[Seramount]

have been interested in planes my entire life. my earliest childhood memory is sitting on the hood of my dad's car watching DC-3s / DC-4s start up at the local airport.

got to check off a bucket-list item last week and attended the 2019 EAA Oshkosh Airventure fly-in last week.

was fortunate to travel in appropriate style and sit right-seat in my buddy's 1978 Mooney M-20J. to make the experience even better, we arrived as part of a large formation with 66 other Mooneys. the caravan was organized in 3 sections, each with multiple 3-plane elements. spacing was pretty tight, about 25 feet between aircraft at times. once at Oshkosh, everyone tent camped next to their aircraft.

the venue is ridiculously large...total attendance was 500,000+ and 11,000 aircraft were on-site. even using the shuttle buses and trams provided, we ended up walking 23 miles in 2.5 days. aircraft were displayed in various areas, home-builts, vintage, WWII era, Russian-built, seaplanes, etc. etc...

in addition to the planes, there were endless acres of vendor displays, seminars, simulators, souvenir merchandise...

at 0600 each day, a flight of T-6 Texans would buzz the camping areas at 200 feet with their radial engines making a hellacious noise, so there was never a need to set an alarm to get up.

around 3 pm, flight demonstrations would begin...there was something for everyone. biplanes (one with a jet engine!), warbirds, skydivers, even an aerobatic helicopter. the crowd favorite seemed to be a F-22 Raptor that would make low-level passes over the runway and then light the afterburners and do a vertical climb that was ground-shaking and ear-shattering.

anyways, if you have even a minor interest in aviation, the fly-in is something you should consider attending.

photo shows the Mooney group taxiing to the active in Madison, WI...a Piper Warrior pilot that was requesting take-off clearance was informed he was number two after the 'flight of 66'...his response was 'aw crap'...produced a few laughs.