Oshkosh is the Mecca of homebuilders. My shop has a customer who flies his Grumman Tiger to Oshkosh every year to attend. One of these days I'll go but it will probably be by car since flying in can be dicey - as you've pointed out. During the event Wittman Field becomes the world's busiest airport and I don't know either how the tower controllers handle it.

Here in San Diego when Miramar, the marine air base, hosts their annual show traffic will also slow and stop on Hwy 15 to watch the military jets and warbirds come in to land.

Oledoc2u, a new Bonanza goes for at least 400K; a used one is, of course, considerably cheaper but also considerably older. And I have to disagree about the Crossfire being almost as fast as a 150 - maybe when driven in reverse.

I also had a 150 but sold it five years ago to the local community college district. The school has an airframe and powerplant program and has a hangar next door to my shop for training. Every so often they use my former 150 to teach the students how to taxi a plane. It was a fun plane but also tiny, tinny and to limited to keep and since I couldn't get it to fly consistently in a club I sold it. Got a pretty good chunk of change for it though. As small as the Crossfire is, it's a snap to get in and out of compared to a 150.

Of course I did NOT learn any lessons from the 150 and now have a 172 and Warrior. There's a reason why I bought a Crossfire 14 years after my previous new car (a time frame when the average Crossfire owner would have bought a dozen cars, or so it seems).

How do you make a million in aviation?
Start with two million.

Wat are the five forces keeping a plane in the air?
Lift, weight, thrust, drag and money.

What's the difference between an airplane renter and owner?
When the renter is flying along, and the engine quits, the first thought is "OMG! I"m going to crash!".
When the owner is flying along, and the engine quits, the first thought is "OMG! How much is this going to cost me?".