Oshkosh Or Bust 2021 July 27, 2021 Day 8 EAA Day 2

shkosh Or Bust 2021 July 27, 2021 Day 8 EAA Day 2

Well during the course of the late evening/ early morning hours a storm front approached and moved through the local area of Fond Du Loc and Oshkosh. We did get some heavy rain and a lot of wind. Nothing was damaged on the camper thankfully, but it did wake both Rob and I up at one point.

The evening before Rob and I discussed the game plan for waking up early and heading out to the airport so I could get my sunrise pictures. Yeah well, that wasn’t going to work exactly well.

We both were up and ready to leave by about 0415 in the morning and proceeded over to the Oshkosh Airport, where we soon discovered that the gates were closed and those that said were open 24/7 were in fact not open. This was rather discouraging, but then too during this time frame the weather had closed in on us yet again and it began to rain, so we went back to the truck to wait it out.

Now. IF you look up the Air Venture 2021 website they will tell you that the gates open up at 0700 and close at 2100 (9pm), which yeah no big deal right. Well for myself and probably a number of other photographers, it is a little disappointing since we are all trying to be creative and it is easier before the crowds show up. But “OH WELL” life goes on right!.

Finally the gates opened at about 0700 and Rob and I packed up the wagon and made our way through the gate and back on to the airport. We stopped along the way and snapped some pictures of the planes in the main exhibit area and then began to make our way over towards the “warbirds” area of the airport. But while walking over to this area, we both kept our eyes on the sky as another weather front was beginning to make its way into the local area.

This fine morning, we decided to head over towards the “Warbirds” area to get some pictures of these rare creatures. The walk was uneventful, but as always you will run into some interesting people and interesting conversations.

In order to get to the “Warbird” section you obviously have to walk there, but you will also have to cross over an active taxi way. Usually there are safety people there to make sure you don’t walk in front of a plane, but at 0700 in the morning there isn’t very many people around and common sense should prevail.

Once in the “Warbird” section, the first three planes we came across were the Grumman F4F “Wildcat”, F8F “Bearcat” and the F6F “Hellcat”, each of these planes are legends in their own time and are part of the once great “Grumman Ironworks”. Continuing on we walked over on to the grass area and came across an old Army Observation Helicopter, then the North American OV-10 Bronco which was great to see as it has been fully restored and looked brand new. The next plane we saw was an old Douglas AC-47 “Spooky” gunship from the Vietnam Era, this bird looked great and had two mini guns sticking out the windows. She sure looked like she could still do some amazing damage even today to the bad guys. I did stop to get some pictures of these planes with my camera and my phone.

After leaving “Spooky” behind, we proceeded over to the hard ramp and caught a number of old planes, there was an old Douglas A-1E “Skyraider”, Grumman TBM “Avenger” Torpedo Bomber, a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk II and then if you looked behind you’ll come across about 25 or so North American T-28 “Trojans” each plane of course was painted in their own unique style. Done with all of this stuff here, we headed back out towards the grass field and visited four (4) of the other Douglas DC-3/C-47 planes out on the field. Then it happened.

Yup the rain returned, but this time with a vengeance. The sky grew dark and in the distance you could see flashes of lightning and the booms of thunder. So Rob and I decided to take refuge underneath the wing of the DC-3 Dakota and wait out the storm. Yeah the rain came down steadily for about 2 hours, so we pulled the chairs out and kicked back and just talked.

During the rain storm we observed a photographer and a model taking pictures underneath one of the North American B-25 “Mitchell” bombers. Eventually the storm began to lighten-up just enough to where we could begin walking around again and this time I just snapped pictures with my phone, so I didn’t get my camera trashed from the water and stuff.

We then headed over to where they had parked all of the fighters planes, but I had one mission in this area and that was to get pictures of the newly restored Vought F4U “Corsair” that was painted up in the markings of the Glenview Naval Air Station which used to be located on the Northwest side of Chicago, Illinois. This plane had a paticular place in my heart as I grew up on the Naval Air Station in Glenview and this is the same place that my dad introduced me to aviation and airplanes, something that I will never ever forget (THANKS DAD!).

After we walked out of the “Warbird” area, we proceeded back over to the main area of the Air Venture and proceeded to find a place to set-up for the day and get ready for the events of the upcoming afternoon.

Once again at 1430 (230pm) the days flying events started. The SOCOM Parachute guys once again jumped out of the plane and displayed the National Colors with one of the planes from Aeroshell team circling around as the National Anthem played.

All of this was followed up by a display by the Gamebird aerobatic group flying their GB1, then we got to see some of the newest technology in flying with the VoloCopter. This helicopter was pretty neat as it looked like it was powered by about 20 small props, but hey it flew… Then a company called Blackfly showed off their technology with two of their very futuristic concepts taking to the skies. This company is trying to put all of us in something almost like the Jetson’s cars of the future from when we were kids.

Then FINALLY!!! The “Warbirds” took to the skies above Air Venture 2021. They launched a bunch of the North American T-28’s and the Beechcrach T-34’s and then the really good stuff got to the air. Yeah the Corsair/ Mustang/ Warhawk/ Bronco all took to the skies and began doing their flyby’s. I was able to get the Glenview Corsair taking off and of course making some passes past us too. Eventually the also launched out four (4) Douglas C-47 Dakotas, and based on the information being provided by the air show announcer three of the four (4) planes were Veterans of the Normandy Invasion (D-Day). They put on a pretty impressive display and they even performed a missing man formation (which was a first for me with the big C-47’s).

At this point in the day, I was done. The sun had finally baked me good and I was just tired. So instead of sticking around for my action, I told Rob that I wanted to leave and head back to the camper to relax, eat and maybe grab a beer at the American Legion…

SO out we walked once again, but with our wagon in tow.

We ended our second day at Air Venture 2021 with a lot of success on the picture front, but also being able to hang out and relax which has just been great too.
Well now to get on with Day 3 of the adventure.

Thanks again to my wife and daughters for their support and of course to the rest of our family, friends, Marines/ Corpsmen and Co-Workers as well. Hope you all are safe and enjoying my rambling…

Until tomorrow or tonight.
Semper Fi,
Frank
1/9 Everywhere.