Becca

All I hear from this story is to give the EAA an earful about what I think about them allowing a caravan to spend days lobbying for a preferred camp site while they were actually turning other airplanes away. It’s one thing to make space among a field of other GA arrivals but here, the way you describe it, the EAA selected one GA arrival over the other and I am not sure I’m ok with that. The EAA published GA arrival policy is first come first serve and park with the people you arrive with. I think you are lucky the spot was dry on Sunday at all and that you had no competition lobbying for it. Sounds like we Fisk arrivals need our own advocate on the ground. I understand planning the caravan is a lot of work. Good on you. Not trying to disparage it. But Apparently any time a non-caravaner says something about the caravan like “you guys had fortuitous arrival timing this year” and “because of that timing the caravan was a great way to arrive at Oshkosh this year because they got in when others didn’t”... honestly I expected “aww shucks yes the caravan is awesome.” But apparently even that only permits a response of circling the wagons and defend the perfection of the caravan so I suppose I should just give up discussing. I mean seriously you had a freakin midair this year and I’m on these forums saying “I still think doing the caravan seems fun if I had the time, I dont think it’s inherently unsafe.” Out of respect for caravan leadership eventually being fully transparent once the process plays out, I am not posting the rumors I’ve heard about what caused the midair but let’s say it doesn’t paint a flattering picture, but I’m leaving it be because I think it’s a good event that we should encourage as Mooney owners. Yet all I get is drama every time I make a comment about the caravan - even something I intended to be positive like that it seemed like the caravan was particularly well timed this year and offered an advantage over Fisk only resulted in criticism. In the end, this whole post really turns me off the caravan as a way to arrive. I got up, preflighted my plane, topped off the fuel, looked at the weather, reviewed the NOTAM, selected a weather window, followed a published notam spaced about a mile from 2 other airplanes, landed, set up my tent, met my airplane neighbors, went and got beer and pizza... and meanwhile the caravan spent the next 36 hrs in Madison lobbying for parking, coordinating, phoning, weather checking, arranging an extra night in a motel, multiple pre briefs, having people on the ground moving the big tent, before finally managing to arrive mostly but not completely safely ... your description makes it sound like even more of an ordeal than I had previously envisioned. And really the way you describe it makes the caravans timing sound horribly unlucky but only just barely rescued by lots of work. I’m not sure I’m patient enough for all of that when I could control my own arrival time.

sorry you’re right I’m an idiot about the timing and not ashamed to admit it. I was trying to refresh my memory of when the weather windows were via my text message history from my iPhone which is clearly as flawed as my memory. You were originally scheduled to arrive Saturday but didn’t make it until Sunday right? It was Saturday morning (when we arrived) that we thought the weather would hold out until closer to 1 but it came rolling it at 1130 so you put off to the next day, I’m not sure why I had it my head that you had been able to come that afternoon.... What I very much recall was that the caravan for very lucky getting the only dry arrival slot, when all the other caravans couldn’t/didn’t/canceled and the field was not open to Fisk arrivals for GAC. That’s not advance planning or some superior technical skills of the Mooney caravan over all the other caravans (besides the Cherokees who came earlier) or the Fisk arrivals. It’s a lucky combination of timing and accomodation in the one dry spot on N40. My memory on timing is very clearly off but my opinion that it was fortuitous still stands. For instance, what if the Bos hasn’t ultimately canceled - are sure you sure the EAA would have selected the Mooney’s over the Bos for that one dry spot? (It seems to me the Bos tent is always just a little more favorably positioned in the N40 than the Mooney’s, I think they do have some - unfair - clout in that regard). I mean I think it’s lucky that the EAA accommodated the Mooney’s over General Fisk arrivals for that spot y’all ended up parked in. It was a good year to be in the caravan because it all worked out to get you in when lots of others couldn’t, I am not sure why it upsets you so that I think that’s luck or fortuitous? It worked out, yay caravan...!

Sorry I went back and looked at my message history with friends and got the Mooney arrival time wrong, it was originally 1130. i stand by the rest of my recollection - eg that Bos canceled their 130 pm arrival on Friday night, first to reschedule to later Saturday evening and then they canceled it all together first thing Saturday morning. (you can confirm that on BT, those times are all over their web site) making it available for the Mooney’s, that there was one high and dry spot after the late morning storms that EAA gave you instead of regular Fisk arrivals or Cessnas or whatnot - heck if the Bos hasn’t rescheduled they may have gotten that spot instead of the Mooney’s - and yes the storms weren’t forecast until 130 pm, which is probably what drove the Bo reschedule, and then that Saturday morning they set up sooner than forecast (Byron was actually texting some caravan people at 10 am telling them that by delaying they were missing their weather window ... in retrospect an incorrect forecast given my photo of the storm reaching the field at exactly 1130.). I consider all those a fortuitous set of circumstance that allowed the Mooney’s to get in on a Saturday when no one else got in after the 1130 am storm (cheers to Seth, who arrived in his Mooney at precisely 1126 and was like the 3rd to last plane parked in GAC). Could it have been more fortuitous? Sure, you could have had the Cherokee’s 10 am slot :). I am surprised actually that no one broke ranks with the caravan and just left early to ensure they would get in on Saturday morning before the field closed - I would have been tempted. We also got in on Saturday in a fortuitous set of circumstances ourselves (eg the opportunity for me to get off work earlier than planned on Friday so we could stage an hour away from Osh and then fly the rest of the way first thing Saturday morning before the weather came in, if that hadn’t happened we would have been waiting for the field to reopen for camping sunday or Monday too). What’s wrong with crediting a little bit of luck in all the timing? All things considered it worked out pretty well for the Mooney’s. You can’t negotiate with the weather, you can only negotiate around the weather..

So the storms were originally not scheduled to get there until 1 pm so it looked like the caravan had the ideal slot at 10 am. And then when the storms came in sooner, the caravan got really lucky Bos canceled their previously planned 1 pm arrival because of the forecast storm arrival, making it available to the caravan, and also that the field gave them the one high and dry spot to park while keeping field closed to everyone else. I don’t think you could’ve gotten any more lucky considering the conditions that day (except if you could have accelerated and gotten there at 8 am before the storms of course...). It was definitely a blessed year IMHO for your arrival plans...

Fwiw - the airport was open on Saturday morning before the late morning storms rolled in. That’s when we arrived, 7 am - had about 4 hrs of good weather to set up and then watch the storm from a restaurant. Parked in Row 520 so really close to the show. Many Bos and Cirri would have been able to get in if they looked at the weather and realized that their formation arrival schedule would be in the middle of a storm and just come in on their own time earlier in the morning rather than waiting for their “slot”. Instead they spent another night at a motel instead of at osh, the downside of formations. Mooney caravan though was basically miraculously timed for arrival this year! I was really happy for the caravaners for that timing it was basically perfect. that said, I don’t think any midair’s occurred among the thousands of airplanes that arrived via Fisk, one midair occurred out of 62 planes on the caravan. I don’t think that is conclusive evidence that a mass arrival inherently less safe. But that’s not the point of this thread - more that Fisk is safe. That said... I have been a little concerned, as I mentioned in the other thread, about the caravan safety culture given the currrent response, but I’m holding judgment until I see how this is handled in the training and procedure updates and transparency about what happened...

I feel like I owe a "what we did" post here. We ended up going to the Homestead in Michigan, right next to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g42241-d90041-Reviews-The_Homestead-Glen_Arbor_Leelanau_County_Michigan.html The area: Glen Arbor is a great little town with little art shops, touristy restaurant cafes, and lots of tubing and kayaking outfitters. The drive around the peninsula from Traverse City to Glen Arbor is littered with wineries. Sleeping Bear Dunes is beautiful with a scenic drive and lots of hiking and also swimming holes. We only sampled a tiny bit of all of this, but felt like we could go back. If you like cherries, there is cherries in everything here. I left feeling like I could come back for a week (as an outdoor enthusiast) and fish, hike, kayak, tube, and swim new places every day. The goal of this trip was of course to find someplace more resort-y because we had been camping for 6 days at Oshkosh and would want, you know, the indoors. But a trip with a tent out to the Manitou islands is now something I really want to do! The hotel: One guest that goes every year described it as "never perfect, always fine." And that was a good description, there were several hotel areas and several condo rentals. Two pools. And a little lakefront area with a beach. The pools were pretty overwhelmingly full of children, but the lake front was lovely and the swimming was a perfect respite after the hot days at Oshkosh. They also rented tubes (though you could bring your own) and you could float down their little river to the lake. My biggest complaint is the room price was a little steep for what you got. The nice thing is they didn't make it worse with junk fees like resort parking and resort fees, the price was the price. Both the hot tub at the pool area and the whirlpool Jacuzzi in our room were perfect after 6 days at OSH. The restaurants were only ok, but they were convenient, and the beach bar had a gorgeous view of the sunset over the lake. Other advantage for pilots is their cancelation policy - you can cancel any time, even day of arrival. If you cancel close into your trip though, you don't get refunded but the money can be applied to a visit any time the following two years, so if you don't make it one Oshkosh you can always go the next year. TVR Airport: We flew into Traverse City, there are a couple closer airports but they are run down, but more importantly they didn't have rental cars. Though the FBO at Traverse City will arrange you a rental car, there's was priced $200 for 2 days. We got our rental car from a company at the commercial terminal for $60 for 2 days. The downside of that is we had to shuttle back and forth to the commercial terminal, whcih is a 15 min drive around the airport, to pick it up and drop us off borrowing a courtesy car to make the trip, which was a little annoying. Next time: I could easily see myself going back to this area. Also, though, Door County and Makinac Island are really tempting. Ultimately we did not plan ahead far enough to get rooms over the weekend in these places pre-booked, and all that was left was a small number of $700-1000/night rooms. Looking ahead to next year it might be great to actually book one of these places ahead of time. Also, with Door County, I think finding a place to rent a boat would be ideal and actually spend a day out on the lake. Another place that no one mentioned that I would try is the Apostle Islands, truly beautiful from the photos.

This post concerns me... It’s ok to be confident that what you are doing can be done safely (and it can - I have no issue with either formation flying or the coolness of the caravan as an event... being concerned with safety for an event is NOT the same as being so risk adverse as saying you shouldn’t do it.. well except for the people that are afraid of Fisk, apparently..). However though I am not concerned with the overall safety of caravans or formation flying, the more posts I read the more I am concerned about whether the Mooney Caravan is responding to this Incident adequately and improving rather than digging in their heels. I am sympathetic - the 130 posts here do feel like an attack on the caravan and it’s probably easy to try to get a little defensive. But don’t let defensive stand in the way of acknowledging what happened... The Caravan just had a near miss of a fatal event. If the rumors are to believed - there are several procedural, pilot qualification, and training issues that do need to be fixed. You keep repeating concerns about insurance - which says to me it’s possible that something happened that might have either deviated from what’s covered by the caravans insurance or an individuals owners’ insurance coverages. I have been avoiding posting these rumors here out of consideration for all the legalease, but this is not some freak-event, things went wrong and everyone is really lucky no one got hurt. I’ve worked on accidents before, and I’ve worked with “not concerned” managers, and things don’t turn out well in that sort of safety culture. Google “normalization of deviance”, for one. “not concerned” is a sign of an indifferent safety culture. Until root cause is found and corrective measures are taken you should be concerned. I am not saying cancel the event, stop caravans, or abandon formation flying. But even professional aviators in the military have a safety stand down after a near miss - they don’t just go on with “not concerned” and keep doing what they are doing. Same thing in the spaceflight business. A bunch of amateurs trying to prove the professionalism of the operation should not be ignoring what the professionals do. Be concerned, a professional aviation operation would be.

If that hypothetical is what happened - That is absolutely both a training and procedure issue that should be addressed before next caravan. You train people how to handle all positions even if not the one original assigned, in case a person gets a last minute “promotion” to lead, and you incorporate procedures for instances in which a position shift is necessary (whatever that means, an such as additional pre-brief discussing a pre planned list of X items). Agreed that all mistakes can’t be avoided but that a mistake happened doesn’t mean you can’t look behind the curtain to help avoid that or similar mistakes in the future.

Can you answer this - is the Mooney caravan “grounded” until someone completes some preliminary investigation and appropriate lessons learned or corrective actions are incorporated into both training and procedures? Will you be able to make those changes before training for next years caravan starts in the winter?

This. I don’t know what happened though I’ve heard rumors. But even if it was a surface scratch (and it was indeed more than that for those of us who saw the two aircraft and are at least a little surprised they were permitted to fly out), a few inches different or a few more kts airspeed and there could have been fatalities. Let’s remember this is an aircraft touching an aircraft IN FLIGHT. This is a “thereby the grace of god” situation not a testimony to Mooney structures vs parachutes. Even though I am the initiator of the “fear of Fisk,” I don’t think this invalidates the arguments for the benefits of the caravan (though I still dispute that Fisk is dangerous or something to be scared of or that the caravan is somehow magically safer than Fisk)... I hope that pending the investigation there is a full debrief of training, procedures, etc to incorporate lessons learned and make it a safer event and those lessons learned are shared with other mass arrivals rather than forgotten or swept under the “no comment” rug or it will happen again before training and planning for next years arribal begins. I wasn’t a participant of the caravan but I know the caravan has a thorough debrief scheduled immediately after they fly and I hope this was thoroughly debriefed then while it was fresh in everyone’s mind - a debrief is worthless unless you discuss what went wrong in addition to what went right. Most accidents are Swiss cheese problems, lots of small mistakes alone aren’t a problem until they align to a big problem. Nothing we do in aviation is risk-free - it’s how we learn when something happens that makes us safer.

Why is the landing with mass arrival any less likely to have someone land short or taxi long forcing you to go around vs a normal arrival (when sometimes you even have whole runway to yourself, we did this year). In 62 airplanes, it’s certainly possible 1 or 2 will miss their mark. We didn’t actually see Mooney arrival but we watched two go arounds for Cherokee arrival this year, and a go around last year during Bo arrival. I don’t think mass arrivals avoid that outcome. Do y’all debrief with other mass arrivals and share lessons learned, near misses, or procedure updates to make yourself collectively safer? i don’t want to knock mass arrivals here I am worried I am coming off too negative. I think they seem really fun and a really good group of people and an interesting way to arrive at Oshkosh, I’d certainly like the opportunity to hone my formation skills. I am just rejecting the notion that there is something inherently riskier or less safe on a regular arrival vs mass arrival. Especially to the extent that making the regular arrival sound dangerous might deter people who can’t make the caravan from coming to Oshkosh all-together..

During mass arrivals they close the whole field to incoming traffic. Which I think is the right thing to do. I think it usually is a 30 min closure per arrival (accounts for the arrival time not just runway time). This year the Mooney Caravan had pretty optimal timing (in a lot of ways) - they arrived when field was actually closed to any grass parking except for the exact area where they put the Mooney’s, so they weren’t really interfering with anyone. (Also 62 planes in 11 minutes on one runway is a WAY crazier arrival than any I’ve seen coming through Fisk! Wow!)

NOTAM at Fisk requires maintaining at least 1/2 mile in trail and for you to break out if you can’t maintain that or if you’re closing on plane in front (no S turns). We’ve never been as close as 1/2 mile to plane in front or behind likely because we tend to arrive at slower times. This week when we arrived on Saturday morning (730 am) there was one plane about 2 miles in front of us, another plane about 1 mile behind us at Fisk. When we transitioned to tower, we got whole runway to ourselves. That’s unusually slow, but having watched arrivals from our campsite on Sunday, at given time you might be transitioned to the airport pattern with maybe 5-6 other planes in the pattern at the same time so no worse than a busy GA airport. We’ve watched the mass arrivals come in, it seems much busier but obviously it’s also regimented. I guess I’m of the opinion there’s advantages and disadvantages to each - the commraderie and formation training to the caravan vs the flexibility for tight schedules of a lone arrival. But I wouldn’t do the caravan just because of fear of Fisk, I think that’s my message really which is especially important because people shouldn’t be deterred from coming to Osh (which is amazing!) because they can’t make the caravan for timing or other reasons.

Seriously! One thing we were talking about is how encouraging they are even for total F-ups (on sunday we watched people actually approach wrong end of the runway!). Apparently it’s a human factors thing if you start getting grumpy or angry with pilots it increases cockpit stress levels and the mistakes pile on. A few “good jobs” and “great wing rocks” builds confidence to keep it coming. And it can’t be easy for the controllers and they seem to manage to squeeze in “welcome to Oshkosh, enjoy the show!” on many Fisk crossings and landings! Really a pleasure to listen to.

I think you’re trading risk either way. 60 kind of trained pilots with some standardization all arriving at once, or a handful of pilots at Fisk, some of whom might be amazing but some not so much but at least they aren’t flying 3 feet off your wing. But I actually think both are fine and manageable. What I worry about is the “avoid Fisk at all costs” mantra keeps people unnecessarily from Oshkosh because they don’t have the time or inclination to come with the caravan. (The mustering also adds mission success risk of missing a weather window — Mooney caravan did amazing this year found the perfect opportunity and only dry camping on the field on Saturday... unlike a certain caravan starting with a B who gave up.., but I must say I would have been tempted to abandon the caravan at 7 am on Saturday morning to ensure I got in before weather moves in on Saturday...) Midairs are mandatory reporting to NTSB. Anyone know how common they are on the Fisk arrival, there must be stats? Has there ever been one?

I haven’t been to Sun N Fun imsicne I was a teenager so that was a ... while ... ago. But I recall the approach being far less organized than Osh.

Love all the Mooney events at Oshkosh. The Mooney Owners Forum was great (next time give Don Kaye a whole hour though!)! So sad that Mooney activities seem to be winding down for the rest of the week. (pro Tip: make sure Mooney has you on their email list so you get invited to things like their Mooney Love lunch before RSVPs fill!) One thought I wanted to open for discussion though is “fear of Fisk”. I always assumed doing the Caravan was a cool thing for the comraderie and learning some formation skills and hanging with other Mooney people etc. (the only downside I can see is those traffic cone orange shirts they wore this year :)). We don’t do it because we just don’t have the time for all the pre-osh mustering required - we always just kind of get here in the nick of time. But it seems like a great thing to do and maybe one of these years we will join the gaggle... anyway, yesterday, someone at the presentation about the caravan said “how many people here arrived via Fisk?” and a few of us raised our hands. and he said “never again, right?” and we were all baffled, of course we would arrive at Fisk again. So some of us were like “sure again.” But the implication was that one of the reasons to do the caravan was fear of Fisk. So here’s my message: Don’t fear Fisk! (But be prepared for Fisk, read the NOTAM many many times!) Especially when timed right (we like coming in early morning) it’s actually a pretty manageable arrival - a plane a mile or so ahead of you, a plane a mile or so behind you, they direct you to a downwind, you descend and land. With two people in airplane it’s easy to keep your eye out for other traffic but most people keep their distance. Yeah if Fisk gets saturated and you have to hold that really sucks. But the arrival itself is no problem. Certainly no harder/easier than keeping track of 60+ Mooney’s flying in close proximity for many miles in the caravan. Anyway I just wanted to put this out there for other people like us - that just logistically can’t do the caravan. You shouldn’t feel like you have to come in a mass arrival out of fear of Fisk. It’s fine. Come to osh! You can even go mooch beer and tent space off the caravan (for a small fee :)) when you arrive!

Yves, what a turn out! You can throw a party for us any time! So great seeing such a large gathering of fun Mooney people. Also it appears all the female Mooney pilots have moved to Ottawa, I suppose I should consider relocating I actually think the 8 women Mooney pilots in one place at one table might have been an all-time record (at least for me), so that was super special. (Boy did I get an earful about signing up for the 99s, going to an eastern Ontario women’s air rally, and finally flying the ARC! I am ready to sign up for all!)

tops under 10K light turbulence, usually. Tops over 10K it going to bump you, make sure lap belt is tight. . Tops of 18K or more, I do not fly thorugh those.

you want it to be in HSI mode to use the GS. youre in map mode enroute.

Byron and I will be there. You can put my name on the PIC name tag, and “backseat driver” on his.

We totally considered heading west but everything seemed too far. DC-OSH is about 600 nmi. OSH-Bozeman is 900 nmi! We did an air race to Osh a few years ago from Mitchell, SD, and I was like "let's pop over to mount rushmore." But "popping over" turned out to be like 300+ nmi! The west is expansive. For your grandson, have you considered Niagra Falls? Also, if you want to do outdoorsy things if you like to fish there's some great options in the UP of Michigan or Sault-Ste-Marie. Apparently I have more ideas for you than for me

Soliciting ideas for a post-Oshkosh trip. Our route is DC-OSH-DC. We plan on leaving Oshkosh on Wednesday or Thursday of the air show. We're need to be back in D.C. maybe Monday, so we have 4 days. If it were up to me, I'd just make it a whole week at Oshkosh, but dear husband says he'll be fed up of camping and will have fully-shopped all the Pavilions by then and would like a nice hotel or B&B to recuperate in. I thought maybe Mackinaw Island, but am worried that that's more like a one-day destination not a 4 day destination. Other ideas within a couple hundred miles of our route? (We're not ruling out destinations in Canada either, we have Canpass and are comfortable making the border crossings).

Hey all - for those late arrivals like us, let’s go to friar tucks on Friday night, 6 pm. pm me with your phone number if interested. we are parked in N40, row 537, third plane in from runway.

Hey all - for those late arrivals like us, let’s go to friar tucks on Friday night. pm me with your phone number if interested. we are parked in N40, row 537, third plane in from runway.