By Barbara A. Schmitz
Robin Dolp, of Frankfurt, Germany, always wanted to fly into EAA AirVenture Oshkosh via the Fisk route, but he didn’t have enough vacation time to do it from Germany.
So instead he did the next best thing. He flew to the United States commercially, came to AirVenture for a few days, and then drove back to Illinois so he could fly himself into Oshkosh on Wednesday. He had so much fun that he did the Fisk arrival two more times, on Thursday and Friday mornings, both times with friends.
“I am very thankful for the opportunity I had to fly into Oshkosh,” he said. “It’s a thing people dream of doing.”
Dolp also thanked the German group he is part of. “It is because of them and their support that I was able to do this,” he said.
2019 is the 17th consecutive convention that Robin has made. But it was first a few years ago that he decided he needed to fly into Oshkosh himself. With his European pilot’s license in hand, Robin earned the U.S. equivalent in 2016, and in 2018, rented a Piper Arrow at the Poplar Grove, Illinois, airport to fly in. After the convention ended, he flew back to Poplar Grove and earned his tailwheel endorsement, which allowed him to fly a friend’s 1946 Taylorcraft taildragger into Wittman Regional Airport this year.
Flying the Fisk approach is like getting home or making the target, said Robin, who is an aircraft mechanic for Condor Airlines.
He said he first became interested in aviation in 2003 when he was 12, and in 2014, at 23, he earned his pilot license. He has logged 560 hours to date and belongs to an aero club in Germany, which gives him access to 10 planes.
Robin said he plans to fly the Taylorcraft back to Poplar Grove on Monday, spend a few days flying at the airport, and then return home on Thursday.
“The Taylorcraft is a lot of fun to fly,” he said. “It’s slow, about 70-80 mph, but it’s very stable … and the navigation is very simple.”
Robin is an advocate for AirVenture and encourages others in Germany to make the trip for the annual fly-in and convention.
“I tell people in Germany that this is the biggest aviation event they can imagine. But if I show them pictures they really can’t see the number of airplanes and all that is going on. So I tell them to come here and experience it themselves.
“You just need to see it in real life — Lake Winnebago, all the campers, parked vehicles, planes. … It really is amazing and I enjoy being a part of it.”