You guys want a flight report? Here is a good one that I will title "The Arrival To Oshkosh AirVenture".
Oshkosh Notams stated: Stage your arrival beginning at Ripon, WI. and follow the railroad tracks to Fisk, WI at 1800' MSL and 90 knots. Upon approach to Fisk, controllers will instruct you landing procedures and you are to respond simply by rocking your wings. Ok, that sounds simple...here we go. Sunday afternoon on July 24th at approximately 2 pm a KR flight of five departed Waukesha (KUES) airport in route to Oshkosh. Bill Clapp was the lead KR and called to Waukesha tower "KR flight of five ready to go". The line up for departure was: Clapp, Langford, Jones, Shirley and Dyke. The departure form Waukesha was uneventful and we made our way to Ripon, WI. The Notams stated that you were to monitor ATIS prior to arriving Ripon to secure landing runway in use, altimeter setting, winds, etc.. Yea right! Ripon is 20 miles away from Oshkosh and when we tried to listen to ATIS on 125.9 all we got was garbled static. As we arrived Ripon, the KR line up had changed some. It was Clapp in the lead, then Langford, Shirley, Dyke and I was last in line. We had chosen to have Clapp lead us into Oshkosh since he did it the previous year. Just the week before Oshkosh, I had made a practice approach to Oshkosh so that I would be familiar with required landmarks, flight path, etc. Anyway, as we were approaching Ripon, we heard a call to the tower that there was a group of 16 RV's also approaching Ripon and that they were in sub groups of four. As we arrived Ripon and turned toward Fisk, the tower talk was non stop giving instructions to Fisk arrivals. I was hearing everything from "Come on guys, stay over the railroad tracks to rock your wings, give us more separation guys we need 1/2 mile between you, white high wing with blue trim follow railroad tracks to land runway niner, red low wing follow south road to land runway 36, rock your wings to acknowledge". I never knew man could talk as fast as these controllers could and on top of that, they expected you to know when they were talking to you. So here is where the fun begins: As we left Ripon and headed to Fisk, the speeds were all over the board, the altitudes were fluctuating and separation between planes was anywhere from a hundred yards to 1/2 mile. I was actually having to do s-turns to keep from chewing up Dyke's tail. Somebody up front was not adhering to the Notams and was throwing us all off track. About half way between Ripon and Fisk, I happened to look straight up above me and all of a sudden I was looking at the rivets on the bottom of a Cessna 172. This guy could not have been more than a 100 feet above me. I could see the treads on his tires. Where the hell did he come from? What should I do? At this point, luckily I had good separation between me and Dyke so I throttled up and got out in front of the Cessna. I never seen him again and I presume he settled in between me and the 16 RV's behind me. As we approached Fisk, where the controllers tell us which runway to land on, we were instructed to follow the south road and land runway 36. Well, our lead KR mistakenly went too far past Fisk and followed the incorrect road to Oshkosh. You see, there is a strobe light at the intersection at Fisk which the Notams say to look for. Well, this strobe light looked like a camera flash and no one in our group seen it but me and I only seen it because I made a practice run the week before and knew where to look for it. Anyway, the four KR's in front of me took the wrong road to Oshkosh and I followed the correct road. This put me a little south of them and as we approached Oshkosh for landing, I had passed Dyke, Shirley, Langford and slipped in behind Clapp to land. The controllers all the time were calling all of us RV's. As we approached the landing on runway 36 a different controller came on line with landing instructions. Clapp was instructed to land 36L mid field on the blue dot. At the same time I was instructed to land 36L on the numbers. Clapp and I touched down at the exact same time on the same runway. I am not sure if the other three KR's landed 36L or 36R but I do know we all made it in safe and no FAA guys called us over to the side to reprimand us so I guess all in all we did ok. Leaving Oshkosh was a piece of cake compared to the arrival. Follow runway heading at 500' agl until five miles out then turn on course. What a great time we all had. Can't wait till next year. Mark Jones (N886MJ) Wales, WI Web site: www.flykr2s.com Mailto:[email protected]
