It was a great event!
(Cross posted on several forums) This weekend, fellow museum volunteer (and POA Lurker) Max Tribolet and I had a really good time with the raffle plane. I got to the airport at about 1:45p and started packing up the plane. Blair, the last museum pilot to fly her (and another POA lurker) had texted Max to tell him that the right main tire was low and needed to be filled, and Max forwarded that message along to me. We did the pre-flight and I was going to use my emergency car air compressor to fill the tire, but it didn't work. So, long story short, I wound up taxiing it down to Million Air to get it filled, which caused Max and I to not get airborne until about 3:40p or so.
We had a beautiful flight up there at 6500ft. with unlimited visibility and the air was as smooth as glass. Max and I traded the controls a few times, and basically split the flight time up there. It was dusk when we arrived, and we found the airport without a problem, then made left traffic for the runway, as directed. On our base, they asked us to fly through the final approach path and make a right 270-deg turn back to final since a King Air that had been waiting there for 15 minutes just got their IFR release.
So, we landed, taxied in, tied down the plane, gathered our belongings and got a ride to the hotel from one of the line guys. We were invited to a party at the hotel that night with a bunch of the performers, so we went down there, took advantage of the free food, and had a good time hanging out talking airplanes and music. Then, one lady brought out her cello, another got out her wooden flutes, and a guy got out his saw. Yes, he brought out a wooden-handled, Stanley saw and a violin bow. It made a really cool sound, and the three of them just had an impromptu jam session. A couple of other people got out guitars to play along, so I couldn't help myself and brought out my guitar to play with them for a while.
The next morning, we got out to the airport at around 7am. We got everything set up and started selling tickets. Early indications were that the day would be very good as we had sold 5 tickets by 9:00a (doors opened at 8:00a). Troy Whistman (who we stayed with on Saturday night) came in early and spent a lot of time hanging out with us and even sold a few tickets throughout the day.
We had a lot of people stop by and check out the plane, and sold a total of 24 tickets on the day. People couldn't believe that it was a 1958 model plane! Interestingly enough (and I didn't realize this), but the plane actually used to be based at Spinks airport, where this event was. We had a couple of people come up who were familiar with the plane and the owner, and the guy who actually owned it and restored it came up to talk to us too! That was really interesting, even though he didn't take the opportunity to win his plane back for $50. We did let him jump up into the plane for a minute for old time's sake. After the event was over, we packed everything back up, pushed the plane to its tie-down spot, and tied her down for the night. Troy then took us on a tour of downtown Ft. Worth, drove us by Meacham Field, then on to his house, where we had a delicious dinner with him and his family. We hung out for the evening telling flying stories with him and Kent Shook, who just happened to be passing through town that night.
Sunday morning we awoke to 500ft. overcast ceilings, so we went out for a great breakfast with Troy and two of his daughters before heading to the airport. The original plan was for us to go to Cleburne airport to get some cheaper gas, then head to Hooks via the Waco VOR and the College Station VOR. But, the Waco VOR is on the San Antonio sectional, which I didn't have. So, we went to Meacham to try to buy it at American Flyers, but they were sold out. We went to another pilot shop, which was closed, then we went to another FBO, but they didn't have any. So, I went into the flight planning room where there were a couple of King Air pilots (who also didn't have the VFR sectional), so I just printed the parts I needed off of SkyVector.com using the FBO's printer. While we were in there we sold a raffle ticket to one of the King Air pilots
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We finally got to Spinks airport and checked the weather forecasts, and decided to wait things out until conditions improved while we evaluated our options. Troy had to go, so we bid him goodbye and thanked him profusely for all that he had done for us. We then called up the tower on the phone and asked if we could come up. They said yes, so we walked over there and went up to hang out with the two guys up there. It was a pretty slow day, so we just watched football and they checked their fantasy scores between arrivals and departures. Suddenly, around 1:15p, the ceilings lifted up and it got a lot lighter, so we figured it was our opportunity to go. I called and got an abbreviated briefing and was told that the ceilings were anywhere from 1300 to 4300 on a direct route from Spinks to Hooks. Troy called me and said he checked METARS and if we went east to Corsicana before heading south, the ceilings were above 2500ft for the entire route. So, we went with that option.
Initially, ceilings were high and visibility was >10 mi, so we went up to 2500ft. There was even some blue sky visible through some holes in the clouds. Early on, it looked like we could pretty easily climb above the clouds and cruise along in clear weather, but I resisted that urge because I didn't want to get stuck up there without a way to get down. In the end, I'm really glad we stayed low. We stayed at 2500ft. until we got to about 10mi from Corsicana, when things started looking really good to the south. So we turned to go direct to Hooks. As I flew, Max followed us on the charts, pointing out any towers and checking the weather at upcoming airports along our route. We were on radar with Regional Departure and Waco Approach until we left their airspace, then were dumped off to our own devices since Houston Center had a low-level radar outage. We traded the controls for a while and I followed our route and checked weather. As we got further south, the ceilings got a bit lower, so we had to go down to 2000ft. We got almost to Huntsville before we went down to 1800ft. However, visibility was still right around 8 mi or more, and I was ready to turn back to any of the airports we passed if things got too bad. When we got past Lake Conroe, the visibility got down to about 5 mi and the ceilings forced us down to 1700ft. to maintain the legal separation minimums, but we were on with Houston Approach by that point. We were on a direct track in for a final to runway 17R at Hooks at that point, and we tuned in the localizer to help us stay lined up until we could see the airport. We saw the airport about 5 miles out, landed without incident, and taxied in to the FBO.
After gassing up and coordinating with Drew Coats (the museum president) for hangar space (we decided it wasn't a good idea to get back in the air to try to make it to Hobby) and Heather (my better half) to come get us from Hooks and bring us to Hobby, we walked out to the plane to taxi it to Drew's hangar. Just then, two Army Blackhawk helicopters came in to land on the helipads at the FBO. We watched them land, then we walked over to introduce ourselves and ask if they would like to come to Wings & Wheels - Veteran's Salute in a couple of weeks. I gave them my card with the information on it, so we'll see if anything pans out. After that, we hopped in the plane, taxied to Drew's hangar, put the plane away, and drove off into the sunset with Heather.
Thanks to Max for being such a great co-pilot, Troy for helping us out so much while we were there (you are THE MAN!), and to Heather for coming to our rescue at Hooks Airport!
