Summer 1994. I am flying #3 in a flight of 3 T28’s on our way back home from Oshkosh. Not long out of Osh the weather is looking distinctly disappointing and it appears a plan B is required. At Osh I had bought one of the first portable GPS, so I press the nearest airport button and it tells me Wildrose Wisconsin is 6 miles off our left wing. I tell lead to turn 90 left and 2 minutes later we are over a nice looking grass runway. A low pass confirms the runway condition, a break for landing and we are all down.
As the engines are still tinkling we hear the laboured engine of what turned out to be an ancient pickup truck, driven by the poster child for “ Good old Boy” in the best sense of that word. He heard our arrival and came to see if we needed help. We tell him we are going to hang out until the weather improves. Well he says you boys got to go to the local diner for some pie. So we all pile into the pickup, go to diner and have a piece of excellent pie while getting introduced to what has to be the entire population of Wildrose. 2 hours and 3 cups of coffee later (bad idea given the next flight was 3hrs) and the sun started peeking through. A quick trip out to the airfield and we were on our way. A treasured memory…