AirVenture 2017 - Transit To the Big Show
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| Sunday morning. Both planes are fueled up, loaded with camping gear, and ready to go. Let the airventure begin! |
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Today's destination is Racine, Wisconsin, which is just south of Milwaukee. We'll be visiting an old friend there, Scott S., who is an ex-Essex Skyparkian.
It doesn't really show in this picture, but my RV has rarely looked better. I'm getting better at the polishing.
There was no need for a ridiculously early start so we took off around 9:30 or so.
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The weather forecast for a flight to Wisconsin looked pretty good. There might be some low clouds in the Appalachians in the morning.
As is frequently the case, the reality was somewhat different.
The plan was to stop at Green County Airport (WAY) south of Pittsburgh, for breakfast at their on-field restaurant. We got into the mountains and began encountering clouds. Using my XM Satellite
Weather, I could see that Green County Airport had a low overcast ceiling, so we stayed under the clouds. I was thinking it might break up by the time we got there, but deviated from course slightly
so we would pass over Cumberland Airport (CBE) which showed as clear. We flew over Cumberland Airport which was clear, and continued west. Within a few miles the overcast layer descended
into a solid wall -- mountain ridge and clouds. So we made a 180 and headed back to Cumberland Airport to land and regroup.
Here we are at Cumberland Airport. We were going to borrow their courtesy car and go into town for breakfast. But it turns out there is a restaurant just a short walk away and we had a nice
there. Then we went back to the terminal to figure out a new plan. Going due west clearly was not going to work. But it did look like we might be able to go north until we were past Pittsburgh
and then make our turn west.
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Leaving Cumberland, we headed north. The weather wasn't the best but it was flyable and didn't seem to be getting worse.
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| As we flew north, the overcast layer gradually moved higher, and the sky got lighter. Soon after we passed Johnstown we were out of the mountains. |
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Around Punxsutawney we turned west and had no more problems with low ceilings.
As we passed Akron, Ohio, I was surprised to see a big dirigible hangar down below. It looks just like the one at Moffett Field, California.
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| Heading west. Still fairly gloomy. |
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We stopped at a little airport called Norwalk-Huron County for gas. I knew their avGas price was relatively low thanks to the Foreflight software on my iPad, which I have been using the last year
or so.
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| On the ground at Norwalk. There is no FBO but it has a self-service fuel pump and a little pilot's shack. All you need on a cross-country like this. |
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Back in the air over northern Indiana. We finally see some blue sky, as you can see.
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| We stayed down low just because it's more fun and we weren't in a hurry. |
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| Bruce passes by a rain shower. |
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| I checked out this boat party on some little lake in Indiana. |
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Close-up. Not a lot of room in the little RV-3 cockpit.
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We stopped at Porter County Airport in Valparaiso, Indiana, just southeast of Chicago. I always stop here on my transits to and from Oshkosh. In the past, the local EAA Chapter sold burgers and
brots for those Oshkosh bound but I guess they don't do that anymore. Bruce at the fuel pump in front of a beautiful Cessna 195. |
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A huge TBM Avenger torpedo plane opened and closed its wings right next to the fuel pumps.
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I had thought we were home free weather-wise so imagine my surprise when I saw a huge orange and red blob over Chicago on my XM Satellite weather as we approached the Chicago shoreline!
I came very close to making a 180 degree turn and trying to go around the weather to the south and west. We should have really had to go far to get around it though. The weather was over the city
and not Lake Michigan, so I decided to continue on, stick my nose in it, and see what happened. We could always turn back if we had to.
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Jets were still going into O'Hare, an encouraging sign. And the way was clear over the water. I saw a plane ahead and at first thought it was a commercial jet. But we were gaining on it. After a
minute or so I could see that it was a Twin heading the same direction as us. It was very dark, we all -- Bruce, the Twin, and me -- had our strobes on, and it was kind of a beautiful, surreal scene.
We passed the Twin. I guess we must have shamed him because later on he passed us. |
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| The weather continued to stay over the northern end of Chicago. The air was nice and smooth over the water. |
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| Looking east at Bruce and Lake Michigan. |
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We did finally get rained on slightly once we had left the city.
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| Even though it was late afternoon, I guess because of the rain the cars had their lights on. |
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Not much further beyond that we came to Batten Airport in Racine, Wisconsin, our destination for today. Batten Airport is a pretty good size airport, right on the edge of Lake Michigan, as you can see.
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| Scott was waiting for us. He had arranged for our airplanes to reside overnight in his EAA Chapter's big hangar. Sweet! |
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| This hangar was incredible. Besides the regular hangar area, it had a small museum, a well-equipped machine shop, a airplane simulator room, and a lavish meeting room. |
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| This EAA Chapter has it going on! |
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The facility was made possible by the generosity of this man, S.C. Johnson, an aviation enthusiast and owner of S.C. Johnson and sons (formerly Johnson Wax), one of the the biggest employers
in Racine. It is an American multinational privately held manufacturer of household cleaning supplies and other consumer chemicals. |
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| One of two simulators in the building. |
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A replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer.
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| A Kitfox Model 2. |
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| A little Hummelbird. |
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| Fairchild 24R, built in 1946. |
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We retired to Scott's hangar and relived old times over some grilled Brots.
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| Hanging out underneath the wing of Scott's Cessna 182. |
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Scott gave us a tour of the town.
This is Fortaleza Hall on the S.C. Johnson campus. It displays "The Spirit of Carnauba", a Sikorsky S-38 replica. In 1935, Herbert Fisk Johnson, Jr. -- third generation of his family to lead
S. C. Johnson & Son -- flew The Spirit of Carnauba to explore the northeastern part of Brazil in search of the carnauba palm, and to research carnauba wax, the source of the world's hardest natural
wax.
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| Scott and Bruce the next morning outside of the EAA hangar. |
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| Soon we were winging our way west -- to get around Milwaukee's Class B -- then north to Oshkosh. The weather was just about perfect. |
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I had heard horro stories about flying in Sunday afternoon at last year's AirVenture. Everybody arriving at once over Ripon, holding patterns, airplanes cutting other airplanes off, etc.
On this Monday morning, we arrived at Ripon around 9:30AM. There wasn't another plane in the sky. In fact, I did not see another plane until I was on Base leg at Wittman Field.
Here I am heading east from Fisk and can see Wittman Field to the northeast. Camp Sholler appears to be packed. They directed Bruce and I to land on Runway 36L.
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| I finally saw another plane at this point. It was a B-17 cruising over the runway at 2,000 feet or so! I've never seen so many planes parked to the south before. |
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On final for Runway 36L. Cleared to land on the Yellow Dot!
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After a hiatus of five years I am back at AirVenture!
We were led to a new section in homebuilt camping; the first year it has been used. It was actually a very nice spot.
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Looking at our homebuilt camping area from across a ditch.
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| First item of business after tying down the airplanes and setting up our tents was to check in at Homebuilt HQ. |
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We were issued our weekly wristband passes, AirVenture 2017 sticker, mug and other information. Oh, and we gave them some money. Everybody was very friendly and enthusiastic though, as we
were. Just happy to be here! |
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| My RV-7 is proudly displaying its' 1,000 hours banner! |
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