Murph's Audio Files:
Taxi (14:53)
Departure (19:53)
Enroute (11:09)
Arrival (23:46)

Travel Home: Caravan 2000

Most Caravan participants leave OshKosh, planning to use the weekend to arrive home. Here are some of the accounts.

A Scary Moment Departing from Oshkosh

I would like to add one more "Getting out of Oshkosh" story.

I didn't even try to get an IFR clearance out of OSH on Saturday morning since the field was scheduled to go "VFR" by 10am. Sure enough, at about that time the VFR traffic was departing on runway 9. The instructions were to make a straight out until clear of class D airspace (5 miles) and then on course.

We actually took off at 11:45 and experienced no waiting whatsoever queuing for takeoff. I actually had to hurry my run-up so as to not slow down the line of planes. I was right behind James Oliphant in his 201. When it came time to take the runway, James was on the right and I was on the left and we took off nearly in tandem. We launched into the murk.

The ceiling was reported to be 2000 broken (I think) with a questionable three miles visibility. I climbed to 2000' where the occasional wisp drifted down to my altitude. James was ahead and to my right. As we headed out over Lake Winnebago, all ground reference disappeared. It was truly IFR conditions because of a total lack of an horizon. I concentrated on the gauges. (I do not have an auto pilot). An occaisional look outside showed James edging away to his southwards heading. I countineued out on the 90 degree heading over the lake.

Then I looked up and I saw a twin about 50 feet below me, perhaps 200-300 feet laterally coming in the opposite direction. He was in a in a steep bank away from my position (I presume he saw me before I saw him). A few seconds later, another twin appeared in the same position also banking away. I drew a deep breath and gave a lot less attention to the gauges and more to the murk outside. I didn't see any more planes. Soon, even James disappeared.

It was a close call. If we had collided, in a non radar, non-communications environment, over the middle of Lake Winnebago, they might never have figured out what had happened and unless there was debris, might never have found us. I estimate I was maybe 4-5 miles out when it happended. What I cannot understand is why there was inbound (VFR?) traffic in the VHF departure corridor within the class D airspace. I think something went wrong with the system in the poor visibility conditions. I have reviewed my own actions and can find fault only in my attention to the gyros in lieu of looking outside. But, I can tell you, that without an AP, it was essential to keep the plane right side up. I think those twins (were they together?) were not where they were supposed to be or, at least, not in an intelligent location in view of the departures from runway 9. The real culprit was the marginal VFR conditions.

As Ernest Gann wrote, "Fate is the Hunter"

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Departure Procedures

Since this is my first Osh experience I am wondering if the EXTREMELY POOR instrument departure situation an saturday is normal. The lack of an eastbound and westbound SID that Chicago center could use to allow us out of thier area in much greater numbers has me bewildered. I, like yourselves, saw Piper Cubs and Citations taking off in marginal vfr from 36 and turning east over water with no horizon. At the time, some other area airports were still reporting ifr. As for myself, I went to MSN and was very happy to see Wisconsin Aviation for the second time on the trip. From there it was easy to get out ifr and go gps direct to Dodge City. My personal opinion is that the OSH controllers did a great job getting us out but Chicago's lack of accomodation to OSH ifr departures is inexcusable. When it went vfr i still would have gone ifr to vfr on top, as would many of you, cutting the number of planes running around underneath to a much safer level.

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Jim Murphy, headed home from OSH in N201XG, a 1978 M20J

OSH Departure Procedures

We also cheated death again - I left Friday morning under the low & misty overcast. I had filed an IFR flight plan but was facing a 2+ hour delay waiting in line with all the others trying to get out of OSH by IFR. So, I departed VFR (with no incident or close calls as described by Jonathan) and flew below the deck to MSN where approach control kindly relayed me the IFR clearance over the radio, so I didn't have to stop. There were plenty of blue holes to climb through by then, and the rest of the flight to Ashville, NC went smoothly via IFR.

Yes, OSH has always counted on VFR strongly (with the responsibility laid squarely on the PIC), and ATC has always acted as if they are unable to handle the big extra volume of traffic generated by that special event which could potentially be dumped into their IFR system.

We had a great time in OSH - a big thanks to everyone for their efforts!

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RE: OSH Departure Procedures

OSH approach could certainly have a letter of agreement with Chicago center during the show to change the area they control (assuming radar coverage is adaquate) to allow such departures as well as other options. They already have letters to cover a bunch of other stuff.

Also, OSH is uniquely geographically located so that they could hand people off to either Chicago or Minneapolis Centers. They could create departure procedures to ensure that the traffic is handed out equally among those two centers. I doubt that anyone going back to the west coast or South would mind heading west a few miles if it meant increasing the anount of traffic that could get out.

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Clarifying OSH Departure

I hope this clarifies some of the discussion of IFR out of OSH.

** OSH does NOT have an approach facility. ZAU (Chicago Center) opens up extra sectors to work the OSH IFR traffic. OSH is strictly a VFR tower with a VFR remote site at FISK for sequencing.

** ZAU has to maintain the standard separation of IFR traffic. A center's separation rules are much greater then an approach control's due primarily to radar limits. They have no waivers for reduced separation during OSH. They are limited by sector saturation and controller workload and they DO push as many airplanes as they can into these sectors but there are an awful lot of airplanes all wanting to depart the same place at the same time.

**A clearance to "VFR conditions on Top" still requires the same separation and handling as any other IFR flight until the pilot reports on top and even after that the controller still has certain responsibilities until the pilot cancels IFR ("On Top" is still an IFR flight) and clears the frequency.

**Any inbound IFR aircraft to OSH blocks all the airspace for the instrument approach as well as the missed approach airspace, so basically the procedure is "one in, one out" for arrivals and departures, but not at the same time.

**ATC knows they have a bottle neck at OSH when it goes IFR and they do try to improve each year. I agree that it would help if EAA, AOPA or the FAA would insist that a new approach facility with radar be established at OSH and that more controllers at more sectors be available in case of IFR conditions. It may even help if we all wrote a letter asking for relief. (just don't hold your breath for results)

**I woke up on Sat. at 5:15 am and was calling for my IFR clearance just as soon as the airport opened at 6 am. So many other people had the same idea, it took me over five minutes just to get my clearance request in due to frequency congestion. I was airborne at 6:32 am with about 12 airplanes already lined up and waiting behind me. The airport was backing up very quickly and the wait became progressively worse as the morning went on.

********The flight home is another story.......uneventful at 13,000 ft until the engine spit and coughed just as I entered Tennessee heading for Atlanta. I declared an emergency, had to divert to Nashville with 3 fire trucks, an ambulance and airport police car standing by the runway as I landed with partial power. (no paper work required) After some investigation, metal (lots) was found in the oil filter. The airplane is grounded and waiting for a Factory Reman. engine replacement. I rented a car and drove home. Oh, well.....the good news is that at least I made the Caravan to OSH and the failure occurred VERY shortly after I exited IMC weather into VMC.

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RE: Scary Moment

I departed OSH at 11:30 AM on Saturday VFR as I was #90 for an IFR clearence. Over the lake I could not see well. I got to say hello to a homebuilt, the pilot was wearing a size medium shirt. Soon after I broke out and picked up flight following. Do they really light candles in the OSH tower on days like that?

Revision: 10/28/2010

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