Damn tuff crowd! Well I was at the flight school today, and had reserved a plane for tomorrow. Thought the get-2-getter was tomorrow, Sunday. Guess I had the wrong date. Dern!
Frank, thanks for putting this together. Enjoyed meeting some new folks and seeing familiar faces too.
Eppy, sorry we didn’t get to say goodbye, we were checking out everyone’s plane! BTW someone took off and declared an emergency for fuel coming into the cockpit, was that anyone from PoA? I don’t think so but wanted to make sure. Really great meet-up! And whadya know, Dave Thiesen DID make it!
Bill and I just got home. Great time meeting you all, enjoyed it a lot! Sorry I didn’t get the chance to say anything to @FastEddieB. Loved the look of your SkyArrow. Hope everyone made their return flight okay! Here’s a few photos: Here’s one of @SkyDog58 taxxing out! Nice to chat with you my friend!
crikey, when they say fly rwy heading, they meant it! almost made it to mscards house before the turned me
I don't think it was anyone from the group. I was just rotating when the call came in. Tower had me fly straight out for a bit before making my turn to give the guy some room.
Thanks Frank for putting this together, it was great to meet a bunch of great folks, and thanks to Ryan for allowing me to ride along. The morning flight was especially nice!
Those are some great pictures... Bill.. I hope you guys headwind wasn't too bad... It was great meeting you, Ryan and fellow PoAers.. Hopefully more willl follow...
My dog enjoyed the second half of that burger ... Also, had a great time putting faces to usernames, it was nice meeting you all. I also got to log 4.5 hours today, so I consider it a win-win situation.
Good luck on your surgery David. I'll look forward to hearing how it went and hope that it alleviates your pain.
I came soooo close to hopping in the airplane and heading east last night when I couldn’t sleep. Would have been about a 4AM departure to make it. But 16 hours round trip just sounded like a total azzzzz kicking in the Skylane. Looks like the event went off great and y’all had an awesome time. I instead went to the hangar and finally set up all the pre-heat stuff for winter since it’s finally going to get cold here. Airplane is headed into the shop anyway, but the gear is all tested and working for January since it was reasonably warm today here for hangar goofing. Also realized the stupid sun goes down just after 16:30 local right now, so I just dawdled over to the self serve, filled the airplane up, and did some right seat night landings and currency. So... at least I flew today / tonight anyway. Would have preferred seeing friends and having a burger but 16 hours in one day and arriving back home at night just pushes it tooooo hard. 1.1 of laps in the dark was fun nevertheless. And now I want a cheeseburger that I’m home and see the photos. OMG those look delicious.
It got dicey getting in the air yesterday. First, on arrival at the airport the power was out. Our electric bifold doors have no manual backup. Fortunately, it came back on in about 15 minutes. Second, it was still in the 20’s on engine start. The engine was warm due to the trouble lamp/blanket combo. And the battery was warmer than ambient due to the floodlight. But my Aerovoltz lithium iron battery, which normally spins the Little ROTAX with authority, was quite sluggish on the first try. Fired up on the second, but was quite rough for longer than usual. But the flight was gorgeous. Looking at winds aloft the night before, about 25k from the west at 9,000’, I was concerned about turbulence from the mountains. But there was a significant temperature inversion - about 3°C on the surface and 7°C at 7,000’ - and that may have led to the perfectly smooth air we found. About :50 going the 100 nm over, and 1:30 coming back. Nice meeting a lot of the POA cronies in person. We need to make this a regular thing. Not easy to see, but the Harris VOR is on the peak just right of center in the second photo.
Thanks Randy! It was nice meeting you and your lovely wife. I appreciated the words of encouragement from both of you.
Having surgery on my neck due to a herniated disc. Caused from doing too many times in response to your posts. You'll be getting the bill.