Oshkosh Friends

This final Monday is the quiet day here at AirVenture Oshkosh. It's a day to wind down, relax a bit, visit a few of the rows of planes that you missed in the earlier excitement, finish that last minute shopping, and spend some time with some of your Oshkosh friends before heading home.

Let me introduce you to a few of my Oshkosh friends.

Geoff Peck is a friend from San Jose, California. I first met Geoff when we both worked at Apple Computer back in the early 90s. We first crossed paths at gatherings of Apple pilots, and we also were regular contributors to the rec.aviation newsgroup back in its heyday.

Geoff has been coming to the EAA fly-in since 1987. He became a pilot in 1985 and has earned many ratings and certificates over the years. He's ATP MEL CFII-ASME, IA, GCA. There's a swell prize if you know what all those are. Most of the years he's been coming to Oshkosh he's flown in his 1978 Arrow which he bought in 1988.

Over the years he's sampled just about every form of housing here at AirVenture. His first year he flew in with a friend in his Mooney 201. They stayed in the guest room of a local family and it was a wonderful experience.

"They were very sweet," he says of his hosts that year. "They told us about all the places around town, and they made sure we had the only air-conditioned room in their home."

On his second year to the fly-in he was supposed to stay with a different family. But at the last moment a family emergency made staying with them impossible. Geoff decided to rough-it and pitched a small tent under the wing of his Arrow.

Of course it poured that year. "I was miserable. It was wet and cold."

Before his third year Geoff visited his local sporting goods store. "I told them I wanted a tent that could withstand monsoon rains, hurricane winds, and that I could stand up in. The sales guy looked at me like I was crazy, 'We've got one like that, but you'll never be able to carry it,' he told me. And I replied, I didn't say anything about weight."

Geoff bought that hefty tent and for years it served him well camping in the North 40. A few years back Geoff scored one of the coveted hotel rooms in town and carefully renews that reservation each year.

When not flying, Geoff is a senior computer scientist, specializing in Operating Systems and Advances File Systems. Over the years he's applied that cpmuter expertise to help pilots in amny ways.

In the late 80s he developed one of the first computer programs that would translate online weather briefing information into plain language. That product, MacBriefer, came to the attention of the DUATS folks, and they built Geoff's stuff into their system. Later Geoff created an online flight planner for that system, and after that helped them create the duats.com website. Geoff's weather briefing and flight planning software is also used by AOPA's website, and he's recently created his own company to offer these services and more.

For the past few years Geoff's new company, enflight.com, has been an exhibitor here at AirVenture.

Geoff's home airport is Reid Hillview in San Jose, California. His beloved Arrow, '06C' often causes a small sensation since it has the white w/ orange, red, and blue paint scheme that used to decorate the fleet of his favorite airline, United.

Jack Copeland is a relatively new friend. We're both members of EAA Vintage Chapter 15 back at North Hampton Field, New Hampshire.

Jack lives in Northboro, Massachusetts. And he's been attending the EAA fly-in for 28 years.

Jack decided to get involved here as a volunteer from the very start. He started out as part of the crew parking planes in the vintage areas, and after three years was rewarded by becoming a co-chairman of Classic Parking.

He's held other jobs at the fly-in over the years, but for the past 15 years his passion has been the Vintage Division's Participant Plaque Program.

"We take pictures of every vintage or classic plane that is registered, and if you're a Vintage member you get the picture for free. Non-members can purchase it for $10."

Thinking back over the many AirVentures he's attended he says he especially remembers the many interesting planes that Burt Rutan has brought here.

Jack flies here in his Cessna Skylane 182. It is STC'd to have 35 more horsepower than the usual version. It's known as a "Super Eagle". He flies out of Sterling Airport in Sterling, Massachusetts.

Here at AirVenture Jack camps in a grove of trees just to the south of the Theatre in the Woods. He's gathered a group of about 10 friends who camp there each summer. Some of this 10 are part of his photo plaque team, and some are just other Oshkosh friends.

Jack learned to fly back in the mid 50s as part of Air Force training class 56-O. He flew T-6s and T-33s in the military. His first personal airplane was Cessna 140 that he flew when he first came to the Oshkosh fly-in.

Back home Jack is Vintage Chapter 15's Young Eagles coordinator and he has a rally planned for two weeks after we get back home. If you're in the Northern New England area you can learn more about Chapter 15 YE program at www.vaa15.org.

As you might imagine, Jack has fond things to say about EAA and AirVenture.

"The thing that keeps me involved, and brings me back every year, is that EAA is such a high quality organization. They do everything right.

"It's a good group of people. It's like a reunion, and you're making new friends every year."

Last but not least. I don't want to make too much of a big thing about this last group of friends, but they deserve mention. The people who put out publications like AirVenture Today, prefer to be invisible; it's about the stories, not the authors. But an important group of my Oshkosh Friends are the writers, photographers, editors, and production folks who put out this paper.

I won't attempt to name them here, but they're all listed somewhere in the first few pages of this issue, and I encourage you to take a moment to read their names. Their passion for planes and flying brings them together each year from all over the country to create this publication.

They're a fun gang of people. I enjoy their company, and value their friendship. It's a privilege and a pleasure to be part of this group of Oshkosh Friends.

Well, we're on short final for the end of AirVenture 2003. It was another great year. Too many airplanes, not enough days. It was sunny, it rained, the wind blew, we sweated and we shivered.

Please have a safe trip home, enjoy your flying this coming year, fly some Young Eagles, and let's meet back here again next summer.