AirVenture Wrap: Some Final Thoughts

This year marks my 27^th or 28^th Oshkosh tour—I can't exactly remember which for sure. I would characterize the week as busy and moderately consequential. By consequential, I mean I saw things that made me believe they'll have legs in the market and have some impact on sales and development of new aircraft. One was new—the Rotax 9l5 iS—and the other two were what I consider validations.

Yingling's remanufactured 172—about which I'll have more to say later this week—was the validation. It's the fifth such project to emerge, showing that this refurbishment trend we're seeing is gaining ground. That's good. The other validation was the RX1E electric trainer. I continue to believe the electric airplane market will struggle for a long time before it's a real thing, but I also believe it eventually will carve a niche and the fact that we're seeing these airplanes show up repeatedly is a good sign.

After every AirVenture I've attended, something always stands out in a way that makes me think it about it for days on end. This year, for me, that would be the interview of Warren Denholm on the restoration of the Mosquito. That anyone could do this at all is simply stunning; that it could be done so well is inspiring.

Last, a note about our staff, some of whom will comment below. We work our tails off at AirVenture and everyone stepped up and them some. A special shout-out to someone you never hear much about: Scott Simmons, our webmaster, without whom you'd never see what we produce.

—Paul Bertorelli

Toward the end of the week, EAA tweeted that on Thursday, the field saw 3153 aircraft movements, the "largest single-day number in at least three years!" The weather clearly had a lot to do with that. In Wisconsin, we relish those summer days when we can enjoy blue skies, comfortable temperatures and a clear horizon—all at the same time. And when we get a string of days like that, I can assure you it's a rare treasure indeed. So it was this week at Oshkosh.

The absence of bad weather—namely, storms and roasting heat—was the extra push that helped bring out the healthy numbers of airplanes and conventioneers. There's also the satisfaction of feeling chipper even after making your way from KidVenture to the Vintage Red Barn. Whenever I chatted with people from around the world—Australia, China, New Zealand and Trinidad, to name a few—this was a big bonus, as they had traveled great distances to see the sights of Oshkosh.

Granted, 78 degrees in the sun is a bit hot for some, depending on where you come from, but all you perennial visitors know how awful the conditions can be here. Still, even when a storm blows your company tent down and the mud's up to your knees, or you're baked into a wilted mass of sweat and sunblock, you always seem to make the best of it and hope it's better next year. This is that year.

There's nothing like looking at all the pictures you took at Oshkosh and seeing cool airplanes against that gorgeous blue backdrop, props sparkling in the sun. It's nice to know this encourages more of you to come back next year, whatever the weather brings.

—Elaine Kauh

Having seen more than a dozen EAA AirVentures, they are all kind of the same, yet each year we find things that we haven't seen before. This year, it was nice to see Goodyear's brand-new Zeppelin flying daily above the show, and showing off its maneuverability in the airshows. The weather was amazing, with blue skies and no rain for most of the week, and mostly manageable humidity. The camping areas and airplane parking were packed—the North 40 for airplanes filled up midway through the week.

Plenty of people were there to promote a new idea, or a new design, or just to share something beautiful that they built purely for the love of flying—the 23bis ultralight was a great example of that. Spending a week at this show every summer is hard work, and it can be exhausting, but it's a wonderful thing that it exists, and it's nice to remember that it grew from the ideas of a small band of folks who just wanted to share their love of aviation and the spirit of experimentation—it lives on.

—Mary Grady

What I really like about covering AirVenture are the surprises that are as inevitable as they are, well, surprising. If you'd told me 10 days ago I'd spend a couple of hours riding around in Red Three with Tom Poberezny I might have been surprised about that. My thought was that it would be a trip down memory lane with a Volkswagen engine clanging in the background but I couldn't have been more wrong. If you didn't watch the video(thinking that it was what I thought it was going to be) have a look. Plenty of folks have watched it and not all of them have liked it.

Then there was FAA Administrator Michael Huerta confirming the agency has been accused of breaking the law in its labor dealings with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. He said he disagreed with it and could win an award for the bafflegab that followed but it's clear that something is up and I think that all the strange behavior of the alphabet groups in their relationship with the FAA over the past year has something to do it. You read it here first. I'm convinced that privatization of ATC is a done deal and each of the alphabet groups is holding a coupon it wants honored for its mild opposition to the very notion of user fees. Five years ago, any suggestion of user fees would have resulted in t-shirts (still have one from 2008) and railing rhetoric. This time it's been a few press releases.

Adding fuel to that fire is the Air Line Pilots Association's knife in the heart of the alphabets' all-consuming campaign to get rid of the third class medical. ALPA says it has safety concerns about eliminating the medical and those of us who know better understand the alphabet groups' position and can rationally accept that the third class medical probably has little effect on aviation safety. But, when Congress is considering the rather desperate attempt (I've never been a fan of adding unpopular amendments to slam-dunk bills to get around the proper discourse on these discussions) to pass the measure who will they believe? Will they go with the biggest collection of airline pilots who take them back to their voters every week or the groups that represent the rest of us? Incidentally, ALPA has publicly supported "stable funding" for the air traffic control system. Hmm.

I love the atmosphere, the chicken enchiladas in the food court are fantastic (really) and there's something about looking up and seeing the world's only operational B-29 flying overhead that is both exciting and humbling. But I go to AirVenture to connect the dots and there's a pretty interesting picture emerging. Stay tuned.

—Russ Niles