Trip Report: Going to Oshkosh

By Charlie and Karen Rogers

charlie-karen
What a remarkable journey this has been. My wife Karen and I departed Auburn (because of the Lincoln runway closure) on Wednesday, July 20th. We made it to Oshkosh from Austin, Minnesota, on Friday before noon.

What we encountered along our route was amazing and sometimes a little frightening.
The turbulence at 13,500 over Utah and Wyoming was jolting, to say the least. We made it to Torrington, Wyoming, and spent the night.
The second day, from Torrington to Spencer, Iowa, was a challenge. On run up my plugs fouled and we had to spend some time clearing that. Couldn’t make power. A lesson learned in aggressive leaning at high density altitude airports even early on a hot morning.
While fueling at Spencer, I carefully checked the weather en route to Portage, Wisconsin, our next stop. What I saw amazed and terrified me. A huge thunderstorm was about to cross our path. This scenario was, until now, nothing but theory to me: I’m a relatively new low time VFR sunshine kind of flyer.
Because of this thunderstorm, we sat for about five hours in really good VFR weather in Spencer. I must have checked the en route weather a hundred times while waiting.
Just when I saw that the big thunderstorm had passed and the route was clearing up, I noticed a second smaller slower moving thunderstorm moving east. It looked like it would stay north of our route so off we went.
I kept checking the ADS-B WX ahead and it showed no indications of any severe storms. That was because I wasn’t seeing the big picture due to lag time and lack of communication with ground stations for weather updates to my ADS-B weather.
Our weather en route slowly deteriorated pushing us lower and lower. The turbulence was increasing and my wife saw a huge anvil shaped cloud up ahead through a break in the clouds and pointed it out. I did a 180 degree turn away from what lay ahead. Until now, I’ve never had to do this in my short flying career. It was a difficult decision. We had a non refundable room waiting for us in Portage.
Turning away, I saw the airport Austin, Minnesota. What an unbelievable welcome sight. The FBO was incredibly welcoming and helpful. With the potential for hail, I put our RV-8 in the hangar.
We departed Friday morning from Austin to Oshkosh. Passing the Mississippi River the ceilings were lower than reported and I’m grateful that we had the Garmin 660 with terrain warning. Some of those antennas are really high.
We joined the standard VFR arrival for Oshkosh, overflying the town of Ripon, following the railroad tracks to Fisk, and then got assigned RWY 36L at Oshkosh.
Despite what my wife might tell you, I will never admit that I got emotional when we were taxiing to Home Built Parking. Our dream came true.
A huge treat was meeting Paul Dye. Shortly after we arrived, he parked his beautiful RV-3 next to us. What a great guy. Gave us a great tip or two. I thanked him for his online post about practicing slow flight. It truly helped.
When you land for the first time in Oshkosh, you may experience a little blur in vision. Just keep blinking and it will clear eventually.
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my friend Richard Bristow who helped me with the planning and lent his advice all along our route.
I’m looking forward to meeting more of you. Until then, live the dream.

B25This is not an actual B-25, but rather a big project completed by the Young Aviator group that is part of Mile High EAA Chapter 43 out of Denver, Colorado.
The group, consisting of youth between the ages of 8 and 18, built a full-scale mock-up of the forward third of a B-25 Mitchell complete with wiring and controls. It was trailered to AirVenture and was a hit in the KidVenture section held near the Pioneer Airport on the EAA convention grounds.
RV-8Chapter member Charlie and Karen Roger’s RV-8 was one of the early arrivals and was parked in the Homebuilt Parking area for the duration of the show.
Scott-RV-8Chapter member Scott Thompson’s RV-8 was displayed for the week in the Homebuilt Parking area at Oshkosh.
RV-6Chapter member Bill Wootton flew his RV-6 to Oshkosh partly to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the design, and it was parked with a bunch of other RV-6s in a featured area near the flight line.