Photo by Ross Murphy
By Geoff Carter
Summer is season of sun, surf, festivals, picnics, family reunions, baseball, and barbecues—and the Experimental Aircraft Association Fly-in. This convention includes air shows, pilots, historical reenactments, vintage aircraft displays, and demonstrations of the latest in state-of-the-art military technology.
This one-of-a-kind event takes place annually in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. According to the EAA Website, over 730,000 visitors—including 2,305 international visitors hailing from ninety-four countries, 10,000 aircraft, and 962 exhibitors attended the 2025 EAA Fly-in, bringing over $257,000,000 dollars to the Oshkosh region. There were over 16,000 aircraft operations, averaging out to 108 landings and takeoffs per hour. Hundreds of visitors camp in their RVs or under the wings of their planes. That was 2025; the count is not yet in for 2026.
The 2025 Fly-in included over 2,543 show planes on display, including 995 vintage aircraft, 910 homebuilt aircraft, 361 warbirds, 101 ultralights and light planes, 74 seaplanes, 18 rotorcraft, and nine balloons. (During this year’s visit, we also ran across a number of bush planes used for wilderness excursions into Alaska or Canada) (EAA).
All this takes place over the course of a week and includes a number of air shows featuring everything from acrobatics to close formation military flying, vintage aircraft like the WWII Navy Corsair, the P-51, a B-17, and a reenactment of a D-Day paratroop drop from a C-47. It’s sort of a combination carnival, state fair, outdoor museum, airshow, and aeronautic convention. We got to walk through the cavernous bomb bay of a B-52, go into the hold of a C-17 Globemaster III, and get up close and personal with a vintage B-17. Volunteers and pilots were available to answer questions.
And it all happens at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, a college town with a population of about 67,000 residents every summer.
I went to my first fly-in this past week. The airfield and museum are visible from the highway. I’ve driven by it dozens of times during the event, marveling at the hundreds and hundreds of RVs and campers huddled together like a flock of lost sheep.
My cousin had come into town specifically to come with his son to the event. We arrived, parked, and as we waited for the shuttle bus to take us to main grounds, we met a man dressed in the uniform of a WW II paratrooper. He told us he was part of an historical reenactment that would take place later that day. He and my brother, who was in the Airborne himself, exchanged stories about gear, training jumps, and the process for training as a re-enactor. It was almost magical seeing history come alive.
It was a hot day. After arriving at the edge of the fields where the planes were parked, we started taking stock of the vast array of aircraft: seaplanes, bush planes, Cessnas, Beechcraft, and many, many more. Some of the planes had tents set up under their wings and many of the campers lounged in the shade of their wings. A constant parade of planes of all shapes and sizes from ultralights to fighter jets queued up for takeoff. We worked our way up past the aprons where the various types of planes were parked. I recognized a few of the planes—or thought I did, misidentifying PBY-5A Catalina—from building model kits as a kid. We saw an Airbus A321 land and saw the vintage propeller passenger planes from the forties and fifties.
We made our way up to the ramp where the fighters and bombers, the warbirds, were parked. I walked past the historic WWII B-17 bomber made famous in the TV series 12 O’Clock High. I was surprised at its size; I’d been expecting a much larger ship. In fact, the Air Force’s premier fighter jet, the F-22, was very similar in size to the bomber. A monstrously huge B-52 bomber was on display as well as a C-47 transport, a Black Hawk helicopter, an Apache helicopter, a UH-72 Lakota helicopter and more. And the Goodyear blimp also made an appearance.
While there were many civilian and working planes at the Fly-in, there was a huge military presence. Fighter jets and bombers from all service branches, as well as military representatives and recruiters, were celebrated—and rightly so. American air power was integral to the Allied victory in World War II, as well providing a keystone for NATO defense systems in post-war Europe. In fact, many of these aircraft were not only played a key part in defeating the Axis Powers, but in protective global freedoms.
In many ways, the EAA Fly-in is a celebration of American values: the ingenuity of our engineering and technological prowess ranging from the early days of the Wright Brothers to present-day NASA (although no spacecraft were there); the sense of community—democracy—in the gathering of thousands of people to celebrate their one love—flight, the liveliness of free-market capitalism seen in the vendor stations and product display tents; the adventurous spirit of the daring and dangerous stunt flyer routines; the ostentatious sensory overload of the air show pyrotechnics—loud and proud; the American love of knowledge, skill, and expertise; and, lastly, the quintessential American element was the the diversity of patrons. They came from every demographic, every ethnicity, nearly every corner of the globe, and every socio-economic group, but they all shared one thing—their love of air travel. This was a slice of America.
To me, one of the most surprising aspects of the event was the amount of young people there. I had assumed that, with the World War II warbirds and reenactments, it would be a boomer-heavy event. Whether the young people were drawn by the entertainment, the sheer spectacle of the event, or by participation in the EAA’s Young Eagles Program or the EAA’s commitment to involving young people, they certainly showed up. Rides in everything from B-25s to Ford Tri-Motors to Bell Helicopters were offered—for a price.
In our one-day visit, we were only able to scratch the surface of everything available at the EAA Fly-in. Forums, seminars, a 5K race, and even a Fly-in Theater were available. Representatives and pilots from all the service branches and even representatives from the RAF Red Arrow Demonstration Team were present to greet visitors and answer their questions. It’s understandable why more than 13,000 patrons brought their campers or their planes and dig in for the entire week.
This is a one-of-a-kind event, the largest of its type in the world. It’s like a circus, the Fourth of July, a history lesson, a museum visit, and—for a week—probably the busiest airport in the country all rolled into one. A visit there should be on everyone’s bucket list.
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