Took the day Thursday with my cousin Spencer to visit EAA Airventure 2005 in Oshkosh, WI. This was a special treat, since I knew Glacier Girl was going to be there. The P-38 Lightning was the first warbird I fell in love with, and it is partially responsible for my interest in aviation in general.

Started out as usual with a stroll through Fightertown, with plenty of vintage airplanes. The wreckage of the Corsair that was recently recovered from a swamp in North Carolina was also on display.

Then I made my way to Aeroshell Square, where the Global Flyer, White Knight, and Space Ship One were looking magnificent with huge crowds. Here I was mere feet from Burt Ratan and Sir Richard Branson, who were probably discussing how much money they were going to spend in the next year. I was very tempted to yell out “hey Mr. Ratan, can I have a job?”, but I chickened out. I don’t really want to move to the desert anyway. But it should would be awesome to work for him.

Then I moved on to the main reason I was there – Glacier Girl. Hanging out with it were several other young “glacier girls”, dolled up in 40’s style. Of course I had to get my picture taken with Glacier Girl, and it seemed rude to ask them to move out of the way. Oh well. I spent some time talking to Richard Buchanan, a fellow from Georgia who had spent the past 14 years helping on the restoration of the plane. He had a lot of interesting stuff to say about the project.

Later I checked out some of the vendors. I bought an ICOM Tranceiver, stopped by the Garmin booth to sell a couple of iQue 3600a’s to people who were milling around looking at it with no salesperson in sight, and bought a Lost Squadron t-shirt. Afterwards, Spencer and I went to the Cessna and Piper booths in a “buying mood” to see what a Caravan and a Meridian would set us back. The Caravan was just under 2 mil, sat 9 passengers, and even had a coffee-maker! The Meridian, also about 2M, was much sexier, but only sat 6 total. And no coffee maker. Still a sexy machine – I highly recommend picking one up, if you have the means.

Anyway, another great day at Airventure. It’s interesting how much more I know about airplanes, a year later, and now a pilot, when I had just started my training this time last year. What a difference a year makes.

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