By ANN Correspondent Rob Milford

Oshkosh draws the hard-core, serious airplane nuts. Let’s be honest with ourselves. We love this stuff, the constant grind of motors, round, in-line, rotary, the flying parachutes, the tri-motors, everything. Something strange and wonderful flies over, and we stick our head outside the tent or exhibit, and look to the sky. We put up with the traffic and lines and the mud in the campgrounds, because we live to fly.

So, I’m wandering through Camp Scholler, and there’s a Texas flag flying high amongst the 40’s, and I wander in, and start talking. These folks are from Houston, and for some reason, look familiar. Steve and Linda and their daughter, a cute little three-year old named Lauren. This is her third AirVenture! That’s pretty serious.

For her dad, his 14th consecutive, he’s made it a tradition with his father, Pete, who is 91 years young.

We talk airplanes for a short while…they’re partners in a Mooney M-20, at Ellington Field in Houston, and that’s where I know them from! I’m on the flight crew for the CAF’s “Texas Raiders” B-17G, which is based there. Steve is talking about restoring a Taylorcraft with another buddy of his, Steve Robinson, and that name gets me. Then I notice a series of NASA flight patches sewn onto the tent flap. They represent more than 1 dozen shuttle flights, NASA Flight operations, and the MIR and International Space stations.

Then it hits me. These people, camped out at Oshkosh, are Steve Nagel and Linda Godwin. Married, Astronauts, with children. Eight shuttle flights between them. Four for him, four for her. He’s now in NASA flight operations, driving T-38’s and the shuttle training aircraft. Since he commanded a pair of missions, he’s well suited to get people dialed in and up-to-speed for that high speed, unpowered landing in the middle of a Florida swamp. Linda, who’s making her 8th Oshkosh, last flew the end of 2001, and has moved on the astronaut managers’ office.

Linda is in awe of the entire operation here: “It always strikes me how well run this is…they have this down to a science”. She adds, “There are a lot of NASA people who come up from Houston, we’ve got friends flying up this afternoon in a NASA T-38.” That includes Astronaut Charlie Justiz, who will be giving a talk on flying the KC-135 “Vomit Comet”.

Steve says “It’s been a lot of fun over the years… I wouldn’t miss it.” He’ll be giving a talk about flying the STA, or Shuttle Training Aircraft, a Gulfstream G-2, on Saturday. “Linda and I are headed to the seaplane base, we’ve never been there.”

We take a moment to get updated on NASA flight operations at the Johnson Space Center, and Steve talks about second generation glass cockpits going into the T-38 fleet, along with new Martin-Baker ejection seats, plus other upgrades to the STA.

Meantime, at their campsite, the cell phone has rung a couple of times with a real long distance call. Ed Lu, friend, neighbor, and fellow astronaut, is up on the Space Station, and has called, just checking in on how things are at AirVenture, and how he wishes he were in Oshkosh…and from 240 miles in orbit, hates to be missing the show this year!

FMI: www.nasa.gov