A day in flight - Vonnegut style.
Had a great day today - thought I'd share the story with everyone with pictures.
There was a fly-in today at Whitford's Field in Weedsport, NY. Whitford's Field looks like this:
There, the International Organization of Women's Pilots, the "99's" hosted a spot landing and flour-bombing contest. Their logo looks like this:
I learned about this from my tailwheel instructor, Martha, who owns a Citabria. Martha and her Citabria look like this:
(That's Martha up front.)
She was taking a friend of hers there, and wanted me to take one of her PPL students in a C150 to give him XC instruction enroute, and fly with him while he competed in the spot landing contest. I was happy to oblige. After he competed, and Martha competed in her Citabria, I was going to switch planes and *attempt* to compete with my measly 3 hours of tailwheel time.
After we got there I took her student around the pattern a few times to practice, and to determine if he was good to solo for the contest, but the winds were a bit too rough for him. No biggie - I'd fly with him for the contest.
Then we had some lunch - the owner of the field, Whitford I presume, made a great cheeseburger. It looked kind of like this:
Then I took her student up for the spot landing contest - he did great with his best landing out of three being only 25 feet from the line! Martha was in trail behind us and her best landing ended up being 35 feet from the line. Yup, her student beat her. Martha was probably feeling like this:
:banghead:
Then we landed, and I hopped into the Citabria. After three attempts at the spot landing and one flour bomb run - whoops, sorry - the flour bomb looked like this:
Oh yeah, during the flour bomb portion, I was sticking my head out the window pretty far to see the target, and the wind robbed me of my favorite sunglasses! They looked like this, RIP:
Anyway, I landed, and was amazed to hear I had tied for first place! My best landing was two feet from the line! Since Martha owns the plane, AND is my tail wheel instructor, once again, she probably felt like this:
anic:
(Seriously though, she was happy for us!)
I got my pick of prizes, and picked something I hoped Kristen would love. It looked like this:
Then it was time to go home. Martha, knowing I am a former Army helo pilot, has been subtly bugging me about flying formation. I usually blow it off, not wanting to be responsible for training and briefing a formation flight to someone without experience in it. But today I was feeling good, and gave her a detailed brief about formation flight, and flew back to Rochester as a flight of two. The taxi out looked like this:
And the flight looked like this:
Enroute we were talking on 123.45, and an overhead American Eagle flight chimed in and asked if I needed a job. He said to apply at American Eagle because their mins were 800/100. An American Eagle flight looks like this:
I said I was going to fly freight, and he asked why when I could be flying a jet instead.
On approach, we were treated to a rare sight at Rochester. An F-16 did a low approach on a nearby runway and finished with a radical-looking midfield break. An F-16 looks like this:
At the end of the day, we were all pretty happy, and since I did kick her ass in her own airplane during the spot-landing contest, Martha gave me this:
When I got home, I gave Kris her Aviator Bear. She was so happy, she looked like this:
And once she sees the picture I chose for her, I'm going to be in this:
The end!
Had a great day today - thought I'd share the story with everyone with pictures.
There was a fly-in today at Whitford's Field in Weedsport, NY. Whitford's Field looks like this:
There, the International Organization of Women's Pilots, the "99's" hosted a spot landing and flour-bombing contest. Their logo looks like this:
I learned about this from my tailwheel instructor, Martha, who owns a Citabria. Martha and her Citabria look like this:
(That's Martha up front.)
She was taking a friend of hers there, and wanted me to take one of her PPL students in a C150 to give him XC instruction enroute, and fly with him while he competed in the spot landing contest. I was happy to oblige. After he competed, and Martha competed in her Citabria, I was going to switch planes and *attempt* to compete with my measly 3 hours of tailwheel time.
After we got there I took her student around the pattern a few times to practice, and to determine if he was good to solo for the contest, but the winds were a bit too rough for him. No biggie - I'd fly with him for the contest.
Then we had some lunch - the owner of the field, Whitford I presume, made a great cheeseburger. It looked kind of like this:
Then I took her student up for the spot landing contest - he did great with his best landing out of three being only 25 feet from the line! Martha was in trail behind us and her best landing ended up being 35 feet from the line. Yup, her student beat her. Martha was probably feeling like this:
:banghead:
Then we landed, and I hopped into the Citabria. After three attempts at the spot landing and one flour bomb run - whoops, sorry - the flour bomb looked like this:
Oh yeah, during the flour bomb portion, I was sticking my head out the window pretty far to see the target, and the wind robbed me of my favorite sunglasses! They looked like this, RIP:
Anyway, I landed, and was amazed to hear I had tied for first place! My best landing was two feet from the line! Since Martha owns the plane, AND is my tail wheel instructor, once again, she probably felt like this:
anic:(Seriously though, she was happy for us!)
I got my pick of prizes, and picked something I hoped Kristen would love. It looked like this:
Then it was time to go home. Martha, knowing I am a former Army helo pilot, has been subtly bugging me about flying formation. I usually blow it off, not wanting to be responsible for training and briefing a formation flight to someone without experience in it. But today I was feeling good, and gave her a detailed brief about formation flight, and flew back to Rochester as a flight of two. The taxi out looked like this:
And the flight looked like this:
Enroute we were talking on 123.45, and an overhead American Eagle flight chimed in and asked if I needed a job. He said to apply at American Eagle because their mins were 800/100. An American Eagle flight looks like this:
I said I was going to fly freight, and he asked why when I could be flying a jet instead.
On approach, we were treated to a rare sight at Rochester. An F-16 did a low approach on a nearby runway and finished with a radical-looking midfield break. An F-16 looks like this:
At the end of the day, we were all pretty happy, and since I did kick her ass in her own airplane during the spot-landing contest, Martha gave me this:
When I got home, I gave Kris her Aviator Bear. She was so happy, she looked like this:
And once she sees the picture I chose for her, I'm going to be in this:
The end!
