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Flight Summary

Leg 3 of EAA Airventure Oshkosh Trip

Early Morning out of KC

We woke up at 6am and were airborne around 7am.  We wanted to get to Oshkosh as early as possible.   The plan was to fly to Dubuque, Iowa which would put us 1.2 from Oshkosh.  That would leave almost 4 hours fuel reserve for any Oshkosh craziness, which made me feel comfortable.  I have never done an Oshkosh arrival, so I wanted as many options as possible.  

KC gives us a nice and complex flight plan which I typed into our GTN-650 GPS.  On take off they assigned me a heading which we flew until we were cleared of class bravo airspace, then they immediately cleared us direct to our destination.  Why do they do that?  They must get paid by Garmin to have us type on their beautiful boxes.   (And yes, my ATC friends... I know the real reason.  In case of lost Coms, the original flight plan will ensure a predicable and orderly transit through their airspace giving us the most amount of safety without interfering with other traffic).  

Oshkosh is Closed

On our way up, I mentioned to a controller that we were heading to Oshkosh.   That was when we first heard about the incident at Oshkosh Wednesday morning.   He informed us that the airport was closed and there was little information as to when the Airport would reopen.    At about the same time, I was getting messages from our Team Member David Allen that they heard of reports of General Aviation Parking being full.   Great, all of this work, and we were not going to be able to land at Oshkosh.   We continued on knowing that we would work it out on the ground in Dubuque.  

When we landed.  We tried to get more information.  There was a phone number to call and listen to Oshkosh ATIS, but it was always busy.  Then I had a thought... Let's try LiveATC.net.  That was the only reliable way I could listen to ATIS.  Great job Dave Pascoe and LiveATC.NET!  (As a side note, I got to meet Dave Pascoe at Oshkosh.  He is a great guy and runs a great service.  Please help support them.  He does this for free for us all!) 

The ATIS was saying the airport was closed and check back in 45 minutes.  The folks at the FBO told us about a diner 1 building down, so that sounded good to us. We walked down and had a bite to eat.  When we returned, ATIS was still reporting closed.  But our friends on the ground told us that the airport was open again and planes were departing.  We decided to take off and hope it would open during the 1.2 hours it would take us to get there.  If not, we had our alternate in mind.