July 31, 1999 Happy 25th: International Tent Says 'Welcome' in Many Tongues

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by	Dave Higdon

About the Author ... Dave Higdon has a distinguished background in aviation journalism. As aviation editor for The Wichita Eagle for more than five years, he has established a reputation as one of the best general aviation reporters in the business. Previously, Dave held a variety of aviation journalism assignments with The Journal of Commerce, Air Transport World, and AOPA. He has covered every facet of aviation from sport aviation in Tennessee to the FAA in Washington, DC to Cessna, Beech, Boeing and Learjet in Kansas. He's also a professional aviation photographer. Dave is an instrument-rated private pilot and owns a very clean Piper Comanche. He and his wife Annie live in Wichita, Kansas. Complete Coverage from AVweb (Links to Related Articles) Preliminary Reports: Monday & Tuesday, July 26-27 Day One: Wednesday, July 28 Day Two: Thursday, July 29 Day Three: Friday, July 30 Day Four: Saturday, July 31 Day Five: Sunday, August 1 Day Six: Monday, August 2

Aviation Is The Common Language, Regardless Of Visitors' Homeland

England, Israel, Singapore, South Africa ... It's no secret that airplanes know no international borders, no state limits, no artificial borders of any kind.

You can say the same thing about Oshkosh and EAA AirVenture '99. The love of aviation knows no boundaries, either, and the annual convention has long since lost any semblance of an America-only event. And for 25 years, volunteers like Barbro Whiting, Nancy Martini, Patricia Boyce and a host of others have been saying "Welcome" in a growing array of languages to several thousand international visitors each year.

And this year has certainly been no exception — more than a thousand foreign visitors were on board before the convention even made its midpoint. Monaco, France, Iceland, Canada, Hong Kong — the visitors from abroad all share a few things, most of all, a love of aviation, as Brazilian regular Claudio Candiota told his fellow visitors Friday during a celebration of the International Center's silver anniversary.

"The reason we come every year is because we're crazy — crazy about airplanes," Candiota said. "And we come because of the people and the friendships we make, new and old, every year."

Sound familiar? It should, since renewing old acquaintances and making new ones are oft-stated reasons why many thousands of Americans say they come to Oshkosh, year in, year out. Like the man said, we're a plane-crazy crowd.

Wings Across The Waters

We can't say when the first foreign visitor attended an EAA convention, but it seems safe to bet it was back in the Milwaukee and Rockford days. We do know that the International Visitors Center first went into business 25 years ago, at Oshkosh. And even then, handling the out-of-country crowd was demanding, according to the vice-chairs, Whiting and Martini.

"Twenty-five years ago, we had more than 240 people from 25 countries and we had to translate in four languages," Martini said. "Now we have more than 2,500 foreign visitors each year from between 75 and 80 countries, and we translate in 21 languages."

Some years do present particular logistical challenges that other years lack, like those years when organized tours tilt the balance of attendance heavily toward a specific country. For example, when Qantas brought a chartered 747-400 several years ago, the passenger load of more than 400 made for a huge influx of Australians in a few minutes, a major contrast to the 90-odd citizens of Great Britain who can fit into the Concorde for its periodical Oshkosh pilgrimages.

But most years are like this year, with hundreds and hundreds of overseas fans of flight, mostly making their own way across thousands of miles to suffer in the sun with the natives, all equally enthralled by the arrival of a Proteus or a Monocoupe 110 Special, a vintage DC-3 or a spanking-new RV-6.

So pervasive is the international attendance here that you can find the visitors anywhere and everywhere at any time. Sitting across the picnic table from you, outside the snack bar at the Red Barn store in Camp Scholler, or parked in the shade of a Beech 18 in the Vintage airplane area, maybe resting on the wing of a Long-EZ flown direct from Brazil, or even in the cockpit of an ultralight flown all the way from South America.

Like most Oshkosh attendees, it's hard to tell rich from poor, well-planed from planeless. You wouldn't necessarily recognize an overseas visitor from one homegrown until the annual International Parade, like the one Friday afternoon, or when you see the International Visitor badge as you reach across the table to say "Howdy, welcome to Oshkosh."