This piece originally ran in the August 2026 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.

If you’ve ever experienced an Oshkosh air show, whether it just be one or all nine that happen during AirVenture week, you’ve likely not considered the immense preparations that go into hosting an aerial display of this magnitude. We can’t blame you; you’re busy being dazzled by aerobatic performances and jet flybys.

You can thank the EAA Air Operations team for the air shows, which is heavily supported by a corps of dedicated volunteers, including Bill Foraker, EAA 349142.

Bill’s first visit to Oshkosh was in the late 1980s, but his fascination with airplanes started long before that. His father was an aviation mechanic for Bellanca Aircraft. “After the war, he used to have to work lots of evenings, and, of course, back then families only had one car. So, my mom and I would go pick him up at 8 or 9 in the evening. My mother said I would have a fit; I had to touch every airplane on the little airport. So, apparently, I’ve had this bug since birth.”

Bill went right into the Navy after high school with a dream of flying, but the Navy had other plans and sent him underwater on submarines as an electronics technician. After leaving the Navy, graduating college, and taking a management position at General Motors, he earned his wings in 1994.

His volunteering with EAA started with EAA Chapter 83 in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he served as president (among other roles) for many years. That’s how he met the late Dave Thomas, a member of the Warbirds tug team at AirVenture, who in 2006 invited him and a fellow chapter member, the late Matt Throckmorton, to help tug aircraft. Matt bought a WWII-era tug, and Bill bought a 1951 Willys Jeep, which they both dutifully restored to use at AirVenture.

Then, a friend from the Terre Haute airport became the director of AirVenture Air Ops in 2013, and he asked Bill to join his team. Now on his 13th year supporting Air Ops, Bill’s duties start months before the big event, gathering necessary paperwork and information from air show performers. This year, he was in charge of wrangling paperwork from 63 performers.

He prepares air show safety briefing presentations, too, which he helps host multiple times a day, all seven days of AirVenture with performers and emergency response crews. “If you don’t show up at the briefing, you don’t fly in the show, period,” he said. “Safety is number one all the time.”

Bill also puts together the daily air show schedules that are distributed to teams across the convention grounds, plus he makes sure people are sticking to it. “Most air shows I work, we put two or three minutes between each act because we know stuff is going to slide. We don’t do that at Oshkosh. You get 10 minutes; you’ve got to be done in 10 minutes,” he said. “The schedule is critical at Oshkosh. We try to keep them on schedule, so I’m out there with some of the specialty acts.”

If all that wasn’t enough, he also liaisons with NOAA on daily weather forecasts and alerts the air boss if convective weather is approaching during an air show, among other various duties.

Now at 74, Bill has started showing the ropes to his successor, though he has many memories to bring with him, including air bossing shows back in Indiana, being a show announcer, and even flying his own T-6 in formation at air shows.

Volunteers make EAA AirVenture Oshkosh — and just about everything else EAA does — possible. This space in EAA Sport Aviation is dedicated to thanking and shining the spotlight on volunteers from the community. Sadly, it cannot capture all of the thousands of volunteers who give so much to the community every year. So, next time you see a volunteer at AirVenture or elsewhere, however they are pitching in to make EAA better, be sure to thank them for it. It’s the least we can do. Do you know a volunteer you’d like to nominate for Volunteer Spotlight? Visit EAA.org/Submissions.