The white-knuckle air show where landing 10,000 planes is just the start

For four and a half years, Paul Roberts, a 58-year-old nurse practitioner from Monroe, Louisiana, tinkered away in his garage, building a tiny, four-seat airplane from scratch. Then, one sunny day last July, he strapped in, took off, and flew 800 miles north, paralleling the course of the Mississippi River.

As Roberts soared over central Wisconsin, he spotted what he was looking for: a swarm of small aircraft, arriving from every direction, forming a 30-mile-long conga line in the sky that stretched eastward toward the city of Oshkosh. Roberts found a place and joined in.

He was taking part in the world’s greatest annual migration of aircraft, in which roughly 10,000 planes converge on Oshkosh, Wisconsin’s Wittman Regional Airport each July for the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture show—commonly known as Oshkosh. The week-long event transforms an open Midwestern field into a pop-up city that sprawls across hundreds of acres and draws half a million visitors who’ve come to collectively bask in the roar of engines, the aroma of exhaust, and the spectacle of flying machines swooping across the summer sky.

Over the span of a few days, Wittman becomes the busiest airport in the world, and an elite squad of air traffic controllers must carefully coordinate arrivals, departures, and a series of high-octane aerial performances by skilled display pilots. It is the most precisely choreographed ballet of steel, aluminum, and jet fuel on earth. The action ramps up as the week progresses, and the stakes are tremendous. With so many jets in the sky and so many people on the ground, one wrong move could end in catastrophe.

Getting all of those planes in and out safely is also a massive logistical puzzle. Toward the beginning of the week, aircraft descend in such quantities that air traffic controllers have to land several at a time, with each one aiming for brightly colored dots painted along the runway at 1500-foot intervals—a wild procedure that would be inconceivable at almost any other airport.

Before setting out, Roberts had carefully studied the 32-page instruction manual given to inbound pilots, but the process still tested his mettle. He mistimed his arrival and happened to join the conga line just as a lot of planes were leaving the show, so air traffic controllers kept him circling for three hours.

The summer air was sweltering and bumpy, and flying slowly made the plane more difficult to control. “You’re ready to get on the ground after all that,” he deadpans.

At last, the controllers cleared him to land. Tired and anxious, he aimed for a red dot on the runway but found himself misaligned and couldn’t get to his landing spot without banking the plane dangerously hard. So he aborted the attempt and went around to try again.

The second time he stuck the landing.

The relief as he taxied off the runway was overwhelming. For so many like Roberts, building a plane and flying it to Oshkosh is a lifelong dream—but getting there is just the beginning.

There are many air shows in the world, but none can match the sheer scale, drama, and ambition of Oshkosh. Roberts’s trial by fire delivered him into a pop-up metropolis sprawled across two square miles of Midwestern plain, where a grid of parked aircraft stretches as far as the eye can see. Port-a-potties and food stalls selling cheese curd tacos lie tucked between trade-show booths and open-air classrooms offering lectures about sheet-metal riveting and wind-tunnel design. “It’s a little overwhelming,” Roberts says.

But the big excitement is in the air. Spectators place folding chairs along the grass that fronts the western taxiway and watch as aircraft take off and land throughout the day. The sky overhead is filled with an implausibly wide variety of machines, including a constant stream of bubble-canopied helicopters; a U.S. Air Force’s supersonic bomber called the B-1 Lancer; biplanes from the 1920s; and, once in a while, some new contraption that someone has cooked up in their garage. A pair of Goodyear blimps are on hand to mark the 100th anniversary of the famed airship’s first flight.

Oshkosh started in 1953 as a gathering for hobbyists who had assembled their own aircraft often from kits or from scratch using detailed plans put together by aeronautical designers. That first outing drew fewer than 150 participants, but it grew swiftly. It was a time when America’s heroic aerial victories in WWII were still fresh, and the country was obsessed with aviation. By the mid 1970s the event had moved from Rockford, Illinois to a new permanent home in Oshkosh and was drawing more than 300,000 attendees a year.

Crowd sizes have more than doubled since then, and the vibe has evolved into a gigantic convention that draws participants from every corner of aviation. Though home-built rigs remain a staple, major aircraft manufacturers like Airbus, Boeing, and Textron have become key supporters. The show’s central square, where the most outstanding aircraft are displayed, is called “Boeing Plaza.”

The influence of the U.S. military is inescapable. Static displays and aerial demonstrations by every kind of flying machine in the arsenal. Each year Oshkosh chooses a different service branch to spotlight. In 2025, the honor fell to the Air National Guard, whose F-35A fighter, KC-135 aerial refueling tanker, and Black Hawk helicopters drew large crowds to Boeing Plaza.

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It takes thousands of people to make sure the event runs smoothly. And while paid air traffic controllers, whose neon pink crewnecks have become so well known that they’re simply referred to as “pink shirts,” direct arrivals and departures, none of the high-octane aerial performances would be possible without an elite cadre of controllers called air bosses. It’s a sprawling yet tightly orchestrated spectacle that requires focus, steady nerves, and grit.

To be sure, mistakes still happen. Every now and then, a pilot winds up landing in the opposite direction from everyone else, causing temporary pandemonium. Sometimes the accidents are deadly. In 2023, a gyrocopter collided with a helicopter as they were both coming in to land at Wittman, killing two people. Earlier that day, a World War II-era AT-6D Texan training aircraft crashed into Lake Winnebago, killing the pilot and his passenger. These episodes, however, are rare.

The safety protocols established at Oshkosh have been meticulously refined over the years. While complex and demanding, it has been mastered by the pilots and air traffic controllers who use it. “That didn't come overnight,” says Boyd Martin, a retired controller who spent years working at the O’Hare tower in Chicago and now runs the event alongside his colleague and old friend Tim Fitzgerald, another former controller on the air show circuit.

Every morning, just before the events of the day get underway, Martin and Fitzgerald meet up with the leaders of the thousands of ground operations volunteers who shepherd arriving aircraft off the runway to their parking spots to review the latest developments and logistical challenges for the day ahead. Fitzgerald wraps up the meeting with a reminder and a caution. “This is the best family reunion on the planet,” he tells them. “It’s up to you to protect it.”

On a mid-week morning, I visit a small team of air traffic controllers packed onto a four-foot-tall mobile trailer near the runway called the MOO-COW, a cheeky anagram for Mobile Operations and Communications Workstation. Controllers at the MOO-COW tell departing planes when they can take off.

Some pilots who arrived early are already heading home, and others—such as the historic Ford Trimotor, a noisy propeller plane from the 1920s nicknamed the “Tin Goose”—are gearing up for sightseeing excursions. At the moment, a group of planes is lined up on the taxiway, waiting for permission to take off. But before they can do that, a group of inbound planes must land. Each aircraft flies parallel to the runway, then turns and heads straight for its assigned dot. For a few seconds, a twin-engine Cessna barrels directly at us. Suddenly, it turns and swoops toward the runway before landing on a pink dot.

The MOO-COW crew is part of the 64-person team of air traffic controllers staffing the airshow, working in shifts at several locations across the airfield. When pilots first approach Wittman, they receive directions from a team of binocular-clad controllers stationed on a low hill six miles ahead of the airport. As the pilots draw near their assigned runway, they’re guided by one of the teams in Wittman’s control tower, which stands just west of the main runway and looks like your typical air traffic control facility. Along with binoculars and radios, they have radar screens that display each aircraft’s location and altitude.

Each of the controllers has been selected from an applicant pool that is strictly limited to staffers at U.S. air traffic control towers. Because of the event’s high visibility, and the scale of the challenges, it’s known within the agency as the “Super Bowl of air traffic control." Fitzgerald first worked as a pink shirt at the airshow in 2004. He’d been a tower control at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, one of the 10 busiest in the world, but what he experienced at Oshkosh nearly melted his brain. While normal airports are busy, they’re a far more structured environment. Planes arrive and depart along a small number of well-defined routes, are spaced miles apart, and all fly at similar speeds. “Here, you have to figure it out as you go. You’ve got 60-knot airplanes landing at the same time as 200-knot airplanes,” he says. “You wonder, ‘How are we going to make that work?’”

To prevent controllers from becoming overwhelmed, they work in groups of four. The most experienced member is called the “team lead,” followed by the “veteran” and the “limited.” Each team also has a newcomer, aptly named the “rookie,” who is usually so inundated with sensory overload that all they can do is repeat instructions given to them by their teammates. “The first year I came here, I was shell-shocked,” says Nicholas Luce, a pink shirt now in his sixth year. “I remember when it was over, thinking, ‘I don’t even know what just happened.’ Then in the second and third year you start to get it.”

There’s now a short gap in the inbound traffic, so the MOO-COW controllers tell the next plane waiting on the taxiway to roll up onto the runway: “Cherokee four papa, cleared for takeoff.” The little airplane’s engine surges and it leaps forward.

Many inexperienced pilots find themselves bewildered by the constant motion of aircraft, and it’s easy for controllers to tell if somebody is scared, struggling, or new. Things often unfold differently than planned, forcing controllers to improvise. “Normally, I say air traffic controllers have to have a plan A, B, and C,” says Elizabeth Wichmann, Oshkosh’s air traffic control manager. “Here, you’ve got to have plan A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.”

There’s a faint whistling sound coming from the north, a pair of dots against the azure sky. The sound grows louder. Then, in an instant, two twin-engined F-15 fighters roar by, 50 feet off the ground about 100 feet away from us. It’s an ear-numbing thunder you can feel as much as hear. Even the veteran controllers are smiling and nodding. “You can spend your whole career at O’Hare and never see anything remotely like that,” Wichmann says.

Every afternoon, the sky is closed to regular traffic and handed over to the display pilots, who are led by six air bosses. If overseeing thousands of amateur pilots is like working with a ragtag conscript army, then directing the close-knit group of highly trained display pilots is like leading a squad of Special Forces operatives.

The chief of all the air bosses is Wayne Boggs, whose lanky frame, bright yellow shirt, and handlebar mustache make him an unmistakable presence. The son of a female WWII flight instructor, Boggs learned to fly while serving in the Marine Corps and later spent 40 years as an air traffic controller. He first joined Oshkosh 35 years ago and for the last 15 has served as its Air Boss Chairman, both coordinating performances and supervising other air bosses. Boggs runs air shows all over the country, but it’s his role at Oshkosh that he’s proudest of. (His leadership here has made him as much of a big deal in the world of air show performers as his little brother, Hall-of-Famer Wade Boggs, is in baseball.)

In the months leading up to the event, they file mountains of paperwork with the Federal Aviation Administration and select pilots who will perform at the event. They’re looking not only for the most technically proficient aviators, but for those who are crowd-pleasing storytellers. One routine involves a stunt pilot pretending to be a drunk passerby who steals a plane; another features a unit of A-10s that wage a mock battle against enemy troops. During the sometimes hours-long performances, air bosses issue commands to pilots from a platform at the edge of the runway, making sure that all the performers are hitting their marks—and are, of course, prepared to dispatch fire trucks to a crash site.

Wednesday may be the most challenging day of the week at Oshkosh. The controllers and ground crew have been working flat-out for days, and the toll of all that effort is starting to show. On top of that, there’s an extra air show in the evening, which adds considerably to the logistical burden. To complicate matters, the weather’s starting to get fussy. The day dawns heavily overcast, and spits rain for the first half of the morning.

Shortly before noon, Boggs gathers the pilots who are going to perform that day and runs through the show. They discuss the weather forecast, the dimensions of the airspace they’re allowed to use, the radio frequencies they should communicate on, and emergency procedures, including what runway to land on if they need to get on the ground in a hurry. Above all, Boggs urges them not to push the limits. “The crowd can’t tell if you’re pulling 9Gs or 2Gs. To them, it’s amazing that you’re flying around at all.” The true measure of success, he says, is if no one reads your name in the newspaper tomorrow.

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For a brief window, the skies clear and traffic surges in and out of the airport. Boggs is glued to the weather radar, watching closely as orange and red precipitation bands sweep toward the airfield. He’s on tenterhooks, getting ready to cancel everything. “Weather is a huge factor,” he tells me. “You’re not just worried about the performers, you’ve got thousands and thousands of spectators.”

The displays are perhaps the highest-stakes moments of the entire airshow. People are gathered in close quarters near the runway and planes are flying overhead. “There is so much that you have to account for,” Boggs says. “It’s a dangerous business.” In 2022, two World War II-era airplanes collided in midair at an air show in Texas, killing all six people aboard. An official investigation found that one of the main causes was the failure of the air boss on duty to properly brief the crews.

Air show accidents can be catastrophic in some cases, like when a plane goes off course and crashes into a crowd. In 2002, a Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet slammed into spectators at a show near Lviv, Ukraine, killing 77 people on the ground. A report commissioned after the tragedy cited, in addition to pilot error, a lack of preparation by the show’s organizers. Such disasters are rare, and procedures have been put in place around the world to prevent their recurrence, but even smaller fatal events could threaten the continued existence of Oshkosh. After a deadly crash at an air show in Shoreham, England, the 27-year-old event was cancelled for good in 2016.

Boggs is determined that nothing like that will happen on his watch. In addition to holding briefings, his team has compiled detailed plans for what to do in case of any eventuality—be it a bird strike or engine failure—into a thick binder everyone must review.

The storm just misses, sending wind gusts whipping over the airfield. The nighttime extravaganza is a go. People begin to settle into folding chairs and blankets on the grass surrounding the air strip.

At 8 p.m., a team of three aerobatic planes, bedazzled with flashing lights and trailing glowing smoke, appear overhead. Then a canard plane loops through the darkness like a meteor, shooting sparks and fireworks from its tail. Other aerobatic performers follow, each more extravagant with lightbulbs and fire than the last. At times, two planes seem to fly toward each other on a collision course, but it’s a meticulously planned optical illusion: The planes are actually separated by several hundred feet and will fly right past each other.

A swarm of lighted drones fashions itself into giant images of jet fighters and eagles. Lasers carve geometric patterns of light over the crowd. Speakers blast the swelling chords of Irene Cara’s “What a Feeling” and a Super Chipmunk shoots out mini-fireworks while seeming to loop through a wall of starbursts shooting up from the ground. Lasers dance and drones hover nearby as the performance climaxes with a wall of mushroom-cloud fireballs whose heat is so intense you can feel it on your face. It was exactly what the spectators had come for.

For the remainder of the week, the makeup and tenor of the show changes. Many of the pilots and builders have filtered away, and a more general audience arrives: people who are interested in airplanes but might not know the difference between a Cleco and countersuck rivet. On Saturday the big nighttime air show repeats, and then Sunday morning it’s time to start packing up.

Fitzgerald is exhausted. “I’ll probably go home and sleep for three days,” he says.

As the crowds finally disperse, maintenance crews begin breaking down the displays and exhibitions. And in no time, Wittman goes from being the world’s busiest airport to having no scheduled flights at all.