Oshkosh or Bust The Blog 2021 July 31, 2021 EAA Day 5

Oshkosh or Bust The Blog 2021 July 31, 2021 EAA Day 5

Well good morning to just about everyone, it was actually a great morning weather wise. The sun was up and the temperature is just right and there is even a slight breeze. But we seemed to have forgotten a sweatshirt, cause the wind had a little bit of a bite with it.

So today was the 5th Day of our little trip to EAA and the very first day that my Father-In-Law was able to fully attend, and man was he a happy little camper too.

We of course got up early and headed out to the airfield and found our usual spot for the week and proceeded to get set-up for the day. Our friend Steve from Jersey (yeah this guy has the accent and all, just waiting for him to say “Forget about it”) came out a little early and set himself up too. After some brief introductions and such, the guys took off to get coffee and to see about the possibility of getting on one of the Tri-Motor Flights. For myself, I set up my camera’s and began taking some pictures and then of course worked on the previous days Oshkosh of Bust Blog.

The morning slowly progressed and as usual the air traffic was pretty busy with lots more people and planes leaving the area as the week was drawing to a close. Once again the Ground Handlers and the Air Traffic Control Team handled all of this so gracefully and professionally. The one thing that has impressed me while sitting here watching the days events was the willingness of people to jump in and help out the Volunteers and the pilots here at EAA to get their planes moved out of the parking areas and pushed out towards the main taxiways and such. Just a great feeling to see people helping people especially this day in age.

During the course of the day I was once again able to reconnect with two (2) more Marines that I served with, it was great to catch up with Kevin Bernheisel whom I served with at Marine Barracks Subic Bay, Philippines about 30 years ago and then I was able to see Brad Jorgensen with whom I served with at Camp Pendleton, Golf Company, 2nd Battalion 1st Marines (Camp Horno, 53 Area). It was great to see both of these Marines and get the chance to catch up with them both.

1430 (230pm) seemed to come pretty quick and the airshow events were not going to begin, with the usual beginning of the singing of our National Anthem by one of the young ladies here at the show and of course SOCOM Parachute Team jumped from the plane and showed the National Colors and POW/MIA Flag’s. It is really a sight to be hold when they do this, and they have done this every single day this week.

After the National Anthem, the Air Force once again took over the skies above Air Venture but this time they had an old friend in the air from the Vietnam Era, the plane they had up was the Douglas AC-47 “Spooky” Gun Ship and man what a sight to see her, right behind her was the Lockheed Martin AC-130J “Specter” Gun ship. These planes were just incredible to see and the made several passes over the airfield and past the crowds. Now if they could only have done a live fire exercise and lit off the guns on both of the planes and done this at night, yeah that would have been epic.

Right after the gunship flyby’s the Air Force put up the Lockheed Martin MC-130J and the Bell CV-22 Osprey and these did a few flybys and during the first flyby they had the re-fueling probes out and the lines making it look like they were going to take on fuel. The CV-22’s did make a few passes and then demonstrated their landing and take off techniques and showed how the engines worked and such. The MC-130J made a short landing, showed how they could back the plane up on the ground using the reversing systems on the engines and then did a short take off.

Matt Younkin and Skip Stewart then took to the skies above Air Venture and whipped their planes around the skies. Matt was flying Twin Beech 18 and Skip flew his Prometheus 2 plane, and did one hell of a performance with both of these planes it is a must see.

Kevin Coleman took his Edge 540 to the skies after Matt Younkin and Skip Stewart, and then then a group called Two Buch Chuck performed for the crowds. Then the great Patty Wagstaff took to the skies in her Extra 300LX and wowed the crowds with her great flying skills and showed everyone out there what a woman can do when flying a plane. Patty is one of those people you for sure don’t want to miss, just like Vicky Benzing and her flying abilities.

After Patty took to the skies, the Aeroshell Aerobatic Team took off and did their performance, at this point the air was pretty still over the airfield and the winds weren’t blowing hard enough to push the smoke from the planes out of the area. The Aeroshell Team did a great job of flying, but many of us here on the ground could have done without the excess smoke, especially with more performances to come.

Then the fun began once the acrobatic performers were done. The WARBIRDS took to the skies.

We had Douglas C-47 Dakotas “Goonie Birds), North American P-51 Mustangs, North American B-25 Mitchells, Vought F4U Corsairs, Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, North American T-28 Trojan, and then the Tora Tora Tora Gang took off and simulated the attack on Peral Harbor and they flew replicas of the Japanese Zero’s, Kates and such. Steve Hinton flew the Lockheed P-38 Lightning again as well and put that plane through its paces.

Eventually the Navy put up one of their McDonnell Douglas/ Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet from VFA-106 “Gladiators” took off with a lot of loud noise and would eventually come back.
Then the Goodyear FG-1D Corsair and another Vought F4U Corsair took to the air along with another North American P-51 Mustang. Then the Navy put up both of the Boeing EA-18G Growlers from VAQ-129 “Vikings” and once again with a lot of noise but it was really great.

The Growlers did a few passes and then eventually joined up with the Corsairs for the Navy Legacy Flight. They made several passes to honor all of the Sailors/ Marines/ Soldiers/ Airmen that have served in the defense of our country. Then they did a break over the crowd and the Growlers did more passes before landing, then the Corsair and Mustang joined up and made a few passes to honor all of our Veterans.

Finally to finish off the day’s flying the VFA-106 “Gladiators” Super Hornet bounced the airfield and tore up the skies above Air Venture 2021 and showed the crowd (what was left) what the “Rhino” was all about.

Once this performance was done, we decided to leave and head back to the camper and have dinner. The skirt steak we had for dinner (my wife’s dad brought these) were awesome and we eventually called it a night and crashed out.

Well this was short and sweet, the day was great took lots of pictures of course. More to come for the final Day on Saturday.

Thanks again to everyone for reading and commenting on line about everything. I will post pictures of the stuff soon, just a little hard right now.

Semper Fi
Frank Sellin
1/9 Everywhere