Plans went as expected until early this morning in Rochester.

We had all of our gear loaded...our IFR clearances were filed...our arrival slot at Oshkosh was reserved.

Only a few things left - including the preflight.

Unfortunately the preflight revealed a major issue - a cracked exhaust pipe.

An unfortunate situation, but one that only a good thorough preflight would have revealed.

Despite the absolutely horrendous timing, it was a "Better safe then sorry" situation having found this before departing.

Over the next few hours a fury of excitement took place in an attempt to resolve the issue.

The local aircraft repair facility called in their on-call repair-guy to survey the situation, and try to hunt down parts.

Despite several hours of trying every imaginable option, it became clear that unfortunately there would be no quick fix.

Even if all the required parts were over nighted, it would be Monday afternoon before everything arrived - and that's the "perfect world" situation - where everything was in stock, was shipped immediately (at 11AM on a Saturday), and then subsequently arrived as planned Monday.

One break in this chain, and we would still be grounded...potentially into Tuesday or Wednesday.

There were unfortunately no other options available regarding an alternate aircraft, nor would any of them really work for the amount of gear we had packed.

That left us with very few options....except driving.

Despite some misgivings about the stigma of driving to Oshkosh instead of doing it the "proper way", and flying...it became more and more obvious that we would be risking not being able to attend at all unless we made a decision.

Not being able to guarantee that the Lance would become serviceable by Monday afternoon (so we could still make Oshkosh by Monday night) we made the decision - it was time to hit the road.

There was some concern that everything that was now squeezed into the Lance would not fit into my car, but a real-life game of "Tetris" managed to make it all squeeze in - and "squeeze" is the operative word.

So, shortly after lunch, an hour or so after we would have been originally landing at Oshkosh, we set out for the nearly 800 mile (about 1200 Kilometers) trip by car.

As I type this, we have stopped in west Indiana for the night, having covered a good majority of that distance. Tommorow morning we will depart, and barring any difficulties clearing through Chicago, we should hopefully arrive at Oshkosh within about 4 hours.

So, the adventure took some very strange turns today..but despite the odds, we are still going to make it...and experience Oshkosh.

Hello everyone!

I'm making a return to blogging here at Aviation.ca in order to share in an adventure that is about to get underway in a matter of hours - a fly in and full week at EAA Airventure, better known as ... "Oshkosh"!

At approximately 7AM Saturday morning, myself and fellow pilot friend Paul will be leaving his home base (Rochester International airport) in a Piper Lance, destined for Oshkosh.
The adventure actually begins even earlier for myself, as I begin my drive from my home of Oshawa Ontario, around the lake to Rochester this Friday evening in preparation for our early AM departure Saturday morning.

Through my daily blog entries here I hope to be able to share a little of "The Oshkosh Experience" for those who unfortunately couldn't be there themselves.

Many consider Oshkosh to be the greatest fly-in in the world, and since this is my first time attending Airventure I will be experiencing every aspect of it with a great feeling of anticipation and excitement.

Having been planning this trip for many months, the excitement is definitely building now that we are down to the final countdown, and I hope to be able to share some of that feeling of adventure with everyone here at Aviation.ca!

I invite everyone to take part in the adventure with me - "Oshkosh 2006, Live!"

Mark
http://www.oshawapilot.ca