I borrowed this image from another site.  Holy crap.

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I was listening to the Fisk approach on LiveATC yesterday when I was mowing the lawn. The airport shut down several times and they had to empty out the holds one lake at a time.

I know they were sending people back that came over Fisk too close together. But I didn’t know the line started that far south of Portage.  I heard one airplane get sent back and complain that he had gotten sent back several times and was low on fuel.

I flew the full approach last summer before the show.  Traffic was light. I flew it at 1800’ and 90 knots as published and did the gravel pit downwind to 27.  It was a fun flight and practice for flying to show (I ended up driving due to issues with the airplane).

But I’ll bet when you are sandwiched in there like that it becomes a lot of work watching for traffic.

I am flying in for a day trip Friday and will get a chance to see it for myself. But I suspect traffic will be much lighter Friday morning.

I don’t know if fuel is available for GA at the field.  But if I had a long flight to get to Wisconsin, I would not start the approach without stopping and filling up the tanks.  I would plan on delays heading in and departing. I would want to factor in enough fuel for one or two laps back to Portage and still having plenty of fuel when I depart.

What's the attraction bringing all the traffic?

Google Oshkosh

How does that not end up with parts scattered all over the countryside?

Jeez. Does the arrival start in Madison now?

That's a long haul especially if you have to get on short final to 27 and go-around like I did last year due to "accident on the field".

In large part due to our friends in ATC who do a fantastic job herding these cats.

https://youtu.be/YLrdQqOSQZc?t=456
The guy in the back of the T-6 resembles Kyle Rittenhouse.

I was working the tower Saturday, it was nearly a record day.  Lots of crazyness that put us in holding a few times.

It’s been a blast and all the pilots have been doing a great job.

The remote trailer, with all the "heavy" controllers, and the pink shirts, not to mention the pink headband, made me think of any number of bad reality TV shows

Which one is you

Looks like a De Havilland Chipunk doing some aerobatics this morning.

LiveATC KOSH

https://airportwebcams.net/oshkosh-wittman-regional-airport-webcam/

One of the live cameras.

Everyone can (and should) listen to the Fisk VFR approach on LiveATC.  Here is this year’s Notice (no longer a NOTAM).

Airventure 2022 Notice

I will be flying past KOSH this afternoon but it will be during the airshow TFR.  Wonder if I will get to see anything cool.  I will be at either 5500’ or 7500’ and about 10NM from the field. Several years ago on a similar flight we were able to see pyrotechnics and explosions during the airshow.

I just saw that there was a temporary airspace restriction. Was there another incident?

I didn’t make the cut on that video.  I saw them filming when I came back upstairs and I was working the C17 that landed in that video.

Yeah, some people really get into the whole pink shirt thing lol.

1434 is a U2 demo, ends with an unrestricted climb to FL600

2:34 p.m. local time today?  If so at that moment I was over southern Lake Winnebago at 9,662'.  I will have to look at the pictures, but there was a scattered cloud layer that was maybe from 4,000' up to 8,000 (at least it was that thick when I got on top outside of Madison).  I could barely see the field and it was sometimes obscured by clouds, and I was 10 miles away from it.

Bet that was really cool to see.  Did the U2 go straight up to 60K'?  I was on top of the clouds, but spotting an aircraft from 10NM in the air can be hard even when you know exactly where it is on ADS-B.

Can you spot the field?  These were taken about 2:35 p.m. today.  (My photo time stamps and ADS-B logs do not agree, and ADS-B put me over the lake at that time.)

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The return flight around 4:40 pm.

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And both Madison and Green Bay said that Milwaukee was not accepting flight following.  I got dumped before I got to Oshkosh both legs.  But when I called Milwaukee, they were more than happen to give me the service.  Perhaps the TFR gave them a brief respite from the traffic to allow them to do that.

I guess this ties in with the traffic discussion here.  It was pretty quite [quiet, not quite] during the TFR.  I planned the flight to get high to avoid the VFR traffic and IFR arrivals.  It happened to work out perfectly with the clouds.  I had a much better flight up at 9,500' and 8,500' than I would have had at 3,500'.

Friday I fly in to the show via the Ripon Fisk arrival.  I can't wait!

Ready to take off from Sheboygan Wednesday I called MKE approach on the phone to pick up my IFR clearance. “Enter controlled airspace heading 270° void if not off in 5 minutes” Click, he hung up on me. No altitude, squawk, freq, or opportunity for me to read it back. Odd.


A few minutes later climbing through 14,000’ just south of OSH got a good view of  the show. Attached File

Must not have been during the TRF.  I’ll bet Milwaukee is slammed on the mornings of the show.

Sheboygan is a nice airport.  Last fall I was there the week after the Ryder Cup.  I was told it was packed that week, but when I got there I was the only airplane flying.

I would think that Milwaukee would want to talk to as many VFR pilots as they can so they know where they are going and can give altitude restrictions (flight following advise before any altitude changes).  I would be interested to hear from a controller as to whether that is helpful or just too much work with too little gain.  How do you route IFR arrivals through a mess of VFR traffic between 3,000 and 8,000’ that you aren’t talking too?

While I’ve never worked MKE, my radar facility handles several special events per year.

Tagging up the VFRs is very useful but sometimes we don’t have the bodies for it as we need them to issue clearances or work sectors devoted to the special event.

Did you depart VFR and pick up your IFR clearance in the air?

I departed in VFR conditions and per the clearance I received heading 270° within 5 minutes. Airborne I called them they asked for an ident and I received  a squawk code and vectors.
I had to ask for an altitude and they gave me 6000’, an IFR altitude.  I was on vectors passing OSH. It was about 3:40 PM same conditions you were flying in.

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This was my FISK arrival a few years ago.

Today (a Friday) was a good day to go.  The departure was more congested than the VFR arrival.  Getting out of there was like everyone waiting in line and scrambling to get on Highway 41 after a Packer game.

Thanks to all the pink shirts, you all are awesome!