Arnold
Congrats on the successful trip!
A couple of our Oshkosh glimpses -
At one point several movers and shakers in the high-performance personal aircraft movement happened to stop by the plane at the same time. Listening to their exotic ramblings through the latest composite and performance advances left me adrift, cavitated in their wake turbulence. They seemed to effortlessly understand what the other was talking about.
One of the pilots stayed around and waited until there was a lull in the traffic around the plane, and then asked several systems questions with in-depth follow-up questions. After a few rounds I asked him what these Eze mods and philosophies had to do with his high-performance, high dollar world. He said he had just acquired a LongEZ, and continued the questions. I asked what he was going to do with it, thinking he might be doing something exotic with it. He looked at me quizzically and said “I’m going to fly it. It will be my ride. These Ezes are the best personal planes going.”
Another moment involved meeting up with a friend from Marine OCS. While we hadn’t seen each other in decades, we are still brethren and easily immediately took up where we left off back then. We agreed that our primary bond was cemented in that we actually enjoyed the forced marches and runs in full gear, and enjoyed the many weekend trips we made into DC from Quantico Virginia. He is extremely quiet. As we drifted through the years catching up on where the other had been during this era or that, at one point I asked him where he had been stationed during the Iran Hostage Desert 1 event, where a helo and cargo plane crashed together in a sand storm. He said “I was a co-pilot.” I asked “OK, where?”
He said, “I was there, a pilot in the helo beside the one that crashed.” Then he quietly talked through the experience. There were several boisterous, arrogant know-it-alls in our group. But as he quietly talked, no one else said a word.
On Thursday we were riding the tram to the Homebuilder’s Dinner in pouring rain, completely drenched. One friend cracked up the whole tram when he hollered through the downpour, “Bill, we’ve been through a lot together…and most of it’s your fault!”
My favorite part of Oshkosh is getting to observe how some of you think, and learn a little of the struggle that some of you guys have gone through to get there. The plane is usually not the most interesting part of the story.
Arnold thanks for the ride along with you here...
