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AirVenture Oshkosh 2008 through Cole’s Eyes

August 3, 2008 by Leave a Comment


This is a regular blog post. Please check the other posts if you’re looking for show notes or show audio.

I set up Cole with my old point-and-shoot digital camera this year and told him to go crazy and shoot whatever he wanted. This he did, shooting more than 400 pictures. Many feature his stuffed Koala bear, Jackie, but others are interesting, insightful, or just lucky, all in good measure.

I downloaded a copy of Andrea Mosaic this afternoon, pointed the program to the directory containing Cole’s pictures, and let the program do its thing. The result is a mosaic of Cole by the iconic AirVenture entry gate with Jackie, made up of pictures that Cole took (or that were taken near him when I needed a basic camera to grab something or I had the telephoto lens on the Nikon and needed a quick wide-angle shot).

Special thanks, by the way, go to the Flight Line Radio guys, who used their Gator to give Cole an assist in getting Jackie down from the roof of one of the forum buildings while I was recording Podapalooza with the panel! Being that Jackie plays such a prominent role in these pictures, I can only imagine how important the stuffed little guy is to Cole. Thanks, Flight Line Radio!

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AirVenture – The Drive Home

August 3, 2008 by 1 Comment


This is a regular blog post. Links to show notes and show audio appear in the other posts.

We broke camp yesterday, took a walk down the main drag at AirVenture 2008, and then hit the road for home. Just before breaking camp, I got this shot of skywriting over Firebase Airspeed (the green and grey tent, the back of which appears here).


It had not occurred to me that I have been to Oshkosh three times and had not yet gotten any cheese curds. So I picked up some at the Planeview convenience store. Actually, a combo pack of cheddar cheese curds, string cheese, and sausage. Wisconsin in a plastic bag. The only thing missing from the bag was some 100LL. 12 oz. of artery-clogging goodness!


I’m constantly struck by the fact that dumbasses ride motorcycles around in Wisconsin and in other states with no helmets. I hope there’s a statutory exclusion from state Medicaid for morons who become vegetables because they can’t be bothered to wear a brain bucket.


Best vehicle seen on the way home? Easy call. This guy with the Kiss solo album cover series on the back of his Chevy Trailblazer. The Kiss Army is alive and well in Wisconsin!

About nine hours on the road. Cole stayed awake until about a half hour before home. He didn’t start asking about time to destination until about three hours out. Better than some adult passengers, I’ll bet.

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10 Minutes at Oshkosh

August 3, 2008 by Leave a Comment


Subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your favorite other podcatcher. It’s all free!

These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen online right here by clicking: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/Airspeed10MinutesAtOshkosh.mp3.

Another one in the series of soundscapes that many ignore (ant that’s fine and dandy), but that so many listeners seem to love. This is 10 minutes of the sounds of a walk from the big arch at the entrance to the airshow down to AeroShell Square. Cole gets a frozen strawberry Chill and we eat it in the shadow of a fighter jet.

That simple, really. Just a walk down the main drag at Oshkosh. Enjoy!

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AirVenture Oshkosh 2008 – Day 2 – Part 2

August 1, 2008 by Leave a Comment


This is a regular blog post, but you can listen to the episode that we recorded last night at Firebase Airspeed at http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedCamp.mp3.

Spent a lot of time at KidVenture with Cole and got our annual Bell 47G helicopter ride. Great weather for it. And one of the best places at AirVenture to kick up your feet. The scenery beyond them is truly cool!


Here’s the obligatory shot in the chopper. Whereas Cole hat some trepidation about crawling in last year, this year, he just scampered in with no problem. He was also heads-up and eyes-out the whole time and seemed to enjoy the ride a lot. I interviewed one of the volunteer pilots for EAA Radio and the sound quality was a lot better than I expected it to be considering that he was fairly soft-spoken and we had a helicopter landing outside the hangar every two or three minutes as we recorded.


One of the Volunteer helicopter pilots with the show grounds in the background. These guys fly a full of gas (about 1.5 hours) before taking a break. The EAA owns one of the choppers and the other two are leased. No problem with takeoff and landing currency for these guys. Assuming a six-hour flight-duty day, each probably gets something like 60 takeoffs and landings a day. But nobody seems to be counting.


Cole with Jackie the Koala Bear waiting for the helicopter flight.

I had Jason Miller, Rod Rakic, and Kent Shook, as well as others, to Firebase Airspeed last night to play a little guitar, sing a little, and record an episode. Actually, the episode was a little spur-of-the-moment and occurred somewhere between beers. Jason also recorded for his show and was kind enough to pass the phone around and let Rod, Kent, and I hold forth on how AirVenture is going.

Rod Rakic got to plug myTransponser.com’s beta a couple of times, which is great. The site is going to go huge when it launches. The community is already 130+ strong, and it’ll grow exponentially soon. I try to contribute often.

I think Jason has arrived at the pinnacle of early-21st-century rock stardom. Where Peter Frampton and Lemmy merely autographed fans’ body parts backstage, Jason transcended celebrity last night by recording the outgoing messages on two fans’ mobile phones. Jason Miller joins NPR’s/Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me’s Carl Kasell in the new elite!

Listen to the audio at http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedCamp.mp3.

Stay tuned!

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AirVenture Oshkosh 2008 – Day 2 – Part 1

August 1, 2008 by Leave a Comment


This is a regular blog post. Please check the other posts if you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio.

Day 2 of AirVenture Oshkosh draws to a close. It seems that I left my camera battery charger at home (just about the only thing that I didn’t lug to Oshkosh this year), so this might be the last post with pictures for a little while.

In any case, try to identify what’s in the picture above. Give up? It’s the undercarriage of the Goodyear Blimp. It made several passes directly over Firebase Airspeed while we were getting ready to head to the showers to hose down Cole after two days of airshow and campground grit, grime, and JP-8.


Sean Tucker’s just plain amazing. I can’t believe that he’s able to deliver his own commentary while pulling huge gee loads (positive, negative, lateral – you name it). We were abeam the last ribbon cut at his performance yesterday. I need to find a way to get asked to hold the pole for a ribbon cut sometime and record the close-up sound of the pass for the show. It’s probably very brief but very cool.


Cole and Jackie the Koala Bear at the EAA Radio offices. I think Jackie is the most photographed mammal-shaped object at the show. Cole’s averaging more than 150 pictures a day of, near, and with the little guy. I think giving him his own camera to record the event was a good moved. He’s very vested in the show and it’s cool to download his pictures every night while he’s asleep in the chair next to me and get a view of the show through his eyes. I highly recommend this for any kid. And any parent.

Filed Under: Stephen Force