Its a dream every pilot has: To at least once per life fly to THE mekka for aviators – OSHKOSH. The so called “air venture” is the biggest fly-in, aeronautic fair and flight show in the world, annually attracting thousands of pilots from all over the world to the Wittman Airfield in Wisconsin, USA.
If you are located in the US getting there isn`t a great challenge – however if you (like we do) live in central Europe, the trip might take a bit longer be more demanding than just taking a bus. As it does require you cross the Northern Atlantic, typically flying over England, Schottland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and finally into the US.
While hundreds of commercial airliners make this trip daily and it might not be very spectacular while sitting on seat 5k on a Airbus A330, eating chicken or beef from aluminum tray and watching Nemo on the inflight entertainment system, things are a bit different in a much smaller, single enginge plane with much less speed, fuel on board and equipment (even though the TBM we will be using is a high performance aircraft equiped with some features like a pressurized cabine, de-icing and full IFR capabilities that come in handy). Besides a life raft, a few fuel stops in places most of us would normally not go (e.g. Iqualit in Greenland) and a pretty demanding flight planning the trip also takes more time (3 – 4 days).
