Jonathan Baron
New member
As I'm sure is the case with most of you, your darling is not always your wife....er....I should put that differently. There are those big fly-ins you tell everyone about, and those you mention to only a very few, if anyone.
For Luscombes on the west coast, we have our BIG Columbia event, with the assorted normal things: aircraft judging, spot landing, lots of photos of everyone taken from behind at the major evening meal, and plenty of photos of disembodied flying machines (the airplane is there but the pilot is nowhere to be seen) sitting in stagnant repose. The diet is pancakes and chili - served at different times you hope, with perhaps a fly-out breakfast tossed in that maybe half the people go to. Nothing wrong with it because here is where you're likely to meet a lot of friends.
My favorite Luscombe fly-in though (this will come around to Bellancas, I promise) is held at Cottage Grove Oregon. Maybe six or eight of us show up. No hanging around at this event, as its centerpiece is the Poker Run. You know - fly to various destinations, and draw a card at each. What makes this one interesting is that some of the destinations render a GPS useless. The fly-in organizer calls the next field and everyone jumps into their Luscombes. Sometimes the destination has an identifer; sometimes it does not. Yep, guys get lost. They're never shy about it either on the radio. They get pretty pissed off. I call this going SBL: Surrounded by Lostness. The more you try and help, the more lost they become.
Cottage Grove is not far from Albany...Oregon. I need my Bellanca fixed up and ready to go in a week, at the most, to make Blakesburg (another fly-in with constant activity). I made this clear from the very day I had to land it wheels-in-the-wells at Albany. I asked repeatedly if this date would be met. Six weeks had passed, along with numerous assurances. "Well, let's ALL go to Albany and see how it's coming," the organizer suggested. So off we went.
This unintentionally became an unannounced inspection - a bad one. As folks saw the state of my 'Master they moved discretely away, as they did not want to discourage my coming eruption. I did not mention the subject again during the rest of the event...well....I did ask if I could have a Maverick missile instead of the regular two choices: the traditional flour bomb, or the bundle of actual flowers "bomb." And, for the first time in my life, I actually won a poker hand! They had to explain to me how, exactly, I'd won it, as I know nothing about card games.
Hey, I did get to Tillamook and got to see the QUITE LARGE Bellanca Aircruiser. Ah....gorgeous!
Blakesburg via Luscombe again....well....did that once, swore to never do it again, but who in blazes wants to take a commercial flight to anywhere anymore. No, I don't use hair gel
Jonathan
For Luscombes on the west coast, we have our BIG Columbia event, with the assorted normal things: aircraft judging, spot landing, lots of photos of everyone taken from behind at the major evening meal, and plenty of photos of disembodied flying machines (the airplane is there but the pilot is nowhere to be seen) sitting in stagnant repose. The diet is pancakes and chili - served at different times you hope, with perhaps a fly-out breakfast tossed in that maybe half the people go to. Nothing wrong with it because here is where you're likely to meet a lot of friends.
My favorite Luscombe fly-in though (this will come around to Bellancas, I promise) is held at Cottage Grove Oregon. Maybe six or eight of us show up. No hanging around at this event, as its centerpiece is the Poker Run. You know - fly to various destinations, and draw a card at each. What makes this one interesting is that some of the destinations render a GPS useless. The fly-in organizer calls the next field and everyone jumps into their Luscombes. Sometimes the destination has an identifer; sometimes it does not. Yep, guys get lost. They're never shy about it either on the radio. They get pretty pissed off. I call this going SBL: Surrounded by Lostness. The more you try and help, the more lost they become.
Cottage Grove is not far from Albany...Oregon. I need my Bellanca fixed up and ready to go in a week, at the most, to make Blakesburg (another fly-in with constant activity). I made this clear from the very day I had to land it wheels-in-the-wells at Albany. I asked repeatedly if this date would be met. Six weeks had passed, along with numerous assurances. "Well, let's ALL go to Albany and see how it's coming," the organizer suggested. So off we went.
This unintentionally became an unannounced inspection - a bad one. As folks saw the state of my 'Master they moved discretely away, as they did not want to discourage my coming eruption. I did not mention the subject again during the rest of the event...well....I did ask if I could have a Maverick missile instead of the regular two choices: the traditional flour bomb, or the bundle of actual flowers "bomb." And, for the first time in my life, I actually won a poker hand! They had to explain to me how, exactly, I'd won it, as I know nothing about card games.
Hey, I did get to Tillamook and got to see the QUITE LARGE Bellanca Aircruiser. Ah....gorgeous!
Blakesburg via Luscombe again....well....did that once, swore to never do it again, but who in blazes wants to take a commercial flight to anywhere anymore. No, I don't use hair gel
Jonathan
