Gaggle of 16
By Tom Benenson
I was part of a gaggle of
16. That’s what our "flight leader" called our disparate
group of airplanes when he contacted the controller as we passed Ripon
on our way to Fisk. We had launched from an airport in Illinois and
rendezvoused in the air like an armada of Air Force fighters preparing
to set out on a mission. Flying in loose formation, the mix of airplanes—ranging
from Decathlons and a Husky to a Centurion—made for an interesting
exercise in airspeed control as we tried to stay close enough to each
other so that we’d appear professional when it came time to form up
line-astern to flow into the line of airplanes approaching Oshkosh on
the Fisk arrival.
"What’s the first
airplane in your gaggle," the controller asked. "First
airplane is a red and white Cessna 180 and the last in line is a
three-tailed Bellanca," our leader responded. The controller was
calm, professional, and to our relief, accepted our "gaggle."
"Gaggle of 16, you’ll
all be landing on Runway 27. Monitor 118.5. Have a great Oshkosh!"
After last year’s
AirVenture, I made the mistake of mentioning in my "Airwork"
column in Flying that in all the years I’ve been coming to
AirVenture I had never camped—in fact, in the interest of "risk
assessment," I had never even actually flown into Wittman Regional
Airport, choosing instead to park at Green Bay, which is far enough away
so that there are no special arrival procedures and rental cars are
readily available.
After the column
appeared, several readers wrote me and insisted I didn’t know what I
was missing.
So this year I flew into
Oshkosh with the "Gaggle of 16," and I’m camping. The
readers were correct; I had no idea what I was missing.
But I’m learning. I set
up my tent under the wing of my Cardinal, installed my self-inflating
double-sized air mattress, and erected my camping chair complete with a
footrest. I was ready.
Camping under the wing is
fine, but I was awakened early on the first morning by the sound of
water dripping. It wasn’t constant or consistent, so my sleep-muddled
impression that someone had left a faucet dripping was obviously
incorrect. Eventually I realized the source of the drip was the dew
forming on the wing and dripping off. In the morning I moved my tent so
it no longer gets dripped on.
That first night I also
learned that the lining in sleeping bags isn’t conducive to sleeping
naked. Some sort of pajamas or sweats make sleeping a lot easier.
Walking to the showers at
5:45 a.m., I was passed by a surprising number of people returning from
having already taken care of their early morning ablutions. I had
thought I’d be early enough to be lonely. But there were enough naked
men in the shower area for me to flash back to my days in Army barracks…and
suck in my gut. If you didn’t know, men come in all shapes and sizes
and one nice thing about the communal showers is that I’ve realized my
shape isn’t as bad as I imagined it was.
I did have a problem with
the showers. They are European style with the shower head mounted at the
end of a long flexible hose. But, today in most European hotels there is
a way to hook the hose to the wall. Not in the showers at the North 40.
I don’t know about the
women’s showers. In the men’s showers, the heads are the sort of
spritzers that are on many kitchen sinks that have a flat thumb release.
So to comfortably shower I’d need three arms. One to hold the head and
push the button and two to dispense shampoo and lather up my hair.
Having only two hands there are times when I have to do without the
pleasure of the warming embrace of being able to let my cramped muscles
soak under the hot water. Although there does seem to be plenty of hot
water—at least at 6:00 a.m. The other complaint I have about the
showers is minor. Either I’m too short or the hoses aren’t long
enough. They don’t quite reach the important parts.
I guess the push-button
shower spritzers and the pinch-handles on the sinks are an effort to
keep us guys from wasting water by forgetting to turn off the faucets.
My first attempt at shaving while having to pinch the handles didn’t
leave me scarred for life, but it also didn’t leave me clean shaven.
When I expressed my difficulty to Richard Collins, he remarked that the
last time he’d camped, he’d shaved with hot water in a metal helmet.
The first time I went to
the showers I wore jeans. That turned out to be a mistake. Trying to get
my wet feet out of the flip-flops and down the legs of the jeans wasn’t
easy. Next time I wore a pair of gym shorts, and that made for much
easier egress and entry. In the busy shower building there were plenty
of shower stalls, but sink space was at a minimum, and I realized it’s
a good idea to take nothing more than you need in your Dopp kit to the
showers. I removed the pill vials (I can take my meds back at my tent
with bottled water), took out the cache of hotel soap bars, keeping just
the one I need, and eliminated the three sewing kits I’d accumulated
and all the other items that, like Parkinson’s Law (a job will expand
to fill the time available for it) had managed to infiltrate the space
available to them.
I’ve been breakfasting
each morning with the rest of the gaggle and have no complaints about
the company or the food. And the evenings, sitting at the end of the row
judging the landings, is an entertaining way to end the day.
My camp chair had an
engineering flaw—the arm rests would slide down until the one holding
my coffee cup was pitched up at an angle that would make an F-16 proud—but
judicious use of baling twine solved that problem. Monday night the
thunderstorms woke me, but after I determined that I was still high (on
my air mattress) and dry.
There’s something elemental about being
out in the elements. All in all, the reviewers were right; I didn’t
know what I was missing by not camping. Now I do. No question, the
Hilton would be more comfortable, but camping’s a lot more fun. Try
it, there’s a chance you may like it.
