By Jim Roberts
For one week every year, the Oshkosh control tower is among the busiest in the world, handling nearly 10,000 aircraft during EAA AirVenture. Many of those aircraft touch Taxiway Papa, the 6,600-foot parallel taxiway west of Runway 18R-36L. Keeping all that metal moving, including aerobatic, vintage, military, airline, and air show aircraft, is a real juggling act. The volunteer crew keeping all those balls in the air is known as “Papa Ops,” a band of six retired air traffic controllers who apparently can’t get enough of the Oshkosh action.
The “Papas,” as they call themselves, include Don Kruse, Scott Strader, Chuck Howard, John Moore, Don Medernach, and Bill Casey. They’re a tight-knit bunch, and every year they commission a new Papa Ops challenge coin with their heritage “Once FAA Now EAA” on one side, and their proud motto “We Bring the Field Together” on the other.
Bill Casey, a founding member, is a veteran of 36 years behind the mic. From his 23 summers of controlling at AirVenture, Bill recalled the days before Papa Ops began: “Along Runway 18 on the Papa Taxiway, we’ve got at least five entities, from warbirds and homebuilt and aerobatic and vintage and antique classic. We had radio communication with a person at each of those entities, but they didn’t talk to each other. So sometimes Papa Taxiway would get really congested, to the point that we couldn’t move airplanes and had to stop arrivals. I mean, literally there was a mile and a half of backed-up airplanes on the taxiway.”
And snarled traffic wasn’t the worst of it; in 2006, a Grumman Avenger southbound on Taxiway Papa rear-ended an RV-6, and EAA and FAA agreed changes were needed. One suggestion was for Oshkosh ATC to handle all ground traffic, but that was dismissed as unworkable. Then Doug Powers, a retired controller, stepped up. Bill Casey recalled, “He approached EAA and FAA and said, ‘If you give me a radio and a Gator, I will take care of all that coordination.’ And more importantly, he already had their respect because he was a longtime EAA member and a longtime contributor when they came up with new procedures.”
Bill continued, “He always had the ability, the uncanny ability, to be exactly where he needed to be at the time he needed to be there. So when he brought me on board it was great getting to meet these people [EAA volunteers], because from the lofty tower we say, ‘Follow the EAA flagman.’ We have no idea who those people are. So then I get to be down there amongst them, and I tell the controllers, ‘You need to be with these people because they have the ballet. They’re very good at what they do.’”
From a one-man band begun nearly 20 years ago, Papa Ops has grown to a staff of six, all with extensive AirVenture experience. Bill Casey summed it up: “With EAA and FAA experience, between us we have around 65 years of EAA time in the Oshkosh Tower. And when added up with the Papa Ops volunteering, we passed 100 years a couple years ago.”
I spoke with Don Medernach who explained their operation: “We do not do any controlling; we’re EAA volunteers. Safety and bringing all the different entities into a cohesive group is our primary goal. We have communication with all the entities north and south, and we’ve created relationships. We are a go-to between the control tower and the volunteers.”
Their day starts early, as Don related: “We meet at flightline ops the first thing at sunrise for the morning briefing to see what their operation sounds like. And then we listen to the yodeler, and come back generally to homebuilt and we brief the homebuilt side and give them an idea what runway operations are expected and the other field conditions, how much parking’s available or not. And then we come to the main operations building at center [Boeing] Plaza, and we also attend that briefing just to listen in and share any info we might be able to pass along.”
Papa Ops plays a crucial role during an aircraft accident or incident, often making it possible to resume operations in a timely manner. Don noted, “Any incident in the past used to close the entire airport down. We keep working to try to refine it, that if only one runway needs to be closed, we can keep the other one operational and get things open faster than in the old days. So one of the benefits of our operation is hopefully minimizing closures to the airport and then expediting the reopening if possible.”
Don remembered when one aircraft in a mass arrival drifted off the edge of the runway while landing, resulting in a runway closure. “So I’m monitoring the radio call, and by the time I hear that the runway is closed, I’m authorized to get on. So I just drive down the runway and get out and talk to the pilot real quick, and make sure it’s fine to touch and push his airplane from the wing strut. And then just tell him once he’s back on the runway, just taxi all the way off the north end of it.”
It’s not all serious moments out there, as Bill Casey recalled from his early days at Oshkosh: “There was a Curtiss Pusher that came out to depart. And it was an older guy with a silk scarf and the leather helmet and everything. I flagged him for takeoff, and he’s gone, and he’s making a right turn, and he’s coming back around, and we’re warning the tower, ‘Hey, this Curtiss Pusher’s coming back to land. Is he okay?’ ‘We don’t know. He doesn’t have a radio.’ Here he comes back around to land, and he gets on the ground and he pulls off almost right in front of me, and I said, ‘Hey, are you okay? Everything okay?’ He goes, ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘I got to go back into Vintage.’ And I find out the story was, and I swear to God, he forgot his teeth. He left his teeth back in the one of the showers.”
Whether they’re helping direct the ballet, responding to aircraft mishaps, or just helping out a forgetful pilot, the Papas are on duty from the moment the airport opens in the morning until the last engine winds down at night. So while watching the action on Runway 18R-36L, when you spot a vehicle with “Papa Ops” on the side, give them a “thank you” wave for helping keep AirVenture the safe and smooth operation we all enjoy.
