2010 EAA AirVenture wraps up

OSHKOSH - Planning his second trip to EAA AirVenture by plane from New York City was a little trickier this time around for Thomas Droumenq.

"We would have come just one day earlier," said Droumenq, who brought his son Hugo, 9, and daughter Chloe, 6, for the first time. "What we did is we stopped in Michigan just across the lake and crossed the lake Thursday morning to arrive here."

The EAA staff and more than 4,000 volunteers used nearly every resource and unique tactics to to dry the runway and campgrounds, which were saturated by heavy storms early in the week.

"We actually had a couple of helicopters just hovering to move the air around," said volunteer George Daubner. "It actually did a significant job drying out the ground."

Only about 11,000 planes were parked on the grounds this year, compared to 16,000 in 2009. EAA spokesman, Dick Knapinski says that reflects some people deciding not to come because of the conditions, and others parking their planes at surrounding airports.

Roughly 700 camper vehicles had to be be parked off-site because of the soggy conditions at EAA.

"If you traveled around the greater Oshkosh area you could see campers parked everywhere," said Tom Poberezny, EAA President and Chairman. "We recruited every hard piece of ground. And not just one site, about 10 sites."

Final attendance figures are not in yet. Poberezny says numbers will be down slightly from last year's 578,000, which is believed to be a record. But he calls it a strong finish to this year's event.

"This event was special for a number of reasons," said Poberezny. "Without question, in my 35 years these were easily the most difficult conditions we had to address. That was a challenge. But everyone overcame that challenge."

Poberezny says the number of vendors was up to 777 this year from 750 in 2009.