Sunday, February 28, 2010

Wharton

Friday morning, Travis and I headed out for Wharton for a fly-in. It was one of our easier trips as it was only about 3 hours. It was supposed to be windy Friday, but Saturday looked like we would be able to fly all day. It wasn't to be though... Saturday was windy for most of the day. We did get to have some great food and hang out with some good people though, so all wasn't lost!

Saturday afternoon, a couple of guys decided they'd had enough waiting and headed out to fly. I checked the wind speed when they were going out, it was showing 9, gusting to 18. The first guy, Frank, took off like a rocket and headed up quickly. We could tell he was getting beat around pretty badly though. He came back around in the pattern and actually landed well. Then he decided to taxi back with his chute up and it shot him back into the air! His second landing was not pretty and blew his tire off of the rim. Luckily, that was the only damage.

The second guy, Bob, apparently wasn't fazed by Frank's performance and decided he and his wife would head up as well. He didn't make if far before he ended up with the PPC rolled onto its side.

After that, we decided to head out as it didn't appear to be getting better... of course it did!

We were driving back and it got down to 6 and seemed to still be dropping. I told Travis I wanted to stop at Smithville and get in a quick flight. I got 30 minutes in some very calm air. I needed that!

Wayne had a crowd around his "Chutes of Hazzard" PPC all day.


This is Louis' Predator. I really like the color.



Some more of Wayne's General Lee themed PPC.




Some people just don't like attention!

Craig had people checking out his Predator too. It's very nice.

If you were asking yourself how many PPC pilots it takes to fix a Cirrus... well, it's 10!

I took a photo of Scott Hughes taking a photo!

This is my favorite Predator. The "Red Baron" belongs to Gunny.

This Predator is always popular!


This is Frank on his scary flight!
This is after he landed and was shot back into the air!
And he came back down.


Here is Bob trying to take off.



Everyone was okay, but the PPC will need some work.

This crop duster is based at the field.

This is Smithville.

The train yard at Smithville.

Final approach to runway 35 put me near downtown.

A close up of the train museum.

See you next time! Jack

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