001_bright_and_early

We agreed to meet at the airport at 6am so we could get off the ground by 7am. I was too excited and got there 15-20 minutes early.

002_crack_of_dawn

The day dawned beautiful and mostly clear. This worked well with our plans to let Greg fly the way out, since he's not IFR rated. We'd file IFR and I'd be ultimately responsible for making sure we followed IFR rules, but Greg would be sole manipulator o

003_the_gangs_all_here

The Lance Gang and Greg pose for a picture as we packed. You can see it getting lighter.


From left to right:
Greg Pien, Brad Saunders, Mike Barclay, Lenny Hyman and Dave Crispin.


We got off the ground...

004_refueling_at_saginaw

We refueled at Saginaw. Saginaw was chosen at least partly for the free hotdogs, as well as the good gas prices.

005_leaving_saginaw

Both planes getting ready to leave Saginaw. The Lance gave us a headstart again, but we heard them pass us over Lake Michigan and get vectored onto the VOR 27 approach long ahead of us.

006_over_muskegon

Here we are over Muskegeon,

007_at_oshkosh

We broke out of the clouds over Lake Winnebego, so I cancelled IFR and let Greg land it. They initially cleared us to land on the numbers, but then with a faster Bonanza coming up behind asked us to go to the green dot. Greg handled it well. We pulled

008_lookit_all_them_planes

Look at all those planes! And this is after some had cleared off. We're in the "North 40", but south of runway 9-27. We're also extremely close to the showers. Too bad we weren't planning to actually camp.

oshkosh2

This picture of Oshkosh was taken from the International Space Station. North is to the right. That streak between Runway 18-36 and the taxiway (that is used as Runway 18R-36L during Airventure) is supposedly the smoke from a performer.