Oshkosh 2005

Oshkosh, Wisconsin - EAA AirVenture Airshow - July 31, 2005

At 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, (from left to right) Chris Kirksey, Mike McGrath, Josh Esterle and Jody Kirwan take the Skylane to Oshkosh for the last day of the annual EAA AirVenture Airshow (a/k/a Oshkosh).

Chris and Josh in the back on the way to Oshkosh.

Jody and Mike upfront.

Instead of heading to the West side of Chicago as originally planned, the weather was nice over Lake Michigan so we headed up to Gary, Indiana and then up the VFR corridor alongside Chicago. Lake Michigan and Gary, Indiana straight ahead.

Looking down the coast of Lake Michigan as we fly over Gary, Indiana and start our turn to the North.

Looking out the right side of the Skylane straight out over Lake Michigan as we head North up the coast toward Chicago.

Now looking in front of us. Chicago's in the distance.

Working our way back in toward Downtown Chicago. There is a lot of airspace up here to deal with, so keeping track of altitudes and distances is vitally important.

Chicago. You can see what's left of Meigs Field (a tragedy).

Former Meigs Field, Solider Field, the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium.

Sears Tower.

Chicago.

John Hancock Building.

Chicago.

Mike (flying) and Jody (navigating) to keep us out of airspace trouble.

At this point, we are flying in the middle of a 400' wedge between the bottom of Chicago's Class B airspace and the top of Waukegan Regional's Class D airspace.

Finally, on the approach to Oshkosh - time to keep alert! We've flown over Ripon and we are flying to Fisk. Just follow state road 40 and the railroad tracks (marked with nice arrows pointing to the airport).

Over the railroad tracks flying toward Lake Winnebago. We are lined up for a straight-in to Runway 9 at Oshkosh, but we are cleared to land on Runway 18L so we have to circle to the North.

Over the rock quarry to the North of Oshkosh turning right base to Runway 18L (which is actually the East parallel taxiway to Runway 18).

We had to stay high coming over Runway 9/27 because departures were taking off on that runway as arrivals were landing on Runway 18L. Oshkosh Tower also had departures taking off on Runway 18R.

Mike's got the barn-doors hanging out and is getting us down fast after clearing Runway 9/27's departures.

You can see the planes taking off on Runway 18R and those taxing on the West parallel taxiway.

Mike's got us down safely (he did a great job!), and now we start our long taxi around the airport to parking.

Taxing North on the West parallel taxiway to Runway 18(R). A Ford Tri-Motor takes off on Runway 18R for sight-seeing flights.

Watch and listen to the guys and gals in pink - they are the air traffic controllers, and they do an awesome job conducting safe operations at the World's Busiest Airport!

Still taxing - now in the grass. Our total taxi time was 30 minutes.

Inside the gates to AirVenture. A map of the grounds.

Bruce Bohannon's Flying Tiger plane. He has set all kinds of time-to-climb and altitude records with this piston-powered plane.

Diamond Aircraft's fleet.

Chris checks out the business-end of a Cessna Caravan.

A new version of our Cessna Skylane with a glass panel - the XM radio was playing over the speaker.

Josh on his way out of the AOPA tent to check out the sweepstakes Commander 115.

Seawind amphibious plane.

Javelin private jet.

Aerocomp kit plane.

Lancair Columbia.

Beech's Fleet.

B-17 Sentimental Journey.

B-24 Diamond Lil.

DC-3 Duggy.

Perhaps the most impressive sight at AirVenture 2005. SpaceShipOne and White Knight. SpaceShipOne was the first private, civilian spaceship to fly into space. SpaceShipOne flew into space on September 29, 2004, and it repeated the flight on October 4, 2004 to win the $10 million Ansari X-Prize for the first private space program to fly the equivalent of three humans into space twice in 14 days. White Knight flew SpaceShipOne to altitude and then SpaceShipOne detached and flew on its own into space. For the 2.5 years following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the only manned space program we had in the United States was this private, civilian venture. To learn more about this incredible feet, and to see videos of the flights, visit SpaceShipOne's homepage.

You can see some of the heat scoring on Spaceship's nose and the leading edges of its wings.

Mike Melvill signing autographs in front of Spaceship One. Mike was the pilot of Spaceship One's first space flight on September 29, 2004 and the first man to receive civilian astronaut wings from the FAA.

Glacier Girl - the P-38 recovered from under 268 feet of the Greenland ice-cap. To learn more about Glacier Girl, visit her homepage.

A modified Dornier seaplane.

S.C. Johnson amphibious plane.

New CAP plane.

Eclipse 500 very light (personal) jet. This particular plane is the fourth actual flying aircraft.

Cockpit of the Eclipse 500 jet. A little fuzzy from the difficult angle the picture had to be taken at, but you can see the incredible sophistication and automation of this jet. Check out the keyboard in front of the pilot.

Patty Wagstaff - awesome aerobatics and aviation hall-of-fame pilot.

White Knight and SpaceShipOne departed Oshkosh just a little after lunch. This was the final flight for SpaceShipOne as it flew to Washington D.C. to be hung in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum next to he Wright Flyer.

We trekked back to our parking place to watch the airshow. Josh and Chris tried to stay out of the Sun and keep the vicious Wisconsin ants away.

After the airshow, we were about the fifth plane off the ground, and we had great weather heading home.

Awesome trip!