By Jim Roberts
“Low wing on final … three-six left … purple dot … cleared to land.” The runway looms large in the windscreen, the tires chirp on the pavement, and flaggers are soon pointing the way home.
At EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2022, this scene was repeated nearly 9,000 times, making Wittman Regional Airport the world’s busiest airfield for that one amazing week. With an AirVenture staff of more than 700 and nearly 5,000 volunteers, EAA handles the convention grounds. But who provides those vital runways and taxiways, and provides emergency response when things go wrong?
Jim Schell, director of Wittman Regional Airport, enthusiastically described the airport’s role: “During AirVenture, we have 12 folks to do everything to get the event accomplished successfully.” You read that right … 12. Planning begins in January, and activities ramp up right after the Fourth of July. Their biggest tasks are mowing the airfield — all 1,450 acres of it — and converting the runway and taxiway layout to accommodate AirVenture.
Jim explained, “Our focus is the airfield. We have pretty high mowing standards. We have thousands of airplanes parking and camping in the grass, so between us and EAA, we have to get it down to a point where they can taxi real easily, and have it suitable for camping.”
As for pavement, Jim remarked, “Fifty-one weeks out of the year, we have four runways, and the 10-day period when the AirVenture NOTAM is in effect, we have three runways.” This results from closing runways 5/23 and 13/31, and converting taxiway Alpha into a runway [18L/36R]. Countless hours go into painting runway mark-ings on Taxiway Alpha and adding hold short markings for that new runway, as well as renumbering the existing Runway 18/36 to create a “new” runway, 18R/36L. Even more hours go into changing airfield signage to reflect the new layout. And let’s not forget painting those famous colored dots and squares that we all strive to land on.
Once the event begins, Jim said, “A big component of what we do, unfortunately, is we have a primary role in responding to accidents. Whether it’s on a runway or a fender bender on a taxiway, we respond to each of those. In combination with folks from EAA and the Oshkosh Fire Department, we ensure the life safety process is taken care of first, then the removal process of the aircraft is handled. Then we restore the runway to service as quickly as possible.” Continuing, Jim explained, “We do annual training with the fire department to ensure they’re ready for the variety of aircraft they might see. It could be anything from a 747 to a homebuilt.”
For more insight, I spoke with Brian Bender, an assistant chief and fire marshal with the Oshkosh Fire Department. Brian says planning begins in March with “tabletop” emergency drills, and by June their first responders are training at the airport, becoming familiar with the airfield layout and ATC radio procedures. For large passenger jets like Friday’s Honor Flight, firefighters train at Fox Valley Technical College, using a mock Boeing 777 live fire trainer.
During AirVenture, the normal complement of three airport firefighters swells to nearly two dozen, supplemented by mutual responders from surrounding areas, including members of the Wisconsin Air National Guard. Firefighters work four posts: Station 14 on the north ramp, positions abeam the midpoints of Runways 9/27 and 18R/36L, and one location on the south end of 18R/36L. These units are equipped with specialized Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting trucks. A separate truck is posted on convention grounds to handle structural fires, and three ambulances with EMTs are on hand as well.
Of all the effort that goes into this, Chief Bender says, “It gets to be long and grueling, but guys really like it; they have a passion for it. Guys sign up to do it because they enjoy people.”