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

Flying My New PPC

Yesterday was a long, stressful day. I left work at 3PM, hoping to get a flight in my new PPC. Travis was already at the airport when I arrived. He had checked the field and determined it wasn't muddy (it really was!).

If you read my other post, you know that this is my new-to-me Pegasus and I had to move my risers around as they were on backwards and just really messed up. I'm always nervous when flying a new plane or PPC, but this time was much worse. Not only had the risers been changed, it was unqualified me that did it! I was really sweating it.

When we got setup, the wind was from the East... this is the worst possible direction for our field as it's short and puts us taking off directly toward the runway. We setup toward the NorthEast and planned to turn North after we took off. Then a couple of planes showed up and decided to use runway 17 - coming toward us! We just had to time our departure right.

I took my time setting up, double and triple-checking everything. Travis got warmed up and took off. Seeing him have no issues with the slight crosswind gave me a little comfort. So I was sitting there, with my engine idling, waiting for two planes to takeoff, thinking about hitting the mags as soon as something didn't look right...

When the second plane was off, I smoothly pushed the throttle forward. I thought I had something wrong when my parachute dipped a little to the right, but I pumped it once and it straightened out. I did a long rolling-preflight and it looked great! I added a little power and I was off!

Once in the air, I made a few gentle turns and it was great! It flew very well. Now I can relax a little!

After all of this, I didn't take a single photo of my PPC!! I told you I was nervous!




This tree was in the middle of a very trashy property. It caught my eye!

The shadows were getting long.

Touch-N-Go Road!

I landed and jumped out in time to catch Travis on final.

We're hoping to go to a fly-in at the end of the month. Maybe I'll get some photos of other guys besides Travis and Chris!

Jack

Record January Snowstorm...

You would think the warnings like, "If you don't have to travel, please stay home!" might deter me from going to get my new PPC. If you believe this, maybe you haven't met me!

Travis went with me and we headed out Friday morning. It rained until we were out of Texas, then Oklahoma threw a blizzard at us! It was rough driving and I was really beginning to doubt my sanity! We saw many cars in the ditch, but we were able to stay on the road. A trip that should have been 10 hours was around 13, but we made it and I have my new PPC!

Oklahoma really wanted us to stay home!

We stopped for fried pies.

This was our first gas stop. It was starting to get bad!

Travis was getting road reports from a guy coming from Kansas.

My defroster couldn't keep up!

We made it to Emporia, Kansas. My truck was pretty nasty by this point.

Downtown Emporia

I got up early the next morning to get some pics of the snow.

On the way home, we stopped at McDonalds. I parked out in the back of the parking lot and when we came out, this truck had parked next to me!

I post some photos of the PPC soon. For now, this is it!

Jack "New PPC Having" Fleetwood