Paul Poberezny, the Homebuilt That Started It All, and the Backyard Movement That Became AirVenture Oshkosh

Paul Poberezny founded the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) in January 1953 with roughly three dozen homebuilders in a Milwaukee basement, and the small fly-in he started that year grew into EAA AirVenture Oshkosh - now the largest aviation gathering on Earth. His conviction that an ordinary working person could build and fly an airplane launched a backyard movement that today draws more than half a million people to Wisconsin every July. This week (July 2026), Wittman Regional Airport is once again the busiest airport in the world, and every hand-built wing on the field traces back to him.

Who Was Paul Poberezny?

Paul Poberezny was a Milwaukee-born aviator, aircraft designer, and organizer who spent his life proving that flying didn’t have to belong only to the wealthy or the licensed. In 1937, as a teenager, he was handed a wrecked Waco primary glider that someone else had bent up and abandoned. Most would have walked away. He rebuilt it, taught himself to fly it, and never got the flying out of his blood.

He went on to serve in the Army, where he instructed and flew a wide range of aircraft - from small liaison ships to larger military hardware - logging thousands of hours across decades of service. He could fly nearly anything with a wing on it. But his lasting legacy came not from the cockpit of military iron. It came from his garage.

Why Homebuilt Airplanes Needed a Champion

In postwar America, from the late 1940s into the 1950s, veterans came home having tasted flight but unable to afford a new factory airplane. Building your own was the obvious answer for a working man - yet the government and the aviation establishment often treated homebuilt aircraft as reckless nonsense cooked up by basement tinkerers.

Poberezny saw it differently. He saw a scattered brotherhood of builders, each one alone in his garage bending tube and stitching fabric, with no one to share plans with and no one to ask, “How’d you solve that landing gear problem?” What was missing wasn’t skill. It was fellowship.

How the EAA Started

On a January evening in 1953, Poberezny gathered a handful of like-minded builders - about three dozen men - in the basement of the airport administration building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and founded the Experimental Aircraft Association. They embraced the word “experimental” as a badge of pride rather than a warning label.

The first fly-in was held at Curtiss-Wright Field near Milwaukee later that same year - a modest gathering of a few airplanes and homebuilders swapping stories. The fellowship Paul was after caught fire immediately.

The Airplane That Carried the Message: The Baby Ace

To prove the point, Poberezny designed a simple, honest low-wing single-seater that a working person could build in a garage with hand tools. He called it the Baby Ace. His own red-and-white personal ship - affectionately known in EAA circles as “Little Poop Deck” - became a flying billboard for the whole idea.

The message was direct: if Paul could build it and fly it, so could you. You didn’t need to be rich or own a factory. You needed a set of plans, some tube and fabric, patience, and the nerve to start.

How the Fly-In Grew Into Oshkosh

The movement outgrew Milwaukee fast. Through the late 1950s and 1960s, the fly-in moved to Rockford, Illinois, and kept expanding - first more homebuilts, then warbirds, then antiques and classics, then aerobatic performers. Rockford eventually couldn’t hold it.

In 1970, the event moved north to Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, named for air racer Steve Wittman. Oshkosh became the permanent home and, for the homebuilt community, the promised land.

A Family Legacy, Not Just an Organization

Poberezny built more than a club - he built a family that ran the organization for decades. His wife, Audrey Poberezny, worked beside him throughout and was known as the “First Lady of Flight.” Their son Tom Poberezny grew up in the movement and later ran the convention himself for years.

Consider the scale of what began with three dozen people in a basement in 1953: today, more than half a million visitors pass through the gates each July. For one week, Wittman Field becomes the busiest airport in the world, its control tower handling more traffic than anywhere on the planet, with airplanes landing on colored dots on the runway multiple at a time.

What You’ll Find at AirVenture This Week

Walk the grounds during AirVenture (July 2026) and you’ll see the full sweep of Paul’s vision:

Homebuilt rows - thousands of aircraft built by hand in garages, from riveted aluminum to carbon fiber.
Vintage rows - Cubs, Wacos, and Stinsons gleaming in the sun.
Warbird alley - Merlins and radials thundering overhead.
Ultralights buzzing at dawn.
KidVenture, where children buck their first rivet.

Paul Poberezny’s Legacy

Paul Poberezny flew west in 2013 at the age of 91. Yet his presence is felt across every foot of the Oshkosh grounds - in every hand-built wing, in every grinning homebuilder standing beside an airplane made with his own two hands, and in every kid who looks up and thinks, maybe I could do that too. That was always Poberezny’s answer: Yes. You can.

The historical details of his life and the EAA’s founding are preserved in the Experimental Aircraft Association’s own archives and the EAA Aviation Museum on the grounds at Oshkosh, as well as in Paul’s own writings.

Key Takeaways

Paul Poberezny founded the EAA in January 1953 with about three dozen homebuilders in a Milwaukee basement.
He designed the Baby Ace, a simple garage-buildable airplane that proved ordinary people could build and fly their own aircraft.
The fly-in moved from Milwaukee to Rockford, Illinois, then to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 1970, where it remains today.
EAA AirVenture Oshkosh now draws over half a million people annually and makes Wittman Regional Airport the world’s busiest airport for one week each July.
Poberezny died in 2013 at age 91, leaving a family-run legacy carried on by his wife Audrey and son Tom.