What: EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2010
Where: Whittman Regional Airport in Wisconsin (OSH)
When: July 26 -Aug 1
OSHKOSH 2010,
America’s biggest aviation event and fly-in, “AirVenture OSHKOSH 2010” starts today at Wittman Regional Airport (OSH) in Oshkosh Wisconsin. Presented by the EAA, the event is so popular and handles so much traffic that during the event OSH is considered the “World’s Busiest Control Tower” by traffic volume. At its peak, the controllers will handle 10 traffic movements per minute.
Once you get your Private Pilot’s Certificate you will be able to fly into pretty much any airport your heart desires. But if you want to fly into Oshkosh (the event, not the airport) there are special instructions you need to read before arriving there. Some of the special rules involve how arrive to Whittman and how to communicate with the control tower. With the amount of traffic they’re handling the name of the game is efficient,concise and safe. You’re supposed to follow a very specific flight path, maintain a maximum airspeed and altitude, listen to the control tower and rock your wings in the affirmative. That’s right, the controllers will give you instructions, and normally you would respond by repeating the instructions back to the controller to make sure you understood correctly. But in the NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) for OSHKOSH it says to rock your wings to acknowledge control instructions. You can download the 32 page NOTAM at the official Oshkosh site.
The activities that occur during the weeklong event include trade shows, plane viewings and rides, air safety seminars, music concerts, fireworks, airplane give-a-ways and the ever-crowd pleasing air shows.
If you can’t make it to OSHKOSH there are still many ways you can be a part of it. You can listen and watch live broadcasts of events. Or if you don’t have the time to make the drive or flight to Wisconsin, its ok, you can still fly there virtually! With a copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator there is at least one website that has servers setup to fly into OSH.
Read more about Oshkosh on their website, aiventure.org. And let’s fly together to Wisconsin next year.
Happy flying!
