Max Trescott Aviation Trends Aloft

Oshkosh Update—CFI of the Year

Day 2 was another great day in Oshkosh. But you’ve probably figured out that for me every day in Oshkosh is a great day. Actually there was the night in

Photo: Acting FAA Administrator Bobby Sturgell

2005 when a storm swept through about 9PM. I came back to my campsite and everything was gone. No tent, no cot or sleeping bag, nothing. I started asking around and people talked about watching a tent blow up the side of an RV and then over the top of it. Apparently it was quite a sight--I wish I’d seen it. After searching about a half hour I found my tent about a quarter of mile away in a ditch along side of a road. A passerby helped load the tent in the back of their pickup truck and drove it back to my campsite. By 11PM I was snug in my tent and smiling again. It’s hard to be upset for long when you’re settled in with tens of thousands of other happy people reveling in Oshkosh, which is really a synthesis of the best there is in aviation. If there were a Woodstock for pilots (without the bad connotations), this would be it.

I started the day...

Oshkosh Update--It doesn't Get Much Better than This!

Just as children eagerly await Christmas, I can’t wait each year to wake up and find that I’m in Oshkosh. If you’ve never been to Oshkosh, and you wonder how busy people manage to squeeze it into their schedule each year, let me explain how simple it is. Just start planning for it immediately. Mark if off the calendar for 2009 and then guard the time, as there will be at least a dozen activities that will compete for that time. Just keep saying no and then do what I’m doing now--smile because you’re in Oshkosh! Here’s a quick sampling of the past few weeks and my first full day at Oshkosh.

Friends and blog readers will note that I’ve been invisible...

New Cessna YouTube Video Scores a Homerun

Nothing makes me smile more than seeing good advertising. For example, the other night on television I saw a great commercial for JG Wentworth, a company of which I’d never heard. Yet their use of opera singers and subtitles to communicate about their product was engaging and left me with a clear impression of their name and services after a single viewing. That’s rare in a channel surfing world where I do everything I can to ignore commercials.

So you can imagine that I was grinning from ear-to-ear when I saw...