tonycondon
Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
Arrived at airport at 7 AM this morning. Found a R22 sitting in the shop getting a Tanis heater installed. One of our mechanics is out at Robinson now getting trained so we can add them to our repair station so there should be at least 2 R22's and an R44 visiting regularly soon. Cool looking little (stress little) bird. Ill have to bum a ride sometime.
Mission today was to count White Tailed Deer. Left Ames at 745, stopped in Boone (BNW) for gas at 8. Then on to Perry (PRO) to pick up the DNR folks. Got ConUS challenge photos for both airports. Deer flying is interesting, but pretty boring. 500-800 AGL over state parks while the people in back count deer. Back and forth, 1/4 mile wide passes. Good for boning up on ground reference maneuvering! Stopped in Atlantic (AIO) for lunch, picked up a third ConUS airport. I have to tell you, the folks at the FBO there were super friendly! I hadnt really packed a lunch, kinda counted on picking up something out of a vending machine. Alas no candy bars available at the airport, but the ma and pa that ran the joint told me to help myself to their food stash and i had a yummy bologna and cheese sandwich and lemon jello pudding. And they didnt charge me anything!
a few more hours of back and forth in the afternoon and I was back in ames about 415. 6.8 hrs on the day.
Got home and learned that it is quite possible that I will not be allowed to compete at the Glider Contest in May. Basically they have so many possible contestants that they will have to weed down the field. The method to do this is to take only "ranked" pilots first from the region, then unranked pilots from the region, then pilots from outside the region. I fall into the unranked pilots from the region category, but most of the contestants in the "Sports" class are ranked pilots from the region. Likely I will get the Axe. Makes me wonder how the hell Im supposed to get ranked (only way to get ranked is to fly in contest). All hope is not lost yet, still have to get ahold of the Contest Manager and see what my odds are. Once again, wind is firmly out of sails Ill have to find out fast what Im going to do. So far my life plans for the first 6 months of this year have revolved around flying in this contest. If it doesnt happen, things will change bigtime.
Mission today was to count White Tailed Deer. Left Ames at 745, stopped in Boone (BNW) for gas at 8. Then on to Perry (PRO) to pick up the DNR folks. Got ConUS challenge photos for both airports. Deer flying is interesting, but pretty boring. 500-800 AGL over state parks while the people in back count deer. Back and forth, 1/4 mile wide passes. Good for boning up on ground reference maneuvering! Stopped in Atlantic (AIO) for lunch, picked up a third ConUS airport. I have to tell you, the folks at the FBO there were super friendly! I hadnt really packed a lunch, kinda counted on picking up something out of a vending machine. Alas no candy bars available at the airport, but the ma and pa that ran the joint told me to help myself to their food stash and i had a yummy bologna and cheese sandwich and lemon jello pudding. And they didnt charge me anything!
a few more hours of back and forth in the afternoon and I was back in ames about 415. 6.8 hrs on the day.
Got home and learned that it is quite possible that I will not be allowed to compete at the Glider Contest in May. Basically they have so many possible contestants that they will have to weed down the field. The method to do this is to take only "ranked" pilots first from the region, then unranked pilots from the region, then pilots from outside the region. I fall into the unranked pilots from the region category, but most of the contestants in the "Sports" class are ranked pilots from the region. Likely I will get the Axe. Makes me wonder how the hell Im supposed to get ranked (only way to get ranked is to fly in contest). All hope is not lost yet, still have to get ahold of the Contest Manager and see what my odds are. Once again, wind is firmly out of sails Ill have to find out fast what Im going to do. So far my life plans for the first 6 months of this year have revolved around flying in this contest. If it doesnt happen, things will change bigtime.