Here is an excerpt from Volume One of "Around the Field: The stories of the people places and planes of the Oshkosh Fly-in". Excerpt from Auguat 1998.
1998 Epilogue
I often think of these people who I met more than a decade ago. I wonder what's become of them.
The Thunder Chicken, the two guys who flew from Australia on the spur of the moment, the Finnish exchange student who was planning a life in aviation, and all the others.
I watch for them each year as I wander. I've crossed paths with a few of them, but only a very few. It's a testament to how many people, how many stories, there are at the fly-in. You can never meet them all.
I'll head back to Wittman Field again this summer to meet with more of these great people. I can't wait.
The media has changed so much over these years. "AirVenture Today", as the daily is now known, is still a great publication. But people are connected in so many more ways now.
Maybe this is the year we'll do "Around the Field" as an audio, or even video show. We could present it on the internet, or even send it directly to your phone. We'll see.
The technology is changing, but the people really don't. Oshkosh is occupied each summer by hundreds of thousands of people who love flying, love their neighborhoods, and love each other. And I'll be there anxious to hear their stories.
The story behind these stories.
It seems like such a long time ago.
I attended my first EAA fly-in in Oshkosh in 1991. I had been a licensed pilot for two years, and I was very excited to visit what I'd heard was the center of the general aviation universe.
That first visit began what has turned into, so far, a 21 year, uninterrupted love affair with the Oshkosh Fly-In.
Like most AirVenture attendees it took me my first two or three visits to really see it all. It's that big.
But also like so many others, after those first few years I began to realize that, beyond the thousands of airplanes on display and beyond the state of the art equipment being exhibited, there is a whole other world.
It's the world of the regular people who attend Oshkosh.
I once complained to a friend who loved New York City, that I didn't care for the Big Apple because I found it to be too huge and impersonal. But she told me that the way to appreciate NYC is to not try to take in the whole thing. You appreciate NYC by looking at its smaller parts, its neighborhoods. That's where the people are, and that's where the real lives are lived.
And the same thing is true of AirVenture Oshkosh.
There are a dozen or more, long-standing "neighborhoods" at AirVenture. Some based around physical locations, others around annual activities. Each has its own population which returns every year. Each of these neighborhoods has families and businesses, leaders and characters.
In those first few years I became part of a neighborhood that was made up of aviators who were part of the rec.aviation newsgroup on the then, newfangled internet. Throughout the year we knew each other via screen and keyboard, but for this one week each year we enjoyed getting face-to-face on the grounds of the fly-in.
But in 1997 I came up with an idea that changed Oshkosh for me forever.
EAA published a "show daily" newspaper, back then it was called "EAA Today". It was a good publication, and it was mostly filled stories about the news, the planes and the products that were notable that year. But I believed there were many, many stories to be told about the regular people who attended the fly-in.
During the winter of 1998 I found the email address for the publisher of EAA Today and sent him a proposal. I told him I wanted to volunteer to write a regular column about these people.
At the time I figured it might take a few years to convince him of the value of this idea. But I was pleasantly surprised when Ben Sclair immediately replied. He agreed it was a good idea, and would I like to join the staff that following summer.
And thus began what has become a great adventure for me. Each summer I spend the week of Oshkosh visiting the neighborhoods. The North 40, Vintage, Homebuilts, Ultralights, and more. I talk with the regular people there who love flying, love Oshkosh, and love their Oshkosh neighbors who they meet up with each summer.
I've met a lot a great people, and written many daily columns in the 14 years since I began. Some of those columns were available on the internet for a few years after they appeared in print. But many of them, and especially the early ones, have disappeared from view.
In the volumes of this collection I present to you the stories of these fascinating people of the Oshkosh Fly-In. And as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Learn more about Volume One of "Around the Field: The stories of the people places and planes of the Oshkosh Fly-in" and other books by Jack Hodgson here.
General Aviation, Flying, Airplanes, EAA, Experimental Aircraft Association, Wittman Field
