Oshkosh Is A Turn-On

Oshkosh, Wisconsin is, it can be said without reservation, the Mecca of aviation. Oshkosh is home of the Experimental Aircraft Association, and the largest airshow held on American soil takes place at Whittman Regional Airport (OSH) every year toward the end of July. If you have any propensity at all for flying or aviation, the EAA AirVenture airshow is the place to be. Anything and everything related to aviation or aviation-related services can be found there. All the major aviation players are there with their new wares. All the major and minor aircraft manufacturers, both traditional and kits, are there. The head of the FAA flies up in N1 for a two-day “Meet-The-Boss” session. Kitplane workshops, aviation lectures, sing-a-longs, and general bullshit sessions are held every day of the show. People fly into the place and camp out under the wings of their airplanes. It is, by far, the biggest aviation event of the year. And it was the place I was for the 2001 show, if only for the weekend.
For four years I had been making my way from Ft. Lauderdale to Oshkosh every summer. My father is the sales and marketing director for a rather prominent aviation magazine on the Internet, so I’d always get extra perks like a press pass, an unlimited flight line pass, and a comfortable place to stay (a comfortable place to stay is a rare and precious commodity indeed during the show). Almost always I would drive up with Dad, but this year was different. This year, because I had precious little vacation time left, I flew up commercial. But this year I got to take someone very special to me along and share with her this phenomenon which has become known simply as Oshkosh.
Even on the flight up we were contemplating joining the Club. We flew an aging 727-200 on the first leg of the journey, but the opportunity to join the coveted ranks of the Club never did present itself. But we did check out the lavatories, and it was decided that the rather spacious lavatory on the 727 could definitely accommodate us on the return trip.
For two days my girlfriend and I had the most wonderful time at the show. Since I had been there for four previous shows, I was quite the tour guide. I even got her a ride aboard one of the Bell 47 helicopters that do the sightseeing thing around the show grounds. One cannot truly appreciate the scope of the show unless it is seen from the air. We had our traditional corn dogs and strawberry smoothies, and a good time was had by all. But all the while we still couldn’t keep our minds off joining The Club.
The show features an outdoor vendor section called the Fly Market, where all kinds of vendors hawk everything from jackets to parts to glasses to books to pins. Pins were especially important that day, for my girlfriend and I picked up our very own shiny silver Mile High Club pins. Now we were committed. Now it was do or die. We were going to join the Club, flight attendants and Sky Marshals be damned.
The time did finally arrive when we had to leave Oshkosh and return home. My girlfriend had worn her loose skirt for the flight home and put our prophylactics at the very top of her carry-on. However, we ran into a snag our airline had some hardware difficulties and we were to be switched to another, so instead of getting a 727 and its spacious lavatory, we were assigned to an MD-80s facilities that were, um, significantly smaller.
But no matter. We were galvanized in our mission. We were assigned seats on the wing, in the exit row. We established the order of the operation. After the attendants came around with the drinks, my girlfriend would get up and get a lavatory, get prepared, and I was to follow exactly three minutes later. We established a code, a certain type of knock if the coast were clear, and another indicating that someone was waiting for the lavatories and we had to wave-off. We waited patiently for the flight attendants and their drink cart to slowly, painfully make its squeaky journey up the aisle, knowing that the small knot of flight attendants would be working the cart and not, in fact, in the galley near the lavatories. As soon as the cart passed us by, she made her move. Three minutes to the second, I made my way back to the lavatory. As fortune would have it, the last two rows were empty and if you’ve ever been seated in one of the last two rows on an MD-80, you’d know why but even that had worked out to our strategic advantage. I used our agreed-upon all clear code-knock.
And then, bliss. Sheer, unadulterated, passionate bliss at 32,500 MSL.
We returned to our seats, spent, smiling, and brand-new members of the Mile-High Club. We had followed in the footsteps of our mentor, Mr. Sperry, and lived to tell about it. We even had our very own private little pinning ceremony, right there in our seats.
The rest of the flight home we slept, hand-in-hand, smiling.

Name Date Airline Flight # Time
Mr. 7/29/2001 TWA 636 Evening
Aircraft From To Location Altitude
MD 90 Ft. Lauderdale Atlanta Lavatory 32,500