Landing field of dreams
Oshkosh Wisconsin - Thursday, September 19, 2013
by:Timothy W. Shire
Images by: Andrew Shire
Each summer, in late July, aviation enthusiasts flock to Wittman field in Oshkosh Wisconsin. Oshkosh is near the eastern border of the state midway between Green Bay and Milwaukee. It is in a beautifully treed countryside where the gentle rolling hills of the central part of the state flatten out into a plain with the odd lake. Despite its modest environment and pleasant surroundings, Oshkosh's AirVenture is the largest event of its kind in the world. There are many outstanding and famous aviation events such as Farnborough and the Paris air show, where the manufacturers of commercial and military hardware put on their best outfits and try to sell whatever is the latest and the greatest. Both of these events are for countries and corporations eager to spend taxpayer's money on equipment, that may or may not exist.
Oshkosh is ridiculously democratic because its focus is on the lowest common denominator of aviation. Those people who fly, or long to fly, their very own airplane. Now ever since we humans learned to walk about and tell each other stories, a significant percentage of us look up and long to join the birds and make our way through the sky. Though Boeing and Airbus would like you to think that making your way through the sky is something relegated to passengers or warriors, the whole business began with a pair of eccentric bicycle makers who did not realise that flying was something best left to those with very deep pockets. Orville and Wilbur Wright didn't know any better and in 1905 at Kitty Hawk North Carolina, on a dusty beach, their impossible dream took flight and indeed the rest is history.
When the Wright brother's successfully flew into the air with a heavier than air vehicle, the money men and governments laughed it off as a freak crazy stunt, so the brothers packed up their machine and went to Europe to try and sell both the idea and encourage investment in what they realised was to them, a reality.
You see reality to one person is very much a dream to another and for many many others, it is a laughable cult activity. So it is, that from 1905 to the present, little has actually changed. Oh, certainly heavy money got into transportation and military hardware, as long as it worked and fits into a given mould, but for the rest of the world, aviation is still a dream, or in some cases a cult, or subculture.
Because of the perceived inherent danger of defying gravity, even a little bit, aviation from the Wright brothers to today, has been an inordinately regulated activity. Now this has been a good thing, because as it stands right now, flying commercially, or in a general aviation aircraft is simply vastly safer in every way then the mundane daily carnage of motor vehicles on the surface. On the down side of regulation, it has reduced innovation to chronic atrophy. Pretty much everything about flying was established by 1935 and frozen in regulation so that the tweaks that came along have been hampered to the point that change and innovation moves at a pace that is dramatically conservative.
Then there is the issue of litigation. American where the car became the superstar of travel, is one of the world's most litigious societies in existence and as a result, some seriously absurd law suits have simple made the manufacturing and sale of private airplanes something remembered in the middle of the twentieth century.
In the late thirties, the forties and early fifties, a good mechanic with some good ideas could start up an aircraft factory and could make and sell private aircraft. Aeronca, Taylorcraft, Ryan, Lakes, Fleet, Stearman, Bellanca, Nordyne, Ercoupe, Navion, Stinson, Pheasant Aircraft Corporation; these are just a sample of the enormous variety of companies that launch their dreams into flying reality. A series of law suits put almost all of that to an end.
Piper, Cessna and Beechcraft were the aviation big three turning out flying machines for people who wanted to fly their own airplanes. All three began as family businesses, with their founder's name as the name of the company. Each achieved outstanding success in the 1950s and into the sixties, with flying machines that were both practical and though expensive, still affordable on the used market for almost anyone who wanted badly enough to get into the air on his or her own. Cessna's 172 is the most numerous aircraft ever produced far surpassing military aircraft mass produced for the sole purpose of killing people.
The civil law suits meant that the manufacturers had to include in their price of each unit sold the cost of the insurance for when they would ultimately be sued when one of their products came to a calamitous end. All three of the major manufacturers temporarily stopped production in the nineties, the companies have each been sold and resold so that today their annual production is just a fraction of what it was four decades ago, with about twenty percent of the selling price of each unit going toward insurance costs. A new Cessna 172 today will cost a buyer close to $300,000 and though it has a computer driven instrument panel, it is mechanically and technologically no more advanced than my first airplane, a 1963 Cessna 172 Skyhawk which had 560 hours on it at the time in 1981 when I paid $15,500 for it in Mankota Saskatchewan. The performance of that bird was pretty much the same as a brand new one and its safety equal to a 2013 version.
But just as humans have always longed to fly there have been many who set out to build their own machines. Not by a long shot were the Wright brothers the only ones cooking up what they thought would fly just after the beginning of the twentieth century. All over North America and Europe there were people, whom no doubt, their neighbours thought of them as crazy guys, whittling away at wood, canvas and wires, hoping to send themselves aloft. When the Wright brothers were successful, it did not slow down the backyard flyboys, if anything, it just gave them encouragement. The work of these people had a general affect on producing innovation and invention. Techniques, materials and knowledge of design, the flow and control of fluids and propulsion developed at an astonishing pace.
By 1914 when Europe began its massive hemorrhage that last until 1918, killing over 37 million people, the killers latched onto flying and almost month by month, the whole business of flying developed exponentially. When the war ended, tens of thousands of people had been infected with the aviation bug and they bought surplus machines and learned to fly them. The twenties saw effective use made of the technology and by the mid 1930s the knowledge and technology had fussed and the DC-3 that first flew in 1935, is still in the air today without being out of place on the runway, or in the sky.
The 1940s saw another war and enormous leaps in materials and propulsion and when that conflict ended, sort of in 1945, because the arms race of the "cold war" was to begin immediately; inexpensive flying machines came on the market immediately, with the big three turning out civilian aircraft that were serviceable and safe.
Now the backyard fanatics never really were out of business, but they were less noticeable, because the commercial private aircraft were so available and in the 1960s even more so. The Canadian government even provided a modest subsidy for people wanting to learn to fly. By the end of the seventies there were lots of civilian private aircraft and that is when the freeze began.
In the mid 80s there were still plenty of used aircraft, but the manufacturers were all in serious trouble. Meanwhile, in the garages, back yards, barns and even in destroyers at sea, people were putting their very own planes together. In 1979 I met an outstanding man in Carlyle Saskatchewan, who had been a chaplain in the Canadian Navy and with the help of shipmates, assembled most of the parts of his "homebuilt". It was powered by a Volkswagen engine and made one and only take off. All that remained of it was a bit of the tail hanging on the good man's garage wall. He survived the crash that destroyed his plane only to be damn near killed flying a wire controlled model airplane that struck a power line. I tell you this because you need to know the passion that infuses the private aviator is not to be ignored.
The Experimental Aircraft Association was founded in 1953 and now has 175,000 members and nearly 1,000 chapters worldwide. Remember the passion part, building an airplane takes a while and though many begin, only a few finish. Tisdale is home to more than one completed homebuilt and so is almost every other town and village in the country. You can get the plans for one, build it from scratch, or buy a kit to assemble, or partly built, the variations are endless and ultimately, the finished product is worth close the that of a commercially produced machine.
The biggest aviation event of the year is considered to be the one that takes place in July on alternate years. This year the event was in Paris and next year it will be in Farnborough and from Monday to Friday the event is restricted to government, business and the aviation elite, with about 109,000 attending then they open up the place to the public for Saturday and Sunday when about 100,000 or so come to see the show. The purpose of this event is provide manufacturers and their supporting countries an opportunity to show off their stuff and to make the deals that will keep airlines in the sky.
The Oshkosh AirVenture this year began on July 29 and went until Sunday, August 4. Long before the gates open, people from all parts of the world are on their way to this Wisconsin city. They fly, drive, hitchhike, what ever it takes to get there and they set up their tents under a wing, beside their car, or park their camper in the biggest campground anywhere anytime. This year about half a million people came and there were 10,000 aircraft that flew in for the event.
Andrew and Tim Shire II made a quick trip down from Winnipeg to be there for Saturday and Sunday. They shot a lot of pictures but out of over 600, I have selected 228 to share with you. Most of the images were taken with a Canon 5D Mark II but some may have been captured using an iPhone.