Oshkosh '89
Here is an account of my first trip to Oshkosh with the Fox Valley Flying Club
in 1989 - I've flown in with them every year since. The last posting along
with this one are my two most memorable cross-countrys. This cross country
shows what can happen when pilots get a little too anxious to head home on
schedule. Hopefully, everyone else will learn from our mistakes ...
The summer of '89 was an unusually hectic one for me. I was just about to
graduate college, I just got engaged, I just got a job offer, AND I just
bought an ultralight. To avoid complications at home, I won't rate these
events on a scale of 1 to 4... Anyway, to top things off, I was due to begin
my new career on the Monday following our scheduled weekend at Oshkosh. This
was cutting things a bit close for me since it's not unusual to be held up
somewhere due to adverse weather conditions. The solution? Another member of
the club volunteered to fly my plane home for me if the weather turned sour -
count me in. I had made the decision to go the night before we were scheduled
to leave and I thought I was cutting it close. As it turns out, another member
stayed up all night putting new sails on his plane, just finishing as we were
leaving! For communications, we all had CB radios - the lead plane had a CB
and an aircraft radio. For a ground crew, one of the members pulled a trailer
with his motorhome. We brought two 50 gallon drums to mix gas and oil in so
we could 'easily' refuel at each airport. It didn't turn out to be so easy
since the containers weren't rated for fuel and began to leak. The plan was
for the motorhome to meet us at each stop along the way, keeping in touch with
us via CB radio.
We took off into the clear blue sky for our first stop, Galt airport - about
50 miles. We congested the CB airwaves with the FAA 'un'approved communication
protocol, "YAHOOOO", "YEA, BABY" (one of the nice things about a CB). We heard
one CB operator on the ground complain, "we've had to contend with all the
truckers, now what?". But most ground based CB operators found it a novel idea
to talk to us ultralights as we flew overhead, "Break 1 4 for the Sky-Buzzard".
The biggest problem we had on the way was having to wait for the ground crew.
They had to contend with traffic and finding the airports, while we just made
a beeline for each airport. After a full 4 hours in the air, we arrived at
Oshkosh. Since we arrived with such a large group (about 12 of us), we were
allowed to tie down in what is now the staging area, right by the Ultralight
barn. This was VIP treatment. The ground crew parked the motorhome right
behind the barn, so everything was close by. This year, we had our own
personal chef come along as part of the ground crew - he would make breakfast
for the group on the grill. Everything was going along better than planned -
the weather was perfect, the flight went well, and we got good tiedown
spots. Then came Saturday. Saturdays' weather put a damper on everyones'
plans, it rained all day. We spent this day in the motorhome discussing the
virtues of such things as ballistic vs. rocket deployed chutes, trike vs.
tail-dragger, etc. We also drove into town to dry out in a restaurant for a
while. The forecast being what it was, I decided to ask the guy who
volunteered, Rich, to fly my plane home on Sunday - or whenever they were able
to leave. I took a ride home with one of the members that drove on Saturday
night. Needless to say, I was continually occupied with the fate of my plane
(oh yea, and the safety of the guy flying it back). I closely monitored the
weather forecasts once I got home. Sundays forecast didn't look much better
than Saturday, so the prospect of leaving on Sunday was not good. I woke up
bright and early Sunday morning to check the weather - 500' ceilings, grey
and breezy. The word was that Oshkosh was closed all morning due to weather
conditions. I got word that the group was able to get a window to
depart at about 3:00 in the afternoon - this concerned me since the conditions
here in Illinois were less that VFR (still 500' ceilings). Based on the
available information, I calculated that they would arrive at their first
destination, Hartford, in about 40 minutes. Still concerned about my plane,
I called Hartford airport to check for their arrival.
Needless to say, Rich was a bit surprised to receive a call at an airport in
the middle of Wisconsin! He indicated that conditions were ok, and they had to
keep going to make it back in time. As the afternoon drew on, I calculated
their time of arrival back at the airport and drove out to wait for their
arrival. I waited, and waited, and waited. I waited until it was almost dark
and concluded that they must have stayed at one of the airports along the way,
to return tomorrow. Just to be sure, I called their last stop, Galt airport,
to see if they had arrived - no answer. I went home and waited for a call from
the pilot of my plane to see how the trip had gone so far. At about 9:00 pm,
now pitch black out, I got a call from another member of our club who lives
next to our airfield - he said he just heard ultralights fly over his house!
WHAT? Why those crazy $#*&#! Sure enough, a few minutes later I got a call
from Rich telling me the story I wouldn't soon forget.
He said while they were at their last stop, they heard the phone ring in the
locked airport office and joked that it was probably me (it was)!. They were
questioning the wisdom of departing since it was already dusk, and the
airfield was about a 40 minute flight. They decided to go for it. As they
made their way home, it got darker, and darker, and darker - until it was
pitch black. Anyone who's familiar with ultralight engines can fully
appreciate the gravity of this situation - if the engine fails, where do you
land? You may end up on someones' roof, in their back yard, etc. To compound
the situation, nobody had lighted gauges, some didn't have strobes (so you
didn't know where they were relative to your plane), and navigation was
futile. At one point, one of them indicated that as his strobes fired, he saw
another plane right below him! Since nobody knew where they were, they
spotted a huge lighted parking lot which is actually a new car layover point
for car dealers in the area. They did the appropriate pattern, (what is the
appropriate pattern for a parking lot?) and landed in the lot! The guard
indicated that he was told not to let anyone in through the fence, but was
never told about people flying in... As it turned out, this lot is about 5
miles from our airfield, so they took off and headed to the field. The first
guy to land drove his car around and aimed the headlights down the runway.
Since you didn't know anyone elses position except by radio contact (and some
didn't have radios), each pilot was in a precarious position. After landing,
Rich said he breathed a sigh of relief - but then remembered that someone might
be landing right behind him! He quickly pulled off the runway. Even Rich
can't take the award for the most luck on this day - one of the guys ran out
of gas over the end of the runway! If that's not enough, he had two flat tires
when he landed! The last to land was one of our more conservative members.
His eyes were bulging, his mouth wide open, and his hand was stuck around the
parachute pull cord. After regaining their composure and changing their
underwear, they all stuck around the airfield and celebrated their good
fortune. Needless to say, NO ONE has made the mistake of pushing the limits of
daylight since.
P.S.
for a picture of the featured plane, see:
http://www.ultralighthomepage.com/PICS/mxl.gif
P.S.S.
for an en-route picture, turn off your monitor...
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