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| "RV Flight Above Fisk, Rock Your Wings" |
| Dana Brejakova, Contributing Writer & Photographer |
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When the blissful announcement of: "RV flight above Fisk, rock your wings", sounded in our headsets our excitement kicked in full speed. Once again, we realized how lucky we were to make it to EAA AirVenture - the greatest aviation gathering in the whole wide world!
Now, we are back home with the post-Oshkosh Blues. This is the time of year when I refuse to take my Oshkosh weekly pass wristband off believing that if I keep it on, the EAA AirVenture is still ongoing and I am still there somewhere in quantum superposition. While Jimmy the Squirrel hides it well, I, on the other side, wear my suffering on a sleeve. Who here has the post-Oshkosh Blues as bad as me?
I cannot believe another summer week of immense dose of aviation is gone. Every day we would walk for miles while hunting for stickers, sweating in the hot sun, pinning our eyes to the sky that was bursting with airshows, checking lectures and forums, drooling on beautiful airplanes, chitchatting with the fellow aviators, exhibitors, and vendors, taking pictures, munching on delicious fried cheese curds and brats, and having a great time.
I always want one more week of it. Let's have one more week of it, pretty please?
When one strives to make the AirVenture an yearly pilgrimage, being there starts feeling like home. For us, it definitely is a summer home where we love to return every year and get our sun tan while working on those leg muscles.
According to the statistics that was published on the EAA website, there were 10,000+ aircraft, 6,000 volunteers making it happen, 1,600 forums & workshops, 861 exhibitors showcasing their products and services, and 686,000 was the total attendance. And check this out, the economic impact for the Oshkosh region was estimated at 170,000,000 USD! WOW! Well done, aviation family!
So here is a taste of this year's EAA AirVenture through my lens. I did my best to cover as much as I could but I still did not get as close as I wanted.
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| On our first day we went straight to our favorite Aviat Husky booth to get our supply of very cool hats and stickers. Gosh, those stickers in the Husky booth are something else. And look what cool Husky A-1C they had on display this year. Loved the looks of that bird. You will definitely feel pretty confident with this companion during your bush flying adventures. |
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The Husky hunt continues. This lady in red was bathing in the late afternoon sun
simply looking stunning. |
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| Check out who was just around the corner! This Aviat Husky A-1C wears RAF (Recreational Aviation Foundation) colors. I love this paint job and the message behind it. The partnership between Aviat Husky and RAF seems like a match made in heaven. |
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| Nice photogenic spot with the Wittman Regional Airport tower in the background. |
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Look what covers the sharp flap hinges. Our well-known red clown noses!
I am always happy to see those. |
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Lately, I have noticed that these cheeky clown noses gained popularity among Aviat Husky owners and pilots. Well, there is a very good reason behind it. Not only do they perfectly fit and do not fly away during flight they also do a fantastic job protecting the scalps of everyone who gets in a near vicinity of those razor-sharp hinges.
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| And what do we have here? Boomerang - a very famous asymmetric aircraft. |
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Designed by Burt Rutan who wanted to create a multi-engine aircraft that in case of a loss of one engine would not become dangerously difficult to control due to asymmetric thrust, was now taxiing right in front of us. In Burt's design the asymmetric thrust elimination in a case of engine failure led to an asymmetrical airplane with a very distinct shape and appearance. Pretty mind-blowing, huh?
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| A sneak peek into the cockpit of the Boomerang. |
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Every day, my efforts of acquiring as many photos of interesting airplanes as possible got disrupted and postponed by the ground shaking screams of powerful engines during airshows. And every day, I would sit down with my eyes glued to the sky chasing the birds with my lens.
Apart from amazing aerobatic performances and demos of fighter jets, this year was dedicated to the celebration of 100th Anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force, which brought the legendary squadron of Snowbirds to town.
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On Tuesday, when we were exhausted from walking around all day, Jimmy the Squirrel proposed to go to our old spot we discovered in 2019. No people, no noise, only a few spectators, shade offered by the high wing birds, and a great view on the runways. Finally, I was able to snap nice close-ups of the taxiing airplanes and salute the pilots.
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| Beautiful GB1 Game Bird taxiing before taking off to the skies. |
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| Michael Goulian in his iconic yellow and black Extra 330SC. |
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| Jeff Boerboon in his Extra 330SC taxiing by getting ready for take-off. |
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| The pure excitement and happiness of RJ Gritter in his Decathlon getting ready for his number was contagious. For a second, I forgot to focus on that prop disc and started waving back, shaking my lens. But thank goodness I got one good one! |
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| Bob Freeman in his Extra 330LX was crowned with a nice prop disc. |
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| Plum Crazy with Vicky Benzing behind the controls. |
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| T-34s in a beautiful formation flight covered the sky above Wittman Regional Airport which mesmerized my lens. |
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| Marvelous performance by T-34s! |
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| Thunderbirds made a few passes and I could not miss those! Beautiful formation. |
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| The F-22 Raptor was shaking the ground on a daily basis. I have not heard anything louder than this fighter jet. |
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| Apart from the Royal Canadian Air Force, another foreign country squadron made an appearance this year. |
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And what appearance that was! Italian squadron Frecce Tricolori put up a spectacular show that was bursting with colors, literally! Their nice and tight formations refreshed everyone's memory of Italian flag colors.
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Just the smoke alone that was slowly disappearing above the heads of the spectators summed it all. We all were left amazed staring into that colorful cloud that slowly faded away. I was so happy we had an overcast for this number! The texture in the sky was perfect
for such a colorful burst. |
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| Here we go! The CF-18 Demo Hornet from the Royal Canadian Air Force dressed in a beautiful paint job to celebrate 100th Anniversary of RCAF opened the sky for the famous Snowbirds. All week, I was very much looking forward to seeing this squadron perform. |
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| The Snowbirds took off to join the Demo Hornet in the air and together they did a few passes. WOW. |
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| The Snowbirds in action. Absolutely amazing. |
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| Moving like one man. Their formations were pure precision while elegantly sailing the sky. Imagine how good you must be to do something this difficult in such an effortless way. I had goosebumps all over and was tearing up behind my camera when they did their starburst maneuver. That whole afternoon just turned magical. |
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What would our Oshkosh trip be without visiting the Warbirds section? It is always a challenge for pictures though. These beauties draw crowds all the time and acquiring a clear shot is almost impossible. However, I made some calculations and analyses based on the daily schedule of events and I scored during the magical hour. Yay!
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| Mustang P-51 "Ain't Misbehavin'" and her exhaust residue rainbow on the polished aluminum finish is a shot I am very happy about. |
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| Simply gorgeous, isn't she? |
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| This year I decided to dress some Mustang pictures in black and white to add more character to these majestic Warbirds. |
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| And what do you know, the dark beast Vought F4U Corsair received black and white dress from me just as well. Suits her well. |
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| Another hot day was about to end and we were heading back to our AirBnB. On the way in the bus, we spotted Hawker Hurricanes and a Spitfire parked by the Basler center. Hurray! I was about to score good ones! |
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| Lancaster bomber with the poppy wreath placed in the nose. I loved that detail. In British culture, the red poppy is a symbol of remembrance and hope for a peaceful future. |
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| Douglas C-47 Skytrain "Eager Eileen" taxiing by while the crew was waving to the crowd. AirVenture is a pretty magical place, isn't it? |
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| The Boeing Plaza was buzzing as usual. |
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| In front of the Garmin tent. A very elegant looking Cessna 140 caught my eye. Clean and classy paint job on this one. Love it! |
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| Peeking into the Cessna's 140 cockpit to see if it matched her looks perfectly. Yes, it did. Gorgeous bird inside and out. |
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| "Don't forget about me!", the second Cessna in front of the Garmin tent requested my attention. I must admit this 182A was beautiful too. |
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| Here we had a stunning looking Junkers airplane. She was swarmed by the spectators but I managed to snap one clean shot. |
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| Charlie Brown paint job on MOAC! Okay, I had to stop and check that Cub out. |
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Look at the passengers sitting there. Snoopy and Woodstock! Aaaawwwwww.
Cuteness overload. |
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| The new Super Patriot in a very interesting paint scheme with leather seats and Garmin G3X Panel caught my lens. This one has an unusual modification in accessing the baggage compartment which was probably the most discussed topic from the curious bush pilots. |
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| Homebuilt RV parking section was exploding with colorful airplanes as always. |
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Are you familiar with that funny rule about meeting your friends at AirVenture? Once I was told that you cannot schedule seeing your friends at AirVenture because it will never happen, instead, you have to bump into them by accident to make it happen. Funny, huh? So here we were relaxing in our folding chairs in a shade where this colorful RV was tied down just a few rows in front of us. We never saw anyone around her but on Thursday I zoomed a little closer at her because I thought I saw people there and I realized those were our friends from the New Mexico Pilots Association! We had a nice visit with them.
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| Happy campers in this row must have had a meeting on synchronizing happy colors together. |
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| At the Ultralight section we could not miss Steve Henry's Yee Haw 8 that was glowing in the sun getting ready to break all records at STOL Demo again. |
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| Shout out to EAA 125 Chapter and a cute addition of lightbulbs under the wings! On Thursday, when we were walking around, we stumbled upon our friend (another "bump into a friend" event) and his Kitfox from the El Paso EAA Chapter. What a nice ambiance he had over there. |
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| And of course, Jimmy's RV-8 and our wingman's red and white RV-8 could not be missed at the homebuilt Vans Aircraft section. |
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| And here we have another shot of Jimmy's ... Now wait a minute, that is not Jimmy's RV-8. This is a mighty Mustang P-51 Gunfighter! (Yeah, yeah, nice try, very funny, Dana). |
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To sum up: we came, we saw, we enjoyed it to the max. Until next year, EAA AirVenture Oshkosh!
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| By Dana Brejakova, Contributing Writer & Photographer |
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