Chills, spills, and bozos at Oshkosh arrival

dyslexia or stupidia?

Incompetencia.

Whenever we discuss safety of flying here, someone always pops up to
say that flying feels much safer to him - because on the road there are
all sorts of idiots who might kill him, but in the sky he's mostly
alone and thus in control of his destiny.

Despite this (quite significant) factor, flying is still not safer than
driving (not even close) for all sorts of reasons, mostly having to do
with the unforgiving nature of high speeds and aircraft that are
designed with the latest in 1950's technology and thus not remotely up
to modern safety standards.

But Oshkosh is special - it combines the worst of flying and driving.
Not only do you have the unforgiving nature of high speeds and obsolete
equipment, buy you ALSO have tons of idiots around you. Oh, they're
not ALL, idiots, not even most, but the sheer numbers pretty much
guarantee that if you arrive at a busy time, some idiot will try to
kill you. On top of that, the sequencing system is ALSO the latest in
1950's (or is it 1930's)technology - controllers with binoculars, one
way radio, and rock your wings.

One of the things that makes Oshkosh (and Sun&Fun) bad is the huge
number of pilots who fly twice a year - once to Oshkosh, and once to
Sun&Fun. I shudder when I see an antique next to me in the arrival,
because I have a friend who annuals a lot of antiques and he says they
rack up about 15 hours between annuals on average. Again - they're not
the majority, but just the sheer numbers in the air with you nearly
guarantee that one of them will be close to you.

So take a bunch of pilots who don't fly much and thus have to work hard
just to fly the plane in the pattern, put them into a fast-paced and
demanding environment, and you can about guarantee that some of them
won't be up to the task. They won't hold airspeed and altitude, they
won't follow directions, and they sure won't respond quickly.

I have to wonder why we tell some people it's OK for them to fly into
Oshkosh when we would tell the same people not to even think about
flying into a major international during the evening push.

Michael