EAA AirVenture 2012 Takes Flight July 23

It's better known as "Oshkosh" to aviation enthusiasts and every one of them has the event on the bucket list. And for good reason. Imagine a fly-in attracting 7500 airplanes. Imagine 2500 aircraft exhibits, 800 commercial exhibitors, daily world-class airshows, and 500,000 attendee who are "plane" crazy. What organizers call "the world's greatest aviation celebration" will kick off it's sixtieth version on Monday, July 23.  This map gives readers an idea of the scope and scale of Oshkosh and indicates why the event turns a rather sleepy Wittman Field into the busiest airport in the world for one week each year.

For scale, the runway at the top of the page is 8000 feet long

OTR had the privilege of attending Oshkosh several times in the last decade of his career. Energizing, informative, and significant, the show was a great vehicle for delivering an organizational message to a large, captured, and enthusiastic audience.

If any readers have the slightest interest in an aviation theme, EAA's AirVenture needs to be on your bucket list. If you can't change your plans over the weekend and be there next week, the event website has plenty of streaming links that will bring you lots of the excitement in real time. OTR wonders how many hardcore readers who find themselves stuck at home will arrive via Flight Simulator.

The Venerable Warthog

Long-time readers know how much OTR loves airplanes. For newer reader, let it be said that I spent most of my first nine summers in an around a recycled World War II Quonset hut in West Virginia. It served as the hub of the small fixed base operation known as Baker's Air Park. After that experience, I never saw an airplane I didn't like. Any hint of sound in the air or sight of a contrail and my eyes were skyward. Still happens today.

When we lived on the great salt marshes east of Savannah and under a magnificent sky dome, it was great fun watching the endless air traffic on the Northeast to Florida jet route. Closer to sea level, we saw any number of military aircraft, but watching the training flights of one aircraft in particular was always an air show. That aircraft was the A-10 Thunderbolt, fondly known as the Warthog. Thirty five years later she is still at the battlefront as an essential close-in air support weapon.

The Warthog is quiet, nimble and deadly. Not much to look at, she's still loved by pilots and mechanics alike as a reliable flying cannon that almost always returns to base, even when missing parts and filled with holes. Blogger-journalist Michael Yon, reporting from Kandahar Airport, Afghanistan, earlier this month, has posted a beautiful photo essay on the Warthog. Although this essay hit news outlets and blogs in quick order today, I simply felt it could not be overlooked so here is your link. Hope you enjoy.

For the aviation enthusiasts among us, here's an interview on the A-10 conducted by Aero-TV at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture 2009, Oshkosh, Wisconsin: