Group camping without the formation?

[Becca]

I had an intriguing conversation ….

I was talking to a friend and learned the Cessna mass arrival is undergoing some sort of unspecified scrutiny, and as a result will only be allowed to have 50 planes in their arrival.  The intriguing part to me is that they are being allowed 25 additional parking spots for other Cessnas that arrive outside the mass arrival to join their group because of the limits on the mass arrival size.  This is intriguing and interesting to me, because I think there would be a high demand for this option.

Is there a future for this with the Mooney’s?  As you all are more than aware, we originally were never able to do the Caravan because we couldn’t meet the scheduling requirements (as we also often participate in the AirVenture Cup air race or have work conflicts depending on the year); and later we lost interest in formation flying with the caravan.  But the fellowship the Caravan offers for a community of mooney owners has always been a wonderful thing, and I feel like parking with the community but without the formation arrival would be a great addition and open up participation to more Mooney’s.

any chance of this ever happening?

(fwiw, I’ve been separately providing feedback to EAA that they should open up the S40 to reserved group parking allowing people to rope off areas to camp together even after arriving at different times or out of formation. That “bonus” feature might make the S40 more desirable as a destination if it has different rules than the first come, first serve N40. I think there’s a lot of demand for allowing groups to camp together at Oshkosh.)

 

[BloodRedSkies]

I'll be my cousin's giant hangar on the north side Friday and Saturday. Would be fun to see some fellow mooniacs. 

[Rick Junkin]

On 7/20/2023 at 9:03 AM, Becca said:

I think there’s a lot of demand for allowing groups to camp together at Oshkosh.

And there in lies the rub.

Coordinating and organizing reserved group parking entails a massive amount of work. Then there are the rules of engagement: What constitutes definition as a “group”?What’s the minimum/maximum group size? How do you verify requested group size is legitimate? How many groups do you limit it to? What arrival days do you limit it to? How does EAA avoid unused parking and potentially turning single aircraft arrivals away due to no-shows? Those are off the top of my head. Not that it couldn’t be done, but SOMEONE has to do all that work.

EAA is always looking for volunteers to take on such projects. @Becca if you come up with a plan and volunteer to lead the effort I bet the AirVenture folks would be much more receptive to having a conversation.

Cheers,
Rick

[Becca]

On 7/28/2023 at 8:10 PM, Rick Junkin said:

And there in lies the rub.

Coordinating and organizing reserved group parking entails a massive amount of work. Then there are the rules of engagement: What constitutes definition as a “group”?What’s the minimum/maximum group size? How do you verify requested group size is legitimate? How many groups do you limit it to? What arrival days do you limit it to? How does EAA avoid unused parking and potentially turning single aircraft arrivals away due to no-shows? Those are off the top of my head. Not that it couldn’t be done, but SOMEONE has to do all that work.

EAA is always looking for volunteers to take on such projects. @Becca if you come up with a plan and volunteer to lead the effort I bet the AirVenture folks would be much more receptive to having a conversation.

Cheers,
Rick

I think EAA has a model of how group sites could be reserved based on the mass arrival groups.  Also in experimental and vintage, they manage to park like types together with reserved spaces and minimum chaos.  Maybe they could put a time limit on it -- if you don't arrive by Monday morning, the spots revert back to first come-first serve.

But even if EAA extended what they did for Cessnas during this Oshkosh - allowing 25 reserved adjoining spots for non-formation arrivals - to all the groups with existing formation arrivals, you could really extend participation and grow the community.  It would be awesome if a couple rows were saved along side the caravan for more Mooneys.  I miss Yves pizza Mooneyspace gathering as another way to socialize with other Mooney owners. 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Becca

[Becca]

On 7/24/2023 at 3:18 PM, mike261 said:

where is the caravan parked this year?

last year they parked me with the caravan, even though i came in on Wednesday

 

We were parked kind of in the middle of the Cessna caravan this year... awkward!   (Actually the most annoying thing is that a few Cessna people seemed to think its ok to run generators all night ... there were several planes that ran really loud generators non-stop, which is the first time in 15 years I've heard that while camping in the N40... But the rest of them were awesome and friendly as expected from the N40 camaraderie... we all got a big laugh at the Cirrus mass arrival having a group hug and an overly enthusiastic cheerleading session after they landed.  I guess one thing that bonds all us old airplane owners is making fun of Cirrus?)

Edited July 30, 2023 by Becca

[cliffy]

Cirrus= parachute pilot :-)