J-3 Journey to OSH

 Rick Rice

Oshkosh, as usual, was great. This was the first time I'd flown up since taking the Bamboo Bomber up years ago. I took the newly-engined J-3 this time, and even though there was nearly a 100 MPH difference in airspeed between the Cub and the Bobcat, the fun factor was about the same.

Tucker Burkeen, Jimmy Burkeen's grandson, flew along with me in the plane, while Jimmy followed along with all our baggage in the car. We generally flew legs of between 80 and 100 miles between airports, and we purposely chose to stop at airports that were located as near as possible to Jimmy's highway route of travel. Jimmy never beat us to a fuel stop, but with some light headwinds working against us much of the way, we never had to wait more than about 15 minutes before he showed up.

OSH was closed on Monday afternoon due to soft ground and no place to park planes following the previous days' rains, but since we had rooms in Fond du Lac, we decided to stop there first. FLD was also wet and turning folks away, but fortunately, they gave us a clearance to land. I think we were one of the last planes allowed to land there on Monday afternoon.

With winds from the south and us coming from the south, the FLD tower initially cleared us to enter a right downwind on the west side of the airport for a landing back to the south on runway 18. Shortly after receiving that clearance, the controller called me back and said that the wind had pretty much calmed down to light and variable and that I could land to the north if I wanted to. I said that sounded fine to me, so he told me to proceed on course and that he'd call my right turn onto a left base for 36. All pretty normal stuff, but shortly thereafter, he started talking to a Mustang.

I didn't pay much attention to the initial conversation between the controller and the Mustang. I just assumed it was a Midget Mustang or maybe a Mustang II and that he was going to get turned away due to lack of parking space. However, as the conversation between "Mustang" and the controller continued, I heard the Mustang pilot say "I'll be there way before the Cub", and immediately after that, the controller cleared "the Mustang" for the option on 36. Well, I gotta tell you, that perked my ears up. I didn't understand how he could be there way before me, because to my way of thinking, I was already there!!

With the tiniest hint of a right turn, followed immediately by a left turn to final, (I know my high school English teachers would be critical of me using the word immediately so many times so closely together but I wanted to make sure you got the point) we landed and waited to get in the queue to get into OSH later that day. After the OSH airshow was over, they started letting exhibition planes in, so we went departed FLD, entered the holding pattern over Green Lake, and then were cleared for landing at OSH about an hour after lift-off from FLD.

If you've not flown into OSH, you should. The controllers are great and the system works well and easily. We never talked to anyone. Instead, we just wagged our wings and/or executed turns when told to do so, and the controllers gave us verbal confirmation that we were doing what we were supposed to. The brought us right across show center, from west to east, then turned us north on the east side of the field so we could enter a left downwind for landing on 36R. Tucker counted 31 (and one-half) DC-3's on the field as we flew across. It was GREAT!!

After landing they parked us right where I'd hoped for; 3 rows back from the Theater in the Woods. Jeffry Skiles' (the first officer on the plane that landed in the Hudson and co-Chairman of the Young Eagles program) cabin Waco was parked diagonally from us in row 2, and Tucker got his autograph. It just couldn't have been any better.

The last thing that I have to share with you happened on the way up. We stopped in Monticello, IL because the Facilities Directory indicated they had self-service fuel. Unfortunately, you had to know the combination to the lock in order to service yourself. I'd written the phone number of the airport manager down before leaving home, so after calling him and a few other numbers, it wasn't long before the president of the local pilot's association came out to help us. When it came time to settle up, I asked him how much I owed and he said that he didn't really know and that he wasn't set up to handle the money anyway. He said, "How about if I just take your name and address, and we'll send you a bill when the club secretary bills all the locals?" I was astounded, sputtered that I thought that would be great, and was thinking "Ain't this a great country!!" for about the 15th time that day, when it got even better. He asked me if I planned to stop through on my way home. I said yes, so he said "Write down this number." It was the combination to the lock on the fuel pump. He told me to just fill up on my return trip and to leave a note with my name, address, and gallons and that they'd bill me for both amounts at the end of the month!!!!! This IS a great country and it's filled with wonderful people.

Thanks much to Wally Soplata for loaning me his radio and headset, and for sending along with Jimmy in the car, a "just-in-case" ready-to-install cylinder and piston for the O-200. He also volunteered to pull the engine from his Cub and truck it up to me for installation on the Cub so I could fly it home in the event my engine gave up the ghost along the way. Wally was my room-mate at OSH last year, but he missed this year due to Boeing 777 school with FedEx. Sure hope he gets to go next year. With a back-up comm. radio from Shack and a back-up GPS from my brother Jim, it was the best-equipped J-3 that I've ever been in.

Maybe next year in the Fairchild. I'm counting down the days.