AirVenture 2015 Archives

Jetwhine to AirVenture: Lunch for 20 Please

One of the best parts of my annual trek to AirVenture is that happily, I have always found it next to impossible to sit anywhere on the grounds and NOT talk to the person next to me.

Over the years I’ve run into pilots, other bloggers and podcasters, dads and daughters building their own airplane, aviation geeks from a array of countries, air traffic controllers in pink shirts – that’s normal for AirVenture in case you’re wondering – and even the CEO of companies who just happened to end up sharing the same chunk of ground. The conversations are always fascinating and many of the friendships have become lifelong.

This year I tried something a bit different and invited a few random folks through the blog to join me for lunch at the show. It seemed like a good idea considering that I attended my first EAA Convention 50 years ago. The only requirements to participate were that folks get their bid in early and agree to proudly wear a Jetwhine button. The spots were gone half an hour after the story posted in fact. No fewer than 20 people took me up on the offer and it turned out to be great fun dragging a couple of tables together near a food tent just a hundred feet from EAA Radio where I spent part of my AirVenture volunteer time this year.

Let’s see how many names I remember … Jeff, Adam, a couple of guys named John, Glenn, Brett, Amy, Joe, Starr, Pat, Brian, a pair of guys named Larry, Irv, Bill, Tom, Mike, Bob and Linda Funk (yes, like the airplane), Mike and Scott. If you didn’t see your name it’s because that’s the best my memory can offer up.

Thanks to all of you for joining the a Jetwhine luncheons and chatting about about all things airplane like. It sure beat just grabbing a brat and going back to my volunteer activities. For those of you who did join Scot Spangler and I for lunch, tell us what you saw at the show that really caught your attention … once you left lunch with your Jetwhine button attached of course.

See you next year, when we’ll try … who knows what, Rob Mark, alias @Jetwhine

Ed Note: We’ve had such a great response to the story that I’m sad to say we’ve run out of slots for lunch. Do send along an e-mail if you’d still like to connect at AirVenture to grab some Jetwhine/Airplane Geeks buttons.

Long before Jetwhine and the Airplane Geeks Show, there was the EAA Convention and Fly-In, first organized in 1953 founded by Paul Poberezny and a few other dedicated aviators. AirVenture in Oshkosh has been an annual celebration of things that fly ever since.

The convention was the first airshow I ever attended as a kid back in 1965 when it was simply known around Chicagoland as the Rockford Fly-In, held at Rockford Airport (KRFD) west of Chicago Back then, the show wasn’t the nation’s largest airshow as it’s become today.

That was 50 years ago this summer for me and it still seems like just a few years ago that someone let me lose on the airport with a pair of orange paddles and showed me how to guide the airplanes to parking in the grass at RFD. Each night I’d arrive home exhausted with a brain exploding with enthusiasm and a thousand ideas of where I’d eventually fit as a grown-up. So much for history.

A Little Camaraderie?

Despite the woes of our industry, what makes AirVenture valuable to anyone with even the remotest interest in anything that flies are the people you’ll meet … somewhere between 500,000-600,000 attend each year. The variety of new and old aircraft, not to mention thousands of unique add-on products are cool, but it’s the people I see again each year, as well as the new ones I meet that keep me coming back. [Read more…] about AirVenture 2015, Jetwhine AND a Free Lunch?