Made it to OSH

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MrMorden
Posts: 2184
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2012 7:28 am
Location: Athens, GA

Made it to OSH

Post by MrMorden »

Reprinted from the CTFlier Forum:

Hello all...

Well, Craig and I made it to Oshkosh! We left Saturday morning with our friends Kip (in his Waiex: Y-tailed Sonex) and Joerg (in his Vari-EZ). I'm used to being the fast flyer among my regular flying buddies, but I was definitely the slowpoke here. They were happy to throttle back and save some gas though.

Kip is the seasoned veteran of the group, he flies business jets for a living and has flown his little Waiex to every one of the lower 48 states. Hislane also has the shortest legs with only 17 gallons, so we let him pick the fuel stops. We flew about two hour legs.

It was very hot, so we generally climbed up and cruised at 6500-8500ft. To keep up with the other airplanes, I ran 5400-5500rpm the entire flight. The engine had absolutely zero problems with that, and didn't hiccup once. Oil temps were very steady at 230F in cruise and 235-242F in climb. Because I had two people up and was running right at gross weight, performance was a bit low. I normally see about 110kt at 5200rpm, and we were getting 113kt at 5500rpm.

The weather was a little crusty on our route, and after our second fuel stop at Kankakee, IL (IKK), the weather started closing in on the east and the winds picked up, so we made a dash to the west to try to get on the back side of the weather. We were trying for Davenport, Iowa.

When we got there, Kip was a few miles ahead and attempted a landing on runway 21. Winds were 270@14G18. Kip ran out of rudder authority with that much crosswind, so he broke off the approach, and we decided to divert to Quad City(MLI), a Class C just south with a runway 27. I had never done any class C ops, so Kip talked me through the approach/clearance delivery procedure, and I just did as he did. He and Joerg were several miles ahead and made right base to 27 and landed uneventfully. Then it was my turn.

But of course they didn't want to make it easy on me, so instead of just making right base like Kip and Joerg, ATC had me fly heading 180 when I was about five miles out. Then when I was a mile or two from being aligned with the runway, ATC asked me to make a right turn to 170. Well, 170 was ten degrees to my LEFT, so I responded "say again heading for 509CT?". He repeated "turn right heading 170".

Okay. I start making a right 350 degree turn. Halfway through the turn ATC comes on with "509CT I am now showing you northbound. Say intentions." I responded with "My intention is to make a right turn to heading 170 per instructions." He came back with "Oh, sorry about that, I meant for you to make a left turn." Ha! No harm, no foul, I rolled out on 170. Then I was cleared to land on 270, but wind was up to 20G24, right down the runway. I had never landed in that much wind.

I just made a normal approach, about two miles on final. When we got close we saw there were two airliners stacked up holding short for our arrival. My ground speed was probably 40kt, I bet those pilots were either annoyed or very amused. I used 15 flaps and actually made a good landing with no drama.

A shout out to Elliot Aviation. Their line guys were super friendly, and bent over backwards giving us hangar space for the night and came in earlier than their normal opening the next morning to get us out early!

We got going for the final push to Oshkosh the next day. The published Fisk approach was actually pretty easy and uneventful. Winds were 300@9, using runways 27 and 36. Kip was assigned 36, and requested 27, which was approved. I did the same a few minutes later, and was told "unable, I need you landing 36." Oh well. I made the approach and was to,d to land on the yellow dot, halfway down the runway. The winds were less than forecast, and I touched down dead center on the runway about five feet long of the dot. Good enough.

They taxied me to hell and creation, I bet we taxied four miles (mostly in high, rough grass) to general aviation parking. I checked to make sure all my fillings were intact after the long rough taxi, then tied down. We made it!

I will put up some pics when I have some more time, and when I get the pics my travel companions took.
Andy Walker
Athens, GA
Sport Pilot ASEL, LSRI
2007 Flight Design CTSW E-LSA
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Joined: Mon Nov 05, 2012 10:16 am
Location: Atlanta GA; Home Airport: PDK

Re: Made it to OSH

Post by Flocker »

Thanks for the post!
Aviation Real Estate Broker
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