Arriving in Oshkosh-9

We said goodbye to the Dudgeon’s in Sioux Falls and loaded up the airplane for the flight to Oshkosh.

The views from the plane were lush and green and the kids enjoyed spelling out M-I-S-S-I-S-S-P-P-I as we flew over the Mississippi River.

As we neared Oshkosh we could hear the approach traffic controllers giving commands to incoming traffic, “low-wing plane nearing FISK wag your wings. Great wag, ok now turn left and follow the railroad tracks. Now, high-wing plane with the wig wag lights behind the traffic at FISK, turn right and expect landing 36”.

If you’re familiar with flying into a controlled airspace you know this isn’t a typical interaction with the control tower, but with thousands of planes landing for Oshkosh Airventure, things are done differently.

Woodsen had printed off the thirty page instruction document for pilots flying to Oshkosh, I did not read it, but from my observation the procedure went something like this— all arriving traffic flew to an approach fix at one of two preset speeds and altitudes (one for fast, one for slow planes). No incoming traffic called the tower, instead the traffic controller advised pilots to “keep your head on a swivel, look for other traffic and stay a mile apart”. Planes fell into line and spaced themselves out, then as they approached the fix the traffic controller would call the airplane out by it’s location and plane characteristics, ask for them to respond by wagging their wings, then give instructions before passing them to the control tower for a landing clearance.

I was nervous about it being chaotic and stressful, but things fell into place pretty smoothly and the traffic controllers lightened the mood by being cheerful, welcoming planes to Oshkosh or asking where they were from.

We parked and set up camp in the North 40 at Oshkosh.