Over the past five decades, millions of enthusiasts have come to witness the aerial wonders that decorate the skies above Oshkosh, Wisconsin, each summer. On an annual basis, the week-long celebration draws almost one-tenth of the globe’s general aviation fleet and turns tiny Wittman Regional Airport into one of the busiest airports in the world—boasting busier traffic logs than O’Hare in Chicago, Heathrow in London, and JFK in New York.1
In 2021, there were 16,378 aircraft operations—an average of 116 takeoffs and landings per hour during operating hours—within the ten-day period of July 22–31.2 Most of the planes that made the journey originated from outside Wisconsin, including some that arrived from beyond the United States. Some pilots even swapped out seats for gas tanks to make the trip across vast stretches of ocean.
The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) has hosted its annual fly-in convention, now known as the AirVenture, in Oshkosh since 1970. The event has drawn astronauts, decorated fighter pilots, Hollywood stars, NASA engineers, and just about every type of aircraft imaginable. “[As] an aviation event, it’s the biggest in the world, relative to general aviation and recreational aviation,” said Jack Pelton, who was named the EAA’s CEO in 2015. “Even if you’re not an airplane geek, it’s a fun enough activity that you want to participate.”3
In 2021, despite travel restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 600,000 people attended the week-long event, representing sixty-six nations and infusing $170 million into Oshkosh’s five regional counties (Winnebago, Outagamie, Fond du Lac, Calumet, and Brown).4 As Amy Albright, executive director of the Oshkosh Convention & Visitors Bureau noted on the fly-in’s fiftieth anniversary, “For the people that come here, it’s their Disney World.”5
After fifty years, it’s tough to imagine the world’s largest celebration of aviation occurring anywhere else in the world, but the EAA’s journey to Oshkosh was far from smooth. Rather, it was a roundabout flight that began in one man’s basement in the winter of 1953.
Paul H. Poberezny’s obsession started early: “Every day in my life since I was five years old, I have thought, read, or looked at something to do with aviation,” he recalled.6 Born on September 14, 1921, in Leavenworth County, Kansas, Poberezny soon moved with his family to Milwaukee. The family’s neighbors grew accustomed to seeing young Howie, as he was known then, in a familiar activity: walking up and down the street, making airplane noises and flying a handmade airplane built of crates from Mr. Koss’s IGA grocery at Whiskey Corners (92nd Street and Beloit Road). “I could envision myself being a World War I pilot, flying a fighter Spad,” he recalled.7
Unlike the short-lived interests of many children, Poberezny continued to live, eat, and sleep aviation into his later years. “I built model airplanes constantly in grade school. In high school I the model airplane club.” At age fifteen, he taught himself to fly at the local airport in Waukesha. At sixteen, Poberezny’s high school history teacher Homer Tangney gifted him a battered Waco Primary Glider to restore. Tangney
