Vintage Aircraft Flock To Oshkosh

The four/five seat Cessna 195 is an all-time classic, and was once considered the executive aircraft of its day.

More than 40 of them flocked to Oshkosh, and parked nose to tail…

…as well is in long lines.

Why not camp in a camper? Parked among the Cessna 195s was this tent shaped like an equally-classic VW camper.

Frank Wieck, who went on to design the Piper Pawnee and Piper Cherokee, developed the Ercoupe 415C seventy-five years ago as the first airplane that could neither stall nor spin. No such advances have been made since then. Ercoupes have a two-axis control system and no rudder pedals. Later versions, such as the Aircoupe, brought back conventional controls.

How many Ercoupes? Count the tails and divide by two. Wieck doubled up on the tails to keep them out of the propeller wash.

The five-seat Howard DGA was built in large numbers from 1939 to 1944. Developed from Benny Howard’s four-seat racing airplane, Mister Mulligan, it was fast and had a smooth ride. DGA was said to stand for Damn Good Airplane. There are 126 Howard DGA-15s flying today, according to the FAA register. At least 10 of them were on show at Oshkosh.

A replica of a Curtiss-Wright CW12 Sport Trainer biplane that was produced in the 1930s. The two-seater is powered by a Warner Scarab radial engine.

This Beechcraft Staggerwing is painted in the colors of the U.S. Ambassador to India.

A 1943 Meyers OTW (it stands for Out to Win) biplane visited Oshkosh from Fresno, Calif.  These training aircraft were built from 1936 to 1944; this particular one is for sale.