Birds of a Feather

by Carol Davis

Two of Matt Paxton’s greatest passions are flying and friendship—and for several days each summer those joys happily merge, allowing Paxton to immerse himself in both.

Paxton is among more than 10,000 pilots who maneuver vintage, home-built, military, and little two-seater airplanes from around the world onto two runways at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wis., for AirVenture Oshkosh, a mecca of sorts for flying enthusiasts.

“It’s part aviation trade show, part membership convention, part educational workshop, part air show, and probably the biggest part is the family reunion,” says Dick Knapinski, an AirVenture Oshkosh spokesman. “You really get the feeling it is a reunion of people who love flying.”

Exactly, Paxton says. “This, to us, has become as much a social gathering as anything. One of the big attractions for us is to see people who we don’t get to see but once a year, and that’s at Oshkosh,” he says.

This year’s festival will be held July 29 to Aug. 4. “People here say if you are a pilot you have to come once in your life to Oshkosh,” Knapinski says. “It’s where everyone comes together to celebrate flying.”

Paxton, 48, a Lexington, Va., newspaper owner and publisher, plans to fly to Oshkosh this year in a 1962 Bellanca single-engine four-seater, which he co-owns with a friend—a trip he’s made since 1993. But he knew about the flight festival long before he ever attended.

“I’ve been hearing about it since I started flying,” says Paxton, whose aviation dreams took flight when he was 16. “I always wanted to go, but never really had a way. I didn’t have a plane until the early ’90s.”

Now, Paxton meets up with a group of friends—most of whom he met at AirVenture—near the northern Illinois home of one of them. “We’ll have a good time for a day or two and fly and cook out and get ready to go,” he says. “Then we have a fly-out of eight or 10 planes and we fly to Oshkosh together. We generally arrive two days before, get the parking place we want, and camp together. Then we kick back, relax, and watch the other planes come in.”

And what a sight that is, says John Stephan, a part of Paxton’s circle of friends. “That’s the high point,” says Stephan, 46, of Capron, Ill. “We get our chairs out and sit there and watch. It’s incredible—airplane after airplane after airplane. There’s a flood of airplanes going all day long, and the variety and (pilot) skill level is amazing.”

Indeed, airplanes land in Oshkosh every 10 to 15 seconds during the peak time of arrival, Knapinski says. “For a week, it becomes the world’s busiest airport.”

Those pilots are guided by about 55 air traffic controllers specifically chosen for the event, Knapinski says. “They are chosen by their supervisors as the best ones. They’re an all-star crew of air traffic controllers.”

Eight controllers are in the control tower at any given time during the day—night landings are not allowed during this busy time—and two or three controllers direct planes from outposts about 20 miles from the airport in a “staging area,” of sorts, to get pilots lined up to land.

“There’s little tiny dots in sky as far as you can see,” says Cindy Rousseau, 45, who, together with her husband George, joins up with Paxton’s group each year. “We listen to the tower coaching planes in,” says Rousseau, of Greensboro, Md. “I’m always impressed at how terrific the tower controllers are; they’re patient and fun. They know people are there for the fun of it and they’re kind as possible.”

The same language

Once aground, the pilots mingle over the next few days with as many as 300,000 other flying enthusiasts—the festival’s main draw.

“The best way I heard it put was this,” Knapinski says. “Much of the time when you fly, you have to explain to friends why and how you fly, because most people don’t fly their own aircraft. But when you come to Oshkosh, you don’t have to do that because everybody understands; everybody speaks the language.”

Whether someone is an airline captain, fighter pilot, a businessman who owns his own plane, or a flight instructor doesn’t matter at Oshkosh, Stephan says, because camaraderie is the key.

“It makes no difference what your aviation experience is, because no one knows, or cares,” says Stephan, a commercial airline captain. “You’ll be talking to someone and you don’t know their background, but they may be a space shuttle captain, for all you know. You don’t have to have a resume to be around them.”

Indeed, some of the top fliers in the world conduct some of the more than 500 educational forums and workshops ranging in topics from how to properly wash and wax your plane to what it’s like to fly in the international space station, Knapinski says.

Paxton particularly remembers one appearance by Capt. Al Haynes, who piloted the United Airlines DC-10 that crashed upon landing in Sioux City, Iowa, in July 1989, when engine failure caused inoperative flight controls.

“He did a minute-by-minute of what happened,” Paxton says. “His ability and courage basically saved more than half the people on the plane.”

Extraordinary displays each year keep flying aficionados returning to Oshkosh, such as the U.S. military’s stealth bomber, 747s, a flying medical and teaching clinic fashioned from a modified DC-10, replicas of Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, and the Concorde. Not to mention World War II, vintage, and home-built planes.

This year’s celebration commemorates 100 years of powered flight, with displays including an exact reproduction of Orville and Wilbur Wright’s Flyer that became airborne on Dec. 17, 1903.

“I’ve often said, ‘If it has flown or will fly, it’s here,” Knapinski says.

Always something new

As a teenager, Paxton’s friend Stephan fueled and washed planes in return for flying lessons in his hometown of Kalispell, Mont. (pop. 15,678). He knew of AirVenture as “always the big mecca airshow, so to speak,” and finally got to attend in 1988 after he had moved to Illinois. “My wife, Suzanne, and I drove up to spend the day and we were stunned by it,” he says. “We’ve been going consistently now for the last eight or 10 years.”

They fly their 1977 Cessna 180, but the Stephans—along with another of the group, Jim Stelter—also are rebuilding their 1948 J3 Cub, so Stephan’s particularly interested in workshops on riveting, welding, and fabricating. But he also loves simply to talk to other pilots about their planes.

“I just love to see the variety,” Stephan says. “You can see something odd and go right then and there and talk to the person, the owner, about what and how he did something.”

Each year offers something new, Stephan says, such as World War I bombers, formation teams, and aerobatic planes. “NASA brings a lot of their planes to look at, and I’m interested in the science of that,” he says. “And the border patrol brought their loaded-to-the-gills helicopter.”

But despite the thousands of fascinating aircraft and the fun and games of the festival, the genuine caring among the Paxtons, Rousseaus, Stephans, and others in their group is what draws these friends together in Oshkosh each summer.

“We really cherish the time together,” Rousseau says. “We know how short life is, and I don’t want to give up the time we spend with these friends, because they’re really special.”

Carol Davis is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tenn.

first appeared: 6/15/2003