Photo Report: Watch (And Plane) Spotting the Largest Airshow In The World – EAA AirVenture Oshkosh
I grew up less than an hour away from EAA – the Experimental Aircraft Association – and while I visited the organization’s museum as a kid, I never once got to visit EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. But I was, like any young boy, fascinated with flight.
I remember fondly sitting at the local airport in Green Bay with my father and watching the touch-and-go practice from nearby Air National Guard units. We lived a block and a half from Lambeau Field, so I got to watch everything from F-16s to B-2 bombers do flyovers before Packers games, so low it felt like you throw a football and hit them while you felt the rumble through your body. Visiting EAA is all those memories rolled into one, then magnified by a thousand.
People come in from all over the globe, with over 10,000 planes on average coming and going during the week, and the attendance in 2021 was over 600,000 people. Some aero clubs have their own parking spots set aside so friends can all be together. Other people fly in and pitch a tent next to their plane. Many other aviation enthusiasts, recreational pilots, and even commercial pilots fly in on commercial flights or drive and stay in local hotels, filling the massive airfield and campgrounds that otherwise sit empty the rest of the year. If you make arrangements early in the week, you can take flights in vintage Ford Tri-Motor planes, B-17 bombers, and more. There are aerial demonstrations every week and two night-time shows mixing pyrotechnics and aviation in amazing ways.
NASA’s Super Guppy Turbine N941NA, serial number 004.
A F-22 Raptor.
P-51 Mustang “Kimberly Kaye.”
I arrived on Wednesday afternoon to see an F-22 casually streaking overhead, pulling maneuvers I still am not convinced should be possible in an airplane. Wandering through the grounds that evening and on Thursday, I saw everything from homebuilt hobby aircraft to the massive “Warbirds” section that makes any automotive enthusiast’s love of fast cars look like child’s play. If you like big V-12 engines and maneuverability, why not buy a P-51 Mustang?
And if you love aviation, you should own a pilot’s watch, right? I figured there’d be loads of them to spot while I wandered the fairgrounds for a day and a half. In fact, among all the companies gathered to sell everything from avionics equipment to private jets, there were even a few watch brands exhibiting. So I kept my eyes peeled and instead saw basically every type of watch under the (blazing hot sun) sun, but a lot fewer pilot watches than you’d expect. A friend even spotted a Patek Nautilus 5712R on a wrist, but the owner disappeared before I could see it.
So I’ll start us off right with a good old-fashioned IWC Big Pilot while we jump into a look at a day (or so) at the largest airshow in the world.
An IWC Big Pilot. Classic.
The U.S. Air Force Heritage Flight Demo Team with the P-51 Mustang, Douglas Skyraider, and F-22. Also very classic (and a little modern).
Even outside the fairgrounds there were airplanes on display.
Want to buy a plane? Want to watch some aerobatics? You can do it all in one spot.
But if you’re flying in, be nice to ATC. They’ve got their hands full during EAA week.
If you’re looking for some shade, sneaking under a wing is a good way to get it.
A beautiful Cessna 172 provides some shade.
And a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date.
A super-sized 46mm Hamilton Khaki X-Wind chronograph.
A Citizen Promaster Navihawk that can do just about everything except for microwave your dinner.
This Rolex Hulk is where things started to depart “pilot watch” territory.
If the Super Guppy didn’t look big from a distance, it’s massive up close.
Now to remember where you parked…
A couple of Vought F4U Corsairs just casually parked in the grass.
Breitling Chronomat Automatic.
Breitling Colt Chronograph.
EA-18G Growler and Corsairs.
A U.S. Navy North American T-2 Buckeye, which I always thought looked a little like a jet had too much to eat for dinner.
A Red Bull Zivko Edge 540.
I met a reader, Rockwell, who was wearing a Christopher Ward.
A U.S. Air Force-livery L-39.
John “Slick” Baum is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, co-founder of Draken International, former USAF Thunderbird #2 pilot, USAF Weapons School (Top Gun) graduate and instructor. Now he serves as philanthropy director for the Polaris Program. More on them in a future article, but look at how cool the livery on the plane is.
The IWC Big Pilot Mojave and IWC’s extremely limited 44.5mm “Polaris Dawn” chronograph – only four were made for the Polaris team. We’ll get to that in a future article as well. Slick isn’t a fan of two watches on one wrist generally, but he was taking care of this “Polaris Dawn” watch for one of the team’s astronauts, so why not wear it?
On Thursday the Super Guppy was replaced by a C-5 Super Galaxy.
Quite the jungle gym.
IWC’s North American brand president Stan Rambaud was on hand wearing an IWC Chronograph 41 “Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team” watch.
An all-time classic Seiko diver. Kind of the opposite of a pilot’s watch but always fun.
G-Shock Mudmaster.
A little taste of home.
The P-51C Mustang “Thunderbird” serial number 2925 that belonged to WWII Brigadier General and Academy Award winning actor Jimmy Stewart.
Speaking of, here’s a Breitling Classic Avi Chronograph 42 P-51 Mustang.
Magnus had come all the way in from Sweden and was wearing his Omega Seamaster Chronograph. Magnus works for Norwegian Airlines flying the 737.
Magnus’ father Dick was with him, wearing his vintage Certina.
Matt Younkin put on a great show in his Twin Beech 18. It was crazy to see planes go far beyond what they were designed for.
The newly-restored Lockheed C-121A Constellation named Bataan which was delivered to the U.S. Air Force in January 1949 to operate within the Military Air Transport Service and later was used as the personal transport of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who gave it its nickname..
Hold on to your hat while the Corsair fires up.
If you flew in and had extra weight capacity, you could bring your tent and camp.
And then have your nap interrupted by an F-22 taking off and immediately going near-vertical.
Turn and burn.
See ya!
I spotted this watch from a distance, with an emblem on the dial. It wasn’t until I approached Texas Air National Guard Lt. Col. Collin Coatney that I found out that this was one of 28 Breitlings made for F-16 pilots.
The very next watch I saw was this Rolex ref. 6263 “Big Red.”
The next watch after that? Another Daytona.
The next watch after that? This gentleman’s Rolex Day-Date.
Then there was a Datejust next. And none of these people were near each other.
Hawaiian Airlines pilot Curtiss Aldrich with his dad’s Rolex Submariner that he was gifted in high school. He said he felt like the coolest kid, the only one in school with a Rolex. The dial was replaced before he got it but he loves it all the same.
A tent area was set up for historical reenactors.
Skyler from Fort Wayne, Indiana, had a Vario “1918 Trench” watch
A good old Timex belonging to Ryan.
A Wittnauer on Bund strap.
Frederick Carsted from Winnipeg, Manitoba, dressed the part for the Royal Canadian Air Force 417 Squadron.
An interesting vintage Omega.
With military issuance numbers.
As the sun started to fade I caught a few last watches, including this IWC Spitfire Chronograph.
This Rolex “Rootbeer” GMT-Master II picked up a lot of grime during the week spent camping.
Civilian Air Patrol during the national anthem.
Another rare bird, a Boeing EA-18G Growler, an electronic warfare version of the F/A-18F Super Hornet.
Not a vapor cone from hitting Mach, just a little humid here.
The B-25J Mitchell Bomber “Panchito” from the Delaware Aviation Museum.
I spotted Robb wearing this Khaki Aviation Pilot Pioneer Mechanical Chronograph.
Turns out the watch above was a gift to Robb from his fiancée from a friend of mine (or rather, Instagram friend) and National Geographic photo, the amazing photographer Acacia Johnson who was wearing her own Hamilton.
But let’s be honest, maybe the best watch of them all was this Casio Data Bank calculator watch.
As the sun went down watch spotting got harder, so I turned my lens back to the skies when the AT-6 Texans growled to life. And I mean growl with their radial engines and iconic sound of the propellor tips chopping the air breaking the sound barrier.
The Commemorative Air Force Red Tail Squadron’s P-51C Mustang, named Tuskegee Airmen.
Nate Hammond in his de Havilland Canada DHC-1 Super Chipmunk known as the “GhostWriter.” If you want to see what it looks like from in the cockpit of a plane firing off fireworks, it’s worth a watch as Ken Rieder does a similar show.
Nate Hammond again, dodging fireworks and shooting off his own.
An AT-6 Texan from the AeroShell team parked after their evening show.
Like a scene out of Oppenheimer, they blasted off a ton of TNT to look like a fake bombing run and while I turned and finally focused the camera after the massive fireballs were mostly gone, I could still feel the heat for a while after that.
Goodnight from EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2023!
Hodinkee
