EAA AirVenture Air Show 2024 - Oshkosh, WI

Attending Oshkosh air show has always been a bucket list item and this year I was able to mark it off. This is a weeklong air show with acts starting to fly in the weekend prior. Oshkosh isn’t just your normal air show, it’s a totally different experience! People fly their personal planes into Wittman Regional Airport and will camp under the wings of their airplanes, or camp at the many camp sites just off the airport in the surrounding camp sites. Oshkosh also isn’t just about the flying air show that so many like me are used to, there is so much more than just watching planes flying.

There were 1600 forums and workshops, 861 exhibitors varying from airplane manufacturers to aviation accessory companies and manufacturers of tools to work on aircraft. It takes 6,000 volunteers to run this air show for the week. This counts the many buses they use to drive you from the different parking lots to the front gates, trams will pick you up from different areas and will drop you off in different locations. Over 10,000 planes come in or are part of the air show. When flying in, they park you in rows right along the show line, or back depending on how long you are staying. There was a whole South camp / parking lot I didn’t even notice till I went to the seaplane base. The attendance for the week was around 686,000 people, and because the area is so big, it didn’t seem packed like most air shows.

I arrived around 1pm on Monday, just in time for the show to start. NORAD showed how they intercept planes who break the TFR’s around events. Three of the planes who flew into Oshkosh scrambled the F-16’s & F-35’s who were performing CAP for the Republican Convention across Lake Michigan. Later that day the USAF Heritage Flight went up consisting of the A-10 Warthog, F-16 Viper, F-35A Lightning II & F-22 Raptor. They also had a B-1B Lancer perform a fly-over. Jarrod Lindemann went up in his Jet Waco plane as did a group of T-6 Texans.

Tuesday, I started the morning in the WWII area checking out all the P-51 Mustangs, T-6 Texans and other vintage planes. The air show flying doesn’t start till 2pm, but there is flying happening all morning from rides to more planes arriving or departing. Tuesday had a lot of the P-51 Mustangs and T-28 Trojans flying, as well as some C-47’s. The Italian Frecce Tricolori display team flew in and made passes before landing. The USAF Heritage Flight went up this time with Happy Jack’s P-51, the camoflaged A-10C, F-35A & F-22A. The Frecce Tricolori took off after the Heritage flight and performed a mini demo before continuing to a different airport. The acrobatic plane Gamebird 1 went up next, followed by Matt Younkin in his Twin Beech.

Boeing Plaza is where the static aircraft are displayed. They rotate planes in and out all week, on Wednesday two F-16s from MN arrived as did the CF-18 Hornet Demo jet, and a single A-10 from Whiteman AFB. Other statics that stayed there all week included a B-52 from Edwards AFB, the painted C-130 from the CT ANG, F-15EX 01 from Edwards, F-35A and a KC-135R both from the WI ANG. The B-29 “Fifi” was initially on display in Boeing Plaza but was later swapped with the Canadian Lancaster bomber.

Wednesday is the big day as they have the evening displays and fireworks. The EA-18G Growler demo showed up mid-afternoon. The Canadian Warplane Museum had their Hurricane, Spitfire and Mustang perform some passes. Thunderbird #8 did a fly-over and the Blue Angels performed a fly-by. The Snowbirds arrived and performed a small demo before landing. The WWII Airborne Demo team performed next with their D-Day parachute jump where 15 jumpers leaped from a C-47. Rob Holland went up in his MXS and Susan Dacy followed in her PT-17 biplane. Vicky Benzing went up next and then the USAF Heritage Flight finished the daytime flying. This was performed by the “Black Mamba” A-10, formerly of the IN ANG Blacksnakes unit still with their paint scheme. The newly painted F-16 for the 50th Anniversary of the F-16 represented the YF-16 in Red/White/Blue. The F-35A and F-22 Raptor rounded out this four-ship USAF Heritage Flight. I was very happy to see the sun finally come out as it really made for great pictures. The pilots for the air force demos were Maj. Lindsay “MAD” Johnson for the A-10, Capt. Melanie “MACH” Kluesner for the F-35, Capt. Samuel “RAZZ” Larson for the F-22, and the F-16 was flown by Capt. Taylor “FEMA” Hiester.

The evening flying didn’t start till 8pm with the Lancaster and both flying B-29’s, Doc & Fifi, making a pass over the crowd. Then the F-35 and F-22 each did their Combined Arms Demo pretty much in full burner for all of their passes. This by far was my highlight of the entire week. They both made so many afterburner passes, it was amazing. The Titan Acrobatic Team of T-6 Texans went up next, this was cool as they have the front of their engines lit up and flames and smoke coming off the left side of the planes. There were a few more acts plus a drone show and fireworks to close out the evening show, but I was so tired and didn’t want to get stuck in the crowds for the buses I decided to leave early which after seeing photos from the fireworks later I regretted this.

Thursday started out with the Whiteman A-10 arriving, plus three Harriers from the final unit still flying them, the VMA-231 Spades out of Cherry Point. One was brought onto Boeing Plaza while the other went over to the demo ramp across the way. The Thunderbirds showed up next doing a few passes before breaking over the crowd and heading home. Skip Stewart in Prometheus went up next, followed by two CF-133 Silver Stars, which are Canadian T-33s and also some of the coolest looking L-39s I’ve ever seen, four MiG-17’s went up as well. A C-17 from Charleston flew in and performed a demo and then landed. The F-22 Raptor performed a solo demo next, then came Matt Younkin in his Black and Red Twin Beech. The EA-18G Growler Team, which is a two-ship demo then took to the skies. Team Red Bull was next up with their helicopter and acrobatic plane. Victory Flight, consisting of the Spitfire, Hurricane and Mustang, finished the air show displays and once they landed a B-1B Lancer from Dyess AFB, TX, performed a fly-by to end the show on Thursday.

On Friday I went over the seaplane base which was a 5 minute bus ride, this was on Lake Winnebago. You had a small cove where the planes were parked. A small boat would grab your plane and tow it to the docks for you to load up once you were ready to fly-out. You were able to take a small tour of the area where the planes were parked, get here early as the wait gets up to 2 hours long by the afternoon. One of the most impressive things I saw here was that EAA has 3 volunteers at the point where the parked planes are. They have a white board with little cutouts of planes and move them along like they do on an aircraft carrier to keep track of all the moving planes.

This show I hope to keep on a bi-annual visit, there is so much flying at this one air show, most air shows nowadays only get 1-2 jet demos. Here you get all four single aircraft USAF demos, the Navy’s jet demo, CF-18 demo, fly-overs from the Blue Angels, Thunderbirds and this year saw both the Frecce Tricolori and Canadian Snowbirds plus two flyovers by the B-1B. One word of caution, rooms are very expensive as there aren’t many options in Oshkosh directly. Friends stayed at University Stevens-Point’s dorms, but you can also rent a RV and have it parked at the camp site so it’s all set up once you arrive. For someone like me who is flying in, that’s a great option. The EAA Air Venture Oshkosh next year will be held July 21-27.