I had the distinct pleasure of begin able to fly into AirVenture
again this year with a buddy of mine in his new SR22G5. I had to catch a South West commercial flight
to Kansas City at 0630 in the morning on 18 July to link-up with him, but from
then on it was all first class! The
plane I got to fly from KMKC to KOSH was a 2014 Cirrus SR22G5-loaded.
The awesome Perspective avionics package |
We departed IFR out of KMKC at 1340 in the
afternoon with plans to fly to the FISK VFR arrival into OSH. Flight time was 2:30 and mostly VFR. As we approached FISK we were above a cloud
layer and descending trying to get below it.
My copilot tuned in one of the radios to FISK approach to see what was
going on ahead of us and we quickly realized that flying in VFR at this time
was going to be a huge ordeal, since there were a lot of planes in VFR holds
over Green Lake. In a normal world we
would have seen all the traffic on our traffic system, however because of the
large number of planes flying into AirVenture, we all have to turn off our
transponders as per the NOTAM, so we didn’t have the situational awareness that
we normally would. This large number of
planes and no transponders is another reason we decided to stick with our IFR
clearance since it’s just flat out safer!
Since we already had an IFR arrival slot, we requested vectors back to
KOSH and the ILS27. This turned out to
not go quite as planned either, but this is normal when you fly to Air
Venture. We popped out of the clouds as
we approach the inbound localizer and at that time we were asked to conduct a
hold three miles east of KOSH since there was a mass arrival of Cessnas
approaching. Very quickly there were
planes above us and below us as well all were holding in VFR over Lake
Winnebago. After a short amount of time
we were cleared for the visual to RW27 and put it down on the first dot and
taxied to the FBO and park the plane in a COPA reserved area. Another great reason to be a member of COPA.
For this trip we had a group of eight of us that had rented
a friends house for the week. It’s
really kind of crazy, to be in someone else’s house like this, but they make
good money doing it and we in return get a great place to stay that is much
nicer than any hotel. The group of us
came from all corners of the US, all of us flying in Cirrus to partake in the week’s
events. Day one was focused on plane
watching. We had a premier spot right
next to the taxiway on RW27, right in between the first and second dots. We got to see a lot of cool planes land and
more than I care to state, scary landings.
I think there are way too many people that get caught up in the “land on
the dot” that they forget basic airmanship and try to force the plane to land
and it results in bounces, high stalls and just flat out bad landings.
Some of the group on the taxiway of RW27 |
Front row seats provides for spectacular views of landings! |
To wrap up the day we all had VIP invites to
the Cirrus AirVenture dinner and concert with Dierks Bentley.
It was an amazing event and we also got to see the New Cirrus SF50 (C2 I
think). This plane was one of the test
aircraft, but it was amazing nonetheless.
Dierks Bentley |
Cirrus SF50 |
Day
two, which was the first day of AV was dedicated to hitting the tarmac and
checking out all the stuff. This year, like all years was amazing. There is definitely not a lack of things to
drool over at AV. We concluded this
night with a COPA dinner at the Hilton, where I got to see a bunch of old
friends that I hadn’t seen in a while.
Day three was more of the same.
Wednesday came way too fast and we headed to the airport early to try to beat the rush out and get back to KC. As we approached the airport, I noticed that nobody was flying, which can only mean one thing. Unfortunately the airport was closed due to a Piper PA46 that had crashed at the end of RW27 trying to land. The cause appeared to be the dreaded turn to final low speed stall, that we all read about so often. When you watch all these planes land, you can see this forming over and over again, but luckily we didn’t see any actually stall. It was a grim sight and nothing that anyone wants to see especially during something like AirVenture. Several hours later the airport was opened and we departed on RW18L (which is actually a taxiway) for an uneventful flight back to KMKC.
With
another AirVenture homage complete, I once again have the major itch to buy
another airplane. It’s hard to not when
you get to fly something as amazing as a G5, but with the costs of aviation
skyrocketing and the potential user fee issue coming back, I think I will
continue to sit on the sidelines and save my money. I hope to buy another plane and hopefully
another Cirrus, but time will tell.