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AirVenture Arrival Flight Practice

The NOTAM is pretty clear on what to do in such a situation:

In case you encounter a traffic jam, exit the highway, go back five miles and get back on the highway. Should be fine, right? :D

That procedure assumes a nice sparse RIPON-FISK traffic situation. When 80 planes are all holding and slowed to the slowest of 80, there is no "similar speed".

I can fly all day long at 90 at gross, no problem. I can even fly at 80. I'm just saying the conga line is subject to the slowest of the herd.
 
The problem is wallowing behind a tundra-tired bush bird doing 60-70knts. That is when it gets sporty, because your are gaining on him and have slow down even more to re-establish spacing. Cue the slinky effect. Full gross at 60knts is not in my happy place. And that is where I was last year before I bailed and went high. The high pattern was solid and disciplined. Everyone was on their marks. The low pattern was chaos.

The faulty assumption is that everyone is going to be locked on 90.

Does...not...happen.

Mike makes a great point here. As often happens, this thread was drifting from civil to argumentative, and admittedly, my opinion was leaning on the arrogant "if you can't fly an RV comfortably at 80 or 90 knots, we would all be better off if you didn't fly in, but rather drive from some other airport" side of things.

But Mike is spot on with the slinky effect. I was in that horrible mess last year. I had to make several swipes at maneuvering within the bee swarm around Ripon, trying to get into the conga line to Fisk. Each time I neared the "northeast corner of Ripon", there were so many airplanes merging from so many directions it was downright unnerving! Even after I was actually able to establish myself in "my spot" in the line, I had challengers pushing their way in well past the entry point. Much like the guy that races past a long line of merged traffic to force his way in just before the freeway turn off.

After I was well on my way to Fisk, even with the speed of the conga line considerably less than 90 knots, things were comfortable enough, but then, yet another guy who was apparently more important than me and the rest of the folks behind me, forced himself into the slot between me and the guy I was following, which was already less than the prescribed 1/2 mile.

Well, I'll be d****ed if I'm giving up "MY" space and starting over, so I slowed down even more to try to open the gap between myself and my new VIP leader...... With an accurately calibrated AOA system, I'm pretty comfortable slowing the airplane to just above stall while paying keen attention for any sign of a pre-stall buffet, upon which I'd push the nose down, jam the throttle forward and bail out below the other traffic.

Admittedly, I sure should not have slowed down that much. It sure wasn't fair to those behind me, and likely contributed to the already unsafe situation, but that's what happened. 2 or 3 times before I got to Fisk.

"Get there itis" is a strong motivator driving likely normally safe clear thinking pilots to do really dumb stuff.

In considering this along with Mike's points, I'm starting to think that the additional vertical merge of the high road is the lesser of the evils that Dan's cartoon eludes to.

While I'll not likely take the high road because there is some inner conviction that it's the wrong thing to do, I wonder if I'm not mistaken.

My plan for this year is to watch the weather more closely, and plan my arrival for the day before if there is even a hint of weather delays causing jam ups on Sunday.
 
As a long-time spam can attendee, first time RV attendee, and a veteran of the chaos last year (on Saturday AND Sunday) and in a couple of previous years, I have decided to arrive after the field is closed to commercial riff-raff. Sure, there are slow experimentals, but I am hoping to arrive surrounded by fellow RV drivers, plus maybe a few Lancairs or Glassairs. No slow traffic to clump things up. :D

Sadly, I will miss the Monday night festivities, though. :mad:
 
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Not to "fart in church" here, but what made 90 kts the "holy grail"? Why not 100 or 80? I'm going to guess it was set a long, long, long time ago when "homebuilt" planes were on average a lot slower. It's just the way we've always done it, ya see!

I suspect it's because that speed is doable in a C172, a C150, even a cub without bushwheels, while at the same time being plenty safe for the RVs. If it was 80, then those RV peeps that struggle to fly at 90 would struggle even more, and if 100, well, no cub is going that fast, not even my C170 with a climb prop.

90 Seems about right to me.
 
In case you encounter a traffic jam, exit the highway, go back five miles and get back on the highway. Should be fine, right? :D

That procedure assumes a nice sparse RIPON-FISK traffic situation. When 80 planes are all holding and slowed to the slowest of 80, there is no "similar speed".

I can fly all day long at 90 at gross, no problem. I can even fly at 80. I'm just saying the conga line is subject to the slowest of the herd.

I'm just pointing out what the NOTAM says, and it's pretty clear. Whether you choose to disregard it and do your own thing is, of course, up to you.
 
I re-read the notam and it states that if you can't comfortably operate at 90kts, use the higher altitude.
It says nothing of the sort. The exact wording is (emphasis added)

For aircraft unable to operate comfortably at 90 knots:

It says nothing about the pilot?s level of comfort, and this is a critical distinction.

Folks- as others have said, if you aren?t comfortable at 90 and you can?t follow the simple bail-out procedure rather than improvise then you should not fly into Oshkosh. It is time for some tough love here if we are going to improve things.
 
Airspeed ain't the problem folks...

Practice is certainly a good thing, but let's be real here - it takes true wanker to be incapable of comfortably flying an RV (or spam can) at 20+kts above clean stall speed. We're barking up the wrong tree altogether here... The root cause of the spacing problems with the arrival ain't airspeed control for those already in line. The real issue is people cutting in to already established spacing from outside the conga line with full confidence that the pink shirt on the ground with the binoculars isn't going to bust him for his antics. The one and only cure for this is enforcement of the NOTAM by the FAA. Video tape the arrival and hold people accountable for their actions - problem solved.
 
Yes, practice flying at 90 kts. Put a bit of flaps in so you can see over the nose.

Get in line and everything is usually ok. Except for LAST YEAR.

What happened last year has me very concerned and I wasn't even in the mess.
I arrived Sunday with the Falcon Flight group of RV's so it was easy for us.

I have always enjoyed going over to runway 27 on Sunday afternoon to watch all the planes come in. Often landing 3 at once on the same runway! Different color dots.

Well, after we landed and I was setting up my tent I kept wondering "where are all the planes"????

I would just see one land very now and then. What the heck?

Later I hear from some pilots that ATC had everyone circling the lakes!!!
And telling them to get in 1 mile trail. lol.

Has anyone heard or read anywhere that the controllers understand what happened? And that they are planning to do a better job?

My wife is flying with me this year and I don't want to get caught up the craziness that I heard about last year!
She was with me two years ago arriving on Saturday afternoon. It was busy, but really fun!

I sure hope the controllers are back to normal this year!!!

Mark
 
Yes, practice flying at 90 kts. Put a bit of flaps in so you can see over the nose.

Get in line and everything is usually ok. Except for LAST YEAR.

What happened last year has me very concerned and I wasn't even in the mess.
I arrived Sunday with the Falcon Flight group of RV's so it was easy for us.

I have always enjoyed going over to runway 27 on Sunday afternoon to watch all the planes come in. Often landing 3 at once on the same runway! Different color dots.

Well, after we landed and I was setting up my tent I kept wondering "where are all the planes"????

I would just see one land very now and then. What the heck?

Later I hear from some pilots that ATC had everyone circling the lakes!!!
And telling them to get in 1 mile trail. lol.

Has anyone heard or read anywhere that the controllers understand what happened? And that they are planning to do a better job?

My wife is flying with me this year and I don't want to get caught up the craziness that I heard about last year!
She was with me two years ago arriving on Saturday afternoon. It was busy, but really fun!

I sure hope the controllers are back to normal this year!!!

Mark

ATC had an accident on 36 so could not use 36. Grass was wet south of 27 so ATC could not exit aircraft left or south of 27. Everyone had to use hard taxiways on north side of 27. ATC then needed to hold arrivals so people like me could cross 27 to my parking to the south. I waited 30-minutes + to cross 27 to parking on south side. Not able to exit aircraft from 27 fast enough, ATC was forced to land aircraft one at a time instead of 3 at a time on one runway or 4+ on 2 runways. Spacing of one mile was needed because runway capacity for more aircraft did not exist.
 
It says nothing of the sort. The exact wording is (emphasis added)

For aircraft unable to operate comfortably at 90 knots:

It says nothing about the pilot?s level of comfort, and this is a critical distinction.

Folks- as others have said, if you aren?t comfortable at 90 and you can?t follow the simple bail-out procedure rather than improvise then you should not fly into Oshkosh. It is time for some tough love here if we are going to improve things.

Good point, but it leaves the interpretation of which aircraft are comfortable to operate at 90 kts to the pilot/builder. Clearly, you and many others (me included) feel very comfortable operating at 90 kts, but I'd bet that some aren't...so your rule is that they just shouldn't fly in even though there is an approved higher altitude available...perhaps there needs to be a list of aircraft allowed at 2300 ft...everyone else is relegated to the low and slow lane.

I think Paddy hit the nail on the head, the chaos in the line from Ripon is largely caused by people cutting in line (intentionally or otherwise)...last year it got bad enough that I was catching up to a 172 at 65 kts. This is why I was and am so disappointed that the many good ideas put forth by this group and others as to how to improve the arrival were essentially ignored. Yes, they got discussion, but no action was taken. The root cause of all this is this single line into the airport. But there's no use in beating a dead horse.
 
I want to mention, the situation wasn't just limited to 2018.

The Fisk arrival on Sunday morning 2016 was also chaotic due to low ceilings that morning. Lots of folks making the dash to KOSH to snag available campsites as soon as the weather went VFR resulted in very heavy traffic & extended holds that year also.

The hold situation in 2016 was further aggravated by some pilots choosing to fly the pattern in reverse :mad: I didn't go in 2018 but hopefully at least the reverse hold pattern didn't recur???

I think that until arriving aircraft can safely bank on campsites being available regardless of when they arrive, there will always be a mess on Sundays if weather limits arrivals.

The solution is fixing the underlying problem, e.g. devoting additional acreage to camping and not just the spacing/speed requirements of the Fisk arrival procedure.
 
There is only so much runway to land on at AirVenture OSH. IF there were a better way that was as safe or safer, the NOTAM would have us doing it. 90 Kts in an RV is safe and all RV pilots should be able to safely fly at gross weight at that speed. IF you are not comfortable at that speed and gross weight, you need more training and should stay away till you get it.

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The NOTAM describes what is REQUIRED for us to fly our RVs to AirVenture OSH. IF you have a problem with what is required of the pilot to do with their RV aircraft, then do not go. IF you want to go, you do not have to go on Saturday and or Sunday, the airport open times are posted for other days. Stupid pilot tricks reduce airport capacity and can remove some of the landing slots reducing the number of aircraft that can be landed safely in any given hour.

Weather is out of our control. Weather as well as stupid pilot tricks reduce the number of aircraft that can be safely landed during any given hour.
 
I can tell you my personal plan has always been to divert and wait it out on the ground and never hold. I just see no up side to burring gas making orbits even in the best circumstances, much less during a goat rope like last year -- no thanks. But I've been lucky as to this point I've always been able to avoid any of the arrival shenanigans. Last year I was IFR the whole way Sat morning and shot the 27 GPS approach into OSH.
 
Practice Practice Practice

Last evening after finishing up my annual CI and other airplane maintenance I went up for a post maintenance test flight which included a bunch of slow flight, slow flight turns, slow flight with 10° of flaps, stalls with and without flaps, steep turns, etc. etc. etc.

I also like to think about what to do as soon as I am on the runway. Stuff like land near the side I expect to turn off on, and once slow enough move over as far as possible and get off the runway as soon as I safely can without risking a ground loop. I have watched too many Youtube videos of people almost getting run over from behind.

Nothing like practice to tune one up for the Airventure arrival!
 
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I have watched too many Youtube videos of people almost getting run over from behind.

Getting slowed quickly and getting off of the runway promptly are important skills. Watch the plane landing in front of you, too. One of the worst things I have witnessed involved a light twin landing behind a B-17. To everyone?s surprise, after landing, the lightly loaded B-17 STOPPED on the runway! The twin was already deep in the landing flare with no chance of a go-around. He locked up the brakes and skidded left into the grass ditch - passing under the wing of the B-17(!!), as those of us watching prepared to scatter from the fireball. The controller?s only comment was ?great job, twin.? :eek:

As they say on the building at air show center: Be careful and don?t do anything dumb.
 
I also like to think about what to do as soon as I am on the runway. Stuff like land near the side I expect to turn off on, and once slow enough move over as far as possible and get off the runway as soon as I safely can without risking a ground loop. I have watched too many Youtube videos of people almost getting run over from behind.
Remember to have your signs for HBC or whatever at the ready. The ground crew will give you a gold star and a cookie. :D
 
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