Tuesday briefing
Yesterday was the first official day of the event. Based on my unofficial estimation, the crowd seemed much bigger than a normal day one.
The big event of the day was the arrival of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne and White Knight. The spacecraft/lift-aircraft combination distracted the crowd for about a half hour before its scheduled 3pm arrival by flying around the area at high altitude but clearly visible to the waiting crowd.
Then at 3pm it descended into the pattern, and did three fly-bys for the appreciative crowd.
After landing it taxied into the West Ramp area where it now sits on display.
Another highlight for Monday was the display and flights of Glacier Girl. This P-38 WWII era fighter was rescued from the Greenland ice ten years ago, and has been in restoration ever since.
Monday night featured some of Oshkosh's legendary thunderstorms. They started rolling through around 7pm, and one after another, boomed through the site till nearly 2am. Pretty rough on the tent campers.
This morning dawned gray and rainy, but as the day progressed the rain let up and the sun even occasionally peeked through.
Today's big event was supposed to be the arrival of the round-the-world aircraft Global Flyer. But we've just been told that it has been delayed until tomorrow.
Today's crowd seem bigger than usual too. If this continues we could be in for a record breaking week at AirVenture 2005.
I'm about to go post a bunch of pics on flickr. I'll post something here when that is done.
Posted by jackhodgson at July 26, 2005 04:13 PM