Almost OSH Gathering at Northeast Iowa Regional Airport

By Mark Nankivil

When returning to St. Louis from a family trip to Minnesota last Friday, we stopped in Mason City, IA for gas and a pit stop. As we were finishing up fueling, along comes a foursome of T-6s/SNJs and a T-34 in trail flying over and making a pass over town. They came back and made the break over the airport about a half mile away, so we headed over there. It turned out that a group planning to go to Oshkosh (of course now cancelled) decided they would get together anyway. 

The FBO kindly allowed us onto the apron where we found a Beaver on floats and a P-51D (N151BW 44-74813) Cripes A’Mighty. Further down in front of the private hangars we found scads of AT-6s and SNJs, and another P-51D (N1751D 44-63675) Sierra Sue II. We also saw a pair of orange O-1s, the T-34, a nice Maule and Cessna 195. A big thank you to Dawn Gourley with Northeast Iowa Regional Airport for the opportunity to take these photos.

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2019: Airshows-Saturday Night Airshow, Part 6

The Aero Experience continues our coverage of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2019, sponsored by Elite Aviation, with our final series featuring airshow performers. The Saturday night airshow is a seminal event, highlighting the final weekend of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in grand style. The Saturday night airshow is a combination of high drama, colorful skies and patriotic entertainment that melds tens of thousands of people into one family. The atmosphere of comradery, emotional engagement and sensory overload experienced during the night airshow is the high point of the nation's largest aviation event.

Some of the performers featured during our previous coverage of the daily airshows will be included in the night airshow coverage. Here we feature the legendary Julie Clark flying her T-34 Mentor, Free Spirit.