 36L but it makes you feel like a star.  You have people on either side of you taking pictures.  “You guys even know what kind of plane this is? Well, whatever.”  I got up to the runway and saw 5 planes on final.  I got the order “red high wing, taxi into position and hold.”  Guess he hasn’t heard about “line up and wait.”  Good.  As soon as I taxi out and line up I hear “red high wing cleared for take off.  Red high wing please depart without delay.”  Guess he wants me to hurry.  I applied full power, got up about a hundred feet or so and turned and I was outta’ there.

The departure had you climb to 1500 feet and hug the shoreline of Lake Winnebago, but not overfly the seaplane base.  I did my best to do that though I never spotted the seaplane base.  The early morning air was hazy and still and warm… again.  I made my way to my first fuel stop of Galesburg Illinois.  There were some hazy clouds to navigate round.  It was hard to make out the edges for this California pilot but I was able to duck under them.  After I landed I ran into some guys in a Zenith 601 that were headed in the same direction.  Checked with them to see if they heard anything different about the weather than I did, which they hadn’t.  I actually had a pretty good weather picture with XM weather on my Garmin 396.  I fueled up and headed south once again.

The next stop was Mexico Missouri where I was delighted to find a MoGas pump!  This was the cheapest fuel of the entire trip at less than $4 a gallon.  However, it was starting to get really hot.  It was 97 degrees when I landed and about 97 percent humidity.  They offered me the courtesy car to go into town to get some lunch.  When I got back I told them that I thought I was done for the day.  Too hot to take off and now I’m sleepy after lunch.  They hemmed and hawed about someone else maybe needing the courtesy car.  Then they finally decided that no one else would likely show up.  I gave them my cell number just in case (which they tested before they let me go) and then drove into town to find a hotel.  So much for camping.

I was up at 5am, back at the airport by 5:30am, and waiting until I could see the sky before I took off.  When it was bright enough that I could see there were no clouds (XM radio showed there were no clouds but…) I took off and headed south.  A few hours later I was landing in Branson Missouri to top off.  A quick fuel turnaround and a bottle of water and Coke later and I was up and headed south again.  My next stop was Mena Arkansas.  I probably could have made it all the way to my destination of Idabel OK that day but I played fuel pretty conservatively the whole trip.  It had been a hot and bumpy approach into Mena.  The landing was… well it was a landing.  I got fuel, a free bottle of water, a free flashlight and was told the quickest way to get out of there.  They made me feel welcome but they also made me feel like I should leave “real soon now.”  So I did, it was only a 45 minute flight or so to my destination.  This was perhaps the bumpiest part of my entire trip.  The wind wasn’t blowing that hard but the washboard hills below just made for a bump ride for anything below 6500 feet.  I didn’t want to climb that high for such a short leg so I decided to ride out the bumps.  I was completely worn out when I got to Idabel.

I spent two days in Idabel visiting with an old friend from high school and her family.   It was fun being reminded of all those things I spent years trying to forget.  By this time I’d been away from my family for a week and a half and was really wanting to get back home.  I cut this visit short too.  The next day was Friday and I decided that would be the day I would finally set out for home.

Part 4 coming in a few days.

I arrived early in the afternoon on Saturday.  The actual show didn’t begin until Monday.  However, for most of those who were camping with me in the Homebuilt Camping area it was all about fellowship and camaraderie.  One other person from my home airport and EAA chapter travelled to Oshkosh and was providentially parked right across from me and just a few rows up.  He greeted me as I set up camp.  Another man I didn’t know, nor did we even introduce ourselves came and helped me set up my tent.  Another man told me where to find ice and water, another split the ice and the cost with me.  It’s all about the people and the airplanes in Homebuilt Camping.

I spent the remaining portion of Saturday cleaning the bugs off my plane and sitting in the shade under the wing of my airplane.  It was amazingly hot and humid for Wisconsin.  Everyone was sweltering but evening brought some much needed relief in the form of a thunderstorm.  It wasn’t as big as was forecast but it was enough to cool things down a bit.  We were warned of another thunderstorm to come later in the night but I figured I’d be asleep by then.  I was asleep when the storm rolled in but not for long.

I woke up to the sound of my tent rustling in the wind.  I looked at my phone and noted the time as being 3:30am.  The breeze felt good but was getting stronger.  My tent started shaking, then shaking harder, then it laid down completely flat on me.  I hoped my home-made tie-downs would hold the plane in this wind.  Mercifully the wind died down, apparently that was just the gust front, then the rain started.  It came down pretty heavy but now that the wind had stopped my tent was standing on it’s own and keeping the rain off me.  After about an hour the rain died down and I was back asleep.

I slept in late on Sunday, this was a new experience for me.  I crawled out of my tent about 9am and fixed up some freeze-dried granola and strawberries for breakfast.  After which I took a walk over to the kit plane displays to see if I could find any of the Rans folks.  They weren’t there yet so I walked through the warbird area up to the edge of the runway to engage in one of the favorite pastimes at Oshkosh: watching the airplanes land.

I unslung the folding chair from my back and had a seat.  Planes were only landing at a rate of about 1 per minute which is really slow for Oshkosh.  There were about 100 other people there watching the landings and everyone was commenting on how light the traffic was.  (We didn’t know at the time that though the weather was nice in Oshkosh, it was ringed round with severe thunderstorms.)  Most of the landings were good, some where exceptionally good.  There are colored circles painted on the runway.  The tower will ask you to land at or beyond a specific color.  There were several pilots who nailed their circle on the runway.  The entertainment came from those who could not land on their circle.  One landing in particular was harrowing.  A Beech Bonanza was approaching to land.  He was very close to the runway, and very low as he was turning from base to final.  His turn went wide and he tried to kick it around with rudder when he started to stall at maybe 100 feet up.  He acted quickly and rolled out of the turn and proceed to pancake the plane down in the runup area.  He hit hard and we saw his tail pop up in the air.  We all assumed he was done but he was not.  About a minute later we saw him taxiing past us.  The propeller was making a funny noise and there was a large dent in his right flap.  After he taxied past us about 5 cars with flashing lights went past in hot pursuit of the pilot.  Apparently they had not cleared him to taxi.

I decided that there wouldn’t be a more entertaining landing than that so I decided to pack it in.  I headed back to my campsite to fix another MRE for lunch; chicken and dumpings, apples in cinnamon sauce, soda crackers and blackberry jam, and a mocha “dessert bar” (whatever that is.)  I chased all that down with a Pepsi Throwback from the ice shack and then sat back to enjoy the rest of my day.  A couple of hours later my friend from Oakdale, Mike Terpstra showed up.  We decided to head into town to have dinner.  We boarded the South 40 bus which took us around the huge general aviation camping area called the South 40.  It dropped us off by a gate which got us outside the airport fence.  We walked about 2 blocks to the Target shopping center and spotted Asian Buffet.  All you can eat Chinese food sounded great to both of us.  It was cool and dry inside and we ate until we were stuffed.  Afterwards we walked back to the airport, got on the bus, and made our way back to camp.  As soon as it was dark I crawled into my tent and fell asleep happy with all that I had accomplished that day.

Monday was the first “real” day of the airshow.  It seemed like airplanes had multiplied in the camping area overnight.  There were more people on the field and all the exhibiters were open and ready for questions.  I wander around and looked at the oudoor exhibits until the indoor exhibit halls opened at 9am.  Then I made my way quickly through the first and second hall.  My plane is already done so I really don’t need anything.  It’s just fun to look.  In the second hall I ran across a gentleman I know from the Backcountrypilot.org forum I belong to, he sells a product called EZ-Flap.  I spent about 30 minutes talking to him and trying to help him sell.  I moved on through the other halls and outdoor exhibits looking for American Air Campers but I never could locate them.  As I was formulating my afternoon plan of action I heard someone say “Are you Scott Van Artsdalen?”  It was a gentleman sitting at a picnic table with a friend.  It turned out to be none other than Doug Reeves of Van’s Air Force fame.  We had a nice conversation about my Rans and how he had been following my build.  He invited me to lunch with him and a couple of the guys from Van’s Aircraft.   I can’t remember their names but they’ve been with the company for a long time.  Nice guys full of lots of entertaining stories about homebuilders.  I kind of miss the RV guys sometimes.

After lunch I attended a seminar on ForeFlight HD.  A product that runs on an iPad and displays your aircraft’s position on aeronautical charts.  I picked up a few good tips there and then headed back to camp to take a shower and relax under the wing of my plane.  Then I overheard that sever weather was moving into Oshkosh on Wednesday and wasn’t forecast to move on until Friday.  I had plans for leaving on Thursday but If I stuck to that schedule I would be stuck in Oshkosh longer than I wanted.  I decided that I would have to go ahead and leave on Tuesday.  I would miss some things at the show that I really wanted to see but there were other people I really wanted to see as well.  So I spent the rest of the afternoon packing the plane and generally getting ready to depart the next morning.

Part 3 coming in a few days

I’ve just completed what will probably be my last pilgrimage to Oshkosh, also known as Aviation Mecca.  I visited over 20 airports, flew about 3900 nautical miles (that’s about 4500 statute miles.)  There were some definite points and low points of this trip.

On day 1 I took off out of Oakdale at about 7am.  That’s a little later than I had hoped but I stopped for breakfast on the way to the airport and then had to gas up the airplane.  I had just completed my 40 hour phase 1 flying the day before and neglected to fill the tanks.  The first day’s flying took me over Lake Tahoe

and then up to Lovelock, NV for my first fuel stop.

I then continued on to Elko, NV for my second fuel stop.  By this time of day it was starting to get pretty bumpy, I was beginning to doubt that I would make it to my first overnight stop at Fort Bridger, WY.  The air finally calmed down a little when I got over the Salt Lake.

I headed for Brigham City intending to camp there for the night.  I had my sleeping bag set up in the pilot’s lounge when a woman stopped by and demanded to know what I was doing.  I figured she was the local airport police so I tried to be nice.  I told her that I was tired and that I didn’t think anyone would mind if I slept in the pilot’s lounge.  She informed me that this was unacceptable and then grabbed me by the arm and led me out and over to her husband.  She told him, “he thinks he’s going to sleep in the pilot’s lounge.”  Her husband was far more jovial.  He informed me that I was not going to sleep in the pilot’s lounge, and further, he would show me where I would be sleeping.  They led me into a huge hangar, at the back was a set of stairs, up the stairs and behind the door, was a set of living quarters that looked like a model home.  “This”, he said proudly, “is where you will be sleeping tonight.”

There was bedroom, a full bath with jetted tub and walk-in shower, a kitchen with food and drinks in the refrigerator, and best of all it was air-conditioned.  He told me to help myself to anything I liked but just leave it as neat as I found it.  I then understood the woman’s outrage, she was not about to have me sleep on a couch when she could offer me so much better.  I thanked them profusely and then they left.  Thank you again Pearce and Dorothy!

The next morning I departed Brigham City clean, fed, and well-rested.  I picked my way way through the higher peaks until I was clear of the Rockies.  I stopped in Rock Springs and then Douglas WY for fuel.

When I arrived at Valentine NE for my next fuel stop, the wind was out of the south at 20 gusting to 30.  I made one of my more interesting landings and then decided that I would call it quits.  I asked if there was a courtesy car I could borrow, there was none.  The hotels would not pick up either.  I asked if I could sleep on the couch in the pilot’s lounge, I was told no. Welcome to Nebraska.  I asked if I could pitch my tent in the grass, that was grudgingly acceded to.  They did give me the code to the door to the pilot’s lounge so I could use the bathroom and get a drink.  By about 5:30 the airport was deserted and the temperature had climbed to 103 degrees.

I decided to stay in the pilot’s lounge until the temperature dropped.  By sunset (about 9:30pm in those parts) the temperature had dropped to 97 degrees and the wind was still howling.  This was one of the lower points of the trip.  I decided to go against the wishes of my kind hosts and sleep in the air-conditioned pilot’s lounge.  I got about two hours sleep but at sunrise the wind had finally stopped blowing so I got out of there as soon as I could see to taxi.

I stopped two more times for fuel, once in Rock Rapids IA, my intended camping destination, and then Rushford MN.  Then finally after three days’ journey I finally landed in Oshkosh WI!

Part 2 coming in a few days…