AirVenture 2021 | Day before departure

July 18 | It’s hard for me to get ready for another trip to Oshkosh. I know I’ll always forget something. This trip, it was my toothbrush.

I tend to over-plan and over-pack for the two-week trip to Brodhead and Oshkosh. I’m an old Boy Scout and they drummed into our heads that we needed to “Be Prepared”. Maybe I was an anxious child because I seem to try to be prepared for every possibility.

This year I wasn’t taking the old familiar Stinson. We had been back four times, with first being in 2002 when a gaggle of 22 airplanes departed Sonoma and the surrounding area for what would be my first adventure over the Rockies. Although I had flown up and down the Pacific Coast for years, it was comforting to be going with so many other experienced pilots that first year.

This year would be radically different for me because it would be the first time I was flying alone and this time I would be flying a much different airplane. Sam McIntosh recently decided to sell his beautiful Cessna 182 and asked if I would be interested in buying it for the flying club we are starting here at Sonoma Skypark.

Since we weren’t ready to make such a large purchase yet, I bought it with the idea of getting my instrument, commercial and CFI ratings so I could teach when I finally retired. Going from a VFR Stinson to an IFR Cessna meant there was a lot to learn crammed into a very short time before departure.

Sam and I completed the sale at the end of June and Richard Craig checked me out soon after that. Then I started reading the manuals. There was the Garmin 430W nav/com/GPS, the S-Tec autopilot, the fuel flow and EGT/CHT display and that one little digital display at the bottom of the panel.

Needless to say, I hadn’t mastered them all as the departure date approached. Then there was Foreflight on the iPad to brush up on. When I made my last trip to Oshkosh and Brodhead, the Pilot’s Guide was 53 pages long. When I downloaded the updated manual, it was 480 pages.

I did get most of what I needed packed, I was able to retain enough of that data that I probably wouldn’t get lost or wreck the airplane, and I didn’t take too much more than I really needed, so everything turned out well.

I’m glad that all I forgot was my toothbrush.