Arrivals at Oshkosh

My wife and I spent about an hour sitting in the grass under the approach to
09 at Oshkosh at midday watching and listening to the arrivals. All you
folks who have yet to fly down, be careful, the crazies are out there. When
we first got out of our car at the Friar Tuck's parking lot and I turned on
my scanner radio, the first thing we heard was ATC telling someone, "You've
GOT to do what I tell you! You're scaring me!" That was a forecast of the
next hour. In that hour we watched a Premier business jet forced to go
around when a Cessna 172 didn't clear the runway after repeated requests to
do so. On his next approach, ATC told a couple of other single-engine prop
jobs to go around to let the jet land, but when an already-landed Ford
Trimotor (with "FORD" written in huge script down the side of the
fuselage-we'll know who you are) didn't respond to FIVE commands to "CLEAR
THE RUNWAY!!!" and just kept trundling down toward the far end of 09 the jet
was told to go around again, just as he was in the flare. His second
go-around was further complicated by a Cessna 190 who had been previously
sent around, but continued to fly slowly down the length of the runway even
while HE was being yelled at by ATC to "turn north NOW!!!" The jet made a
very low turn to the North to avoid him. I heard ATC on my scanner
perfectly, I don't know why the Cessna 172, Tri-motor and Cessna 190 and all
the others we saw not following ATC's instructions couldn't hear them. The
third try was the charm for the jet, but we soon had a Bearcat cleared to
land that had another pilot in front of him who was told to go around not
respond in time. The Bearcat went around, flying so slow I was a bit scared
for him hoping he wouldn't stall. But he managed quite nicely and made a
nice landing on the next try. I never knew a Bearcat could fly that slow.
The plane had "DENVER" on the side of the fuselage, if I meet the pilot at
the warbirds area I'm going to make a point of complimenting his handling of
that go around.
We saw several airplanes that had to fly very steep S-turns very low, slow
and close to the approach end so as not to run over someone else in front
of them. But the main thing was all the people who didn't respond to ATC
instructions, or those who replied back to ATC and stepped on the next ATC
transmission, gumming up the works. The controllers were marvelous, but I
am almost amazed we didn't see a crash because of the stupidity and lack
of listening by some of the pilots. And it really wasn't all that busy
today! Tomorrow ought to be a real zoo. Ya'll be careful out there!
Scott Wilson