Yup, another Oshkosh is history, and it was pretty good in most respects. There were a gazillion airplanes and some really rare ones at that!

For instance, how many Boeing 307's have you seen? The "Lazy B" ranch only nailed 10 of 'em together to begin with, and one of those crashed in early testing. Pan Am and TWA got the rest, and put them into airline service in 1940. Howard Hughes wanted one to use in breaking his own world circling speed record, but they were all committed, so he just bought TWA!

When WWII came along, Hughes had to scrap the idea of the flight, and spent 250 thou (in 1942 dollars!) turning one 307 into "The Flying Penthouse" I saw this airplane when it was being scrapped in Ft. Lauderdale. They cut the top 2/3 off the fuselage and put it onto a boat hull! The rest of the TWA fleet became C-75's and wore olive drab until '44. I saw four of these in China National Airline Corporation colors in Vietnam in '65. Now there is ONE left, and it was at OSH, done up as a Pan Am Clipper. Nice!

Basically, it's a B-17 with a larger, rounder fuselage, and it's also pressurized, the first airliner to be so equipped. Major piece of aviation history!

And then there's the Vickers Vimy. After a blown engine last year, and a bunch of legal wrangling this year, it finally showed up! What an impressive sight!

This rig was another record setter, first to fly all the way to Australia. Before that feat was accomplished, it was the mount of choice for Alcock And Brown, who were the first to cross the Atlantic non-stop. Hardly anybody remembers these guys because they weren't the first across, and they didn't make it from New York to Paris like Lindbergh, but they did get to Ireland without stopping! the Vimy is a replica, with a lot of modern technology applied. The original had Rolls-Royce engines, but none were to be found, so modified BMW mills had to stand in. These engines were the source of the legal battles by the way. In any case, the machine has been billed as the world's largest homebuilt, and I guess it is, at least so far!

And, speaking of homebuilts, one of my favorites was a feature of my trip to OSH, both on the good side and the bad side. I am referring to the Hatz CB-1, which, at least for the moment is, bird I am most likely going to attempt to build.

The bad side came at the Midwest Regional Hatz/KellyD Fly-In, held the weekend before OSH at Poplar Grove Airport near Rickford, IL. During the afternoon flying on Saturday, a Kelly D shed the upper right wing, right in front of the crowd, me included, with a resulting two fatals. It will be a long time before the NTSB figures out exactly what happened, but I suddenly had to hang up my spectator hat and go to work under my FAA hat. It does NOT get any worse, believe me.

On the good side, there were several really nice Hatzes at OSH during the week, and no fewer than THREE of them came away with top trophies! A Hatz CB-1 has walked off with the Gold "Lindy" several times in the last 10-15 years, but this is the first time that three have won trophies. In fact, I think it's the first time that three of ANY design have taken such high honors.

I can remember in years past when a hundred or so Vari-Eze on Long-Eze types were parked wing tip to wing tip, and, more recently, similarly huge gaggles of RV-what-have-you birds have shown up, but while they dominated the parking areas, they did not dominate in the awards. What did dominate, as usual, was the biggest gathering of airplanes, large and small, ever assembled anywhere.

Now, I would think that really ought to be enough! Oshkosh is already the largest gathering of things and people of an aeronautical bent, but some folks want MY Fly-In, OUR Fly-In to be MORE! More? Like what? One aviation writer, a regular contributor to FLYING magazine, says we are finally there.

J. Mac McClellan says Oshkosh is now on a par with the Paris Airshow and Farnborough! Say it ain't so! The LAST thing we need is a ramp dominated by airline and military hardware! He says the core of homebuilders are still there, and are an important part of the picture, but he does have it right, we are only a part of the picture.

Do we need an airshow full of Citations, King Airs, corporate 737's and such? Yup! It's called the NBAA convention! Is that what Oshkosh should be? Nope! Oh yeah, I guess it's kind of fun to drool over something that would destroy your annual flying budget in .3 on the Hobbs meter and has an avionics stack that's worth twice what your house is, but these machines should remain a stratospherically distant curiosity. I think we must be careful that EAA Upper Manglement does not get so totally lured by the siren call of the VERY FEW high-roller mega-bucks types to the exclusion of those of us at "the core" of this whole thing!

Which brings me to my continuing sore point with President Tom and the directors. Actually, there were several new developments that mark incremental steps away from the Fly-In I used to know and love, but there is one in particular that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. This year, as I have done for many years, I reported for duty at my FAA job at OSH, picked up my uniform shirt, and hot footed it over to my favorite T-shirt vendor to have this year's full-color design applied to the back of the shirt. Much to my dismay, no design for '01! How come says I, and the owner greets me with a scowl and hands me a letter to their long-time supporters and customers, which explains it all.

As part of their contract with EAA for their booth space, they were forbidden to market any merchandise that included the words "Oshkosh", "fly-in", or "Warbird", or the number 2001! Bad enough that these guys changed the name of this event to "BusinessVenture" so they could have their silly copyrighted name! Not satisfied with that, and unable to cry copyright infringement on the above-mentioned public domain words, they now attack the vendors with contract language!

Another vendor has sold T-shirts and such under the name Genuine Oshkosh Flight Wear or something close. I can't get the exact name, because as of the second day of the show, all his merchandise disappeared! God forbid that anybody but the EAA gets to make a buck on anything that even looks like an Oshkosh souvenir!

The worst part is that this new Gestapo technique was not at all evenly applied. Did Flying magazine stop selling "Oshkosh" T-shirts? Not on your tintype, Bubba! How come? Probably because the suits up at EAA headquarters didn't have the guts to go up against the magazine and its parent publishing company. Imagine some bad press from THAT set of writers! Instead, they get the aforementioned kudos from J. Mac McClellan! Pretty easy to bully a little T-shirt operation, though. You fellas must be real proud of yourselves!

How about if you are old buddies with the Clan Poberezny and you run the Barnstore in the campground? You're exempt too, evidently, since that store had no fewer than four designs that trumpeted "2001 Oshkosh Fly-In", and one had all that and "Warbirds" too!

It appears that among other things, Fuhrer Tom and the Board are on a major campaign to become collectively and individually known, both far and wide, as North ends of Southbound horses. In the eyes of more than a few attendees at Oshkosh 2001, they have already succeeded in spades.

Yup, I will probably go to Oshkosh again next year, (assuming Tommy doesn't have me excommunicated or something) but you can bet your bippy that I will NOT buy anything from the EAA, and you can be equally sure that I will avoid using BusinessVenture (you know what I mean, right?) and that silly tennis-shoe "swoop" that replaced the world-renowned "real" EAA logo!



STUFF FOR SALE

Chris Davis advises that he has finally finished his Early Bird Jenny and has a few pieces left over. Which begs two questions: when do we get to see it, and how come you're not saving this stuff for your NEXT project? Being nosy set aside, here's the list of articles available.
2 ea. 12' lengths of 5/8 X .035 4130 tubing. Listed @ $1.74/ft. plus shipping from Aircraft Spruce, sell for $1.00/ft.
¼'' O.D. X .020 wall 21-6-9 seamless stainless steel tubing (1/8 hard, bends nicely). Cost $3.00/ft., sell for $1.00/ft. Have 4' lengths in Louisville, could ship 8' lengths from home in North Carolina.
New VDO pressure sender for hourmeter and pressure gauge. Range 0-145 psi. 1/8-27 NPT. Asking $20.00
For the serious metal aircraft builder: GBP Power Riveter kit including: Pneumatic Power Riveter Pulling heads- straight 3/32, 1/8, 5/32, 3/16 Right angle 1/8, 5/32, 3/16 Selector gage, metal carrying case. Cost $700, sell $300
Phone number is 451-1868. No answering machine, so if no answer try again.

More STUFF FOR SALE

Elloit Willoughby has a few items, too.
New Tennessee prop, 50"x 34" pitch, in the box. For VW or Continental crankshafts. $175
Sheets of 5052H Aluminum .040 thick 48"x 72" 2 sheets $38 each.
His phone is 456-9982