Brad W
Pattern Altitude
Just back home from sun n fun. Checked my notes, this was my 16th. (I'd rather go to Airventure, but I live in FL)
This year I drove in my class C motorhome, arriving Wed after the airshow. A couple days just roaming, primary focus was a hope to narrow down a short list of kits as a potential retirement project, but many of the ones I wanted to see were not there. Even still, I stayed more days there than I normally do.
I spent a lot of time in the Sling booth on Friday. They had a TSi there, and the high wing. I spent a lot of time with the HW. It's Linda Sollars', and I enjoyed a long and interesting conversation with her. An interesting and very dynamic lady who I enjoyed meeting.
I also enjoyed conversations with several of the military aircrew, and enjoyed saying hi to several of the youtuber's I enjoy watching.
On Friday evening my son joined me from college, and we had a couple of good days together....We were late getting over for the STOL event so missed that, but Saturday reminded me about why I have avoided attending on weekend days for years now......CROWDS. Still, we enjoyed the night airshow, day airshow, some epic thumpings from the Navy's Rhino demo team, the Thunderbirds, and an AF F-35, a little paraglider demo over at the ultralight stip. Sitting on the KC-135 main gear tires, and watching some of the night airshow including what turned out to be Manfred Radius' last show (or so they said), with my son was a particularly good memory for me.
He and I took one more lap around this morning, and it was really sad how many vendors were packing up or already gone. We wandered over to the workshop area this morning, thinking we might try our hand at a little welding...it was on the schedule... but nope. The only workshop still going was polyfiber. I would have liked to have tried that but that looks to be more of a time commitment and we were very late for the start anyway. All the welding was packed up and gone, metal forming was packed up and gone, and woodworking...gone too. They should sell Sunday tickets at half price! It made me think back to many years ago when, if my memory serves correctly, it spanned from Saturday through the week to Sunday...so two weekends book-ended the event. That last weekend seemed to be always pretty dead.
This year I drove in my class C motorhome, arriving Wed after the airshow. A couple days just roaming, primary focus was a hope to narrow down a short list of kits as a potential retirement project, but many of the ones I wanted to see were not there. Even still, I stayed more days there than I normally do.
I spent a lot of time in the Sling booth on Friday. They had a TSi there, and the high wing. I spent a lot of time with the HW. It's Linda Sollars', and I enjoyed a long and interesting conversation with her. An interesting and very dynamic lady who I enjoyed meeting.
I also enjoyed conversations with several of the military aircrew, and enjoyed saying hi to several of the youtuber's I enjoy watching.
On Friday evening my son joined me from college, and we had a couple of good days together....We were late getting over for the STOL event so missed that, but Saturday reminded me about why I have avoided attending on weekend days for years now......CROWDS. Still, we enjoyed the night airshow, day airshow, some epic thumpings from the Navy's Rhino demo team, the Thunderbirds, and an AF F-35, a little paraglider demo over at the ultralight stip. Sitting on the KC-135 main gear tires, and watching some of the night airshow including what turned out to be Manfred Radius' last show (or so they said), with my son was a particularly good memory for me.
He and I took one more lap around this morning, and it was really sad how many vendors were packing up or already gone. We wandered over to the workshop area this morning, thinking we might try our hand at a little welding...it was on the schedule... but nope. The only workshop still going was polyfiber. I would have liked to have tried that but that looks to be more of a time commitment and we were very late for the start anyway. All the welding was packed up and gone, metal forming was packed up and gone, and woodworking...gone too. They should sell Sunday tickets at half price! It made me think back to many years ago when, if my memory serves correctly, it spanned from Saturday through the week to Sunday...so two weekends book-ended the event. That last weekend seemed to be always pretty dead.
).
