The last two days have been a whirlwind of aviation awesomeness! As you can probably tell from the title of this post, Airventure covers so many facets of aviation from military to commercial, from ultralights to the family GA airplane. In the last two days I’ve been immersing myself in all of these and it has been, frankly, overwhelming.

Tuesday Highlights

Tuesday morning I was quite determined to go see the warbirds. However, as often happens at Osh, we were distracted by the fact that they were allowing people inside the P-8 Poseidon. Of course we had to go check it out! The cockpit is more or less the same as your typical 737… except for the special military add-ons like the refueling panel. The seats in the back of the plane were replaced with computer work stations and equipment for dropping sonar buoys.

Stairs truck! Oh – and a Poseidon.

I did eventually make it to the warbirds area and was, as always, blown away by the sheer number of them. The rest of the day was spent setting up for and attending Oshbash (a gathering of social media avgeeks hosted by Airplanista.com)… and running outside every few moments to keep an eye on the afternoon air show.

Wednesday Highlights

Wednesday at Oshkosh is always WomenVenture. This year UPS flew in a gorgeous 767 with an all-female flight and maintenance crew. I was priveledged to participate in an interview session with one of the AMTs as well as an FO with a truly amazing story. You MUST check out FlyingandLife.com episode 26.2! I guest host with Mike and Glen and I help with the interviews.

In the afternoon I had the most incredible opportunity EVER! I got to visit the KOSH Airport terminal!!! Oh yeah – and there were F-18s parked all over the ramp.

I also got to interview one of the Blue Angels. Yes, you read that correctly.  Lt Lance Benson was gracious enough (brave enough?) to let me talk with him and ask a few questions. I inquired about women on the Blue Angels team and getting girls interested in aviation. He mentioned that more and more women are becoming involved with Naval aviation and he spoke about getting kids involved in aviation early and encouraging them to follow their passion.

I also asked him about landing on an aircraft carrier. He gave us an idea what it is like to land at night by suggesting that we go inside our homes and turn out all the lights, light a single match and place it at the far end of a room. That little light in the distance is what a carrier looks like at night. Oh – and his favorite air show act?  The Jack Links “Screaming Sasquatch” jet-assisted bi-plane.

I also got to interview one of the enlisted men who is part of the Blue Angels team (more on that in another post). After the interviews as I was walking away, the A-10 demo started. And yes, I completely freaked out. In front of the Blue Angels. Hey – when you love an airplane, you love it all the time. I’m sure the Blue Angels understand.

As always, there were tons and tons of amazing airplanes to see and fabulous air shows to watch. The night show was spectacular, as always – even in the pouring rain. (Thanks Doc for sheltering us from the storm!)

Stayed tuned for more from Osh! And if you aren’t following me on Twitter, check out my feed (@Jen_Niffer) for real-time tweets live from the show.