Swarm

What happens when the airport closes to VFR arrivals during two of those four days because smoke from Canadian wildfires blankets much of the nation northeast of a line from Minnesota to Virginia, and reduces visibility to less than one mile? Ten thousand airplanes arrive in two days.

It sounds like madness, but it works. A finely honed VFR arrival procedure keeps airplanes moving in the same direction at the same speed toward one of three runways in simultaneous use. This year, the biggest challenge for many was flying from far-away airports to anywhere in Wisconsin to be in a position to fly the Fisk VFR arrival procedure when it was open.

My journey began the Thursday before AirVenture in Frederick, Maryland, on an instrument flight plan to Syracuse, New York, to pick up my son, Tony. After three hours hand-flying my Cessna 170 in half-mile-visibility smoke, my son greeted me with an unverified but plausible stat he had read online: Flying in the smoke was the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes. No wonder my throat was scratchy. We departed Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR) IFR and flew four more hours in the smoke before we finally reached relatively good four-mile visibility.

We rendezvoused in Kokomo, Indiana, with AOPA Senior Photographer David Tulis in his Piper Tri-Pacer and AOPA Video Content Producer Michelle Walker and her husband, Patrick, in their Cessna 140; they had flown northwest together from Frederick in marginal VFR conditions. We all planned to camp together on the vintage flight line once we arrived at OSH.

Meanwhile, AOPA Senior Manager of Flying Clubs Cade Halle and AOPA Regional Manager Kyle Lewis flew the AOPA Sweepstakes Piper Archer (also in marginal VFR conditions), to Dubuque, Iowa, to be as close as possible to the Endeavor Bridge Transition—the westernmost entry into the Fisk VFR arrival procedure—for the moment Oshkosh opened to VFR arrivals.

Like the thousands of pilots eager to wag their wing over Fisk, we spent Thursday night at a hotel waiting for the smoke to clear. My son asked if we should consider arriving on an IFR flight plan, but that felt like cheating. Tony would be pilot in command flying into OSH and as a newly minted private pilot had earned the right to land on a colored dot.

Friday dawned IFR with smoke, but by noon a line of quick-moving storms was clearing the air. Seemingly every airplane launched simultaneously from dozens of airports within one flight’s distance of OSH. ADS-B traffic depicted a swarm of aircraft swirling around Endeavor Bridge vying for the opportunity to proceed eastbound to OSH with the requested two-mile spacing.

Unfortunately, this is where the bad behavior of a few pilots always seems to begin. Cutting in line and passing above, below, and beside other aircraft are forbidden for safety reasons, but this behavior happens too often by pilots uninterested in waiting. I was thankful to hear the hard-working FAA controllers calling out aircraft by their tail numbers who were breaking the rules and compromising safety in the 40-mile conga line.

Cade was the first to land, followed by Tony and I. Unfortunately, David, Michelle, and Patrick had to divert to avoid the storms and arrived the next morning.

A pilot I met said he’d been flying into Oshkosh since 1991 and had never seen the Fisk arrival so busy. Neither had I.

I was proud of the resourcefulness and restraint pilots demonstrated flying into Oshkosh, and happy to count five AOPA pilots among those who camped under the wings of their aircraft during the show (AOPA General Counsel Fernando Campoamor and AOPA Vice President of Airports and State Advocacy Leon Jackler also camped with their airplanes).

During an Ask the A&Ps seminar at the AOPA program pavilion, a pilot asked Mike Busch what maintenance should be done to an airplane that flew through the smoke for hours. Busch recommended changing the oil, oil filter, and air filter, and lubricating all external hinges to prevent the soot from gumming up movable parts.

Flying home, I asked my son what his favorite moment was. “Hands down landing at Oshkosh for the first time,” he beamed. “It was a bucket-list item.”

If you had an unusually eventful flight to Oshkosh this year, send me an email. We may include your experience in a future Letters section of AOPA Pilot.

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