Jeff Ensminger and I headed down to Aiken, SC for the first Cherokees to Oshkosh Friday morning. It was looking like we couldn’t make it down and back, but it began to look like we’d have a window to get back Saturday afternoon. So off we went.
We got down to Moore County NC (KSOP)and made a pit stop to reassess. Next stop was Hartsville Regional, SC (KHVS). Last leg was KHVS to Aiken KAIK.. We flew over the top of the Columbia Charlie, talking and squawking. We got in about 2:30, got the crew car, had lunch and checked in to the hotel. Back to the airport afterwards to mee up with the people already there. Ed, Ferg, Cindy, Ron, etc. Afterwards we went out to dinner in Aiken It was a good time swapping stories, fun times.
The next morning it was back to the airport for a 9:00am briefing to cover procedures, then it was time to brief the first flight. The first flight I was Alpha 2 in a 2 ship with a 3 ship behind us. That went well and Jeff got to ride in a Cherokee 6 in Bravo element.
The next flight I was Alpha 2 in a 3 ship and we added a crossover to switch positions, which was interesting.
Then we had lunch followed by another flight. This time I was Bravo 3 and tail end Charlie. This time we did the switch over and we all did an aborted landing to cover the go-around procedures.
All the flights had detail briefs and de-briefs. This is a continual learning experience. In this case we had 6 planes. At Oshkosh with 50-60 planes, it’s expected everyone is just fine tuning their training.
After that, we were getting into out weather window for the return flight. I expected we might get some actual IFR, so we filed IFR. It ended up being uneventful until we got in the air and we got a reroute. Actually, we got 2 reroutes, but neither was consequential. One kept us out of Charlotte’s Bravo, the other sent us to Casanova VOR on the way in to keep us out of the restricted. We managed to fly over a layer and under another layer, so no actual.
If you are interested in Cherokees to Oshkosh, feel free to ask me, Jeff, Tom, or Dan B about it. If you are interested in doing something interesting, it’s quite challenging and a lot of fun.
Fly Safe!