TEX RV Fly-In and Petit Jean
We logged another great weekend trip! We departed Ottawa just after 2:00 on Friday heading south to Farmersville, TX where we would stay with Mel & Ann Asberry for the evening. We picked up a nice tailwind going down with ground speeds around 160kts. At that speed it took us just over 2 hours to get there. Mel & Ann have a private strip at their home. It is a 1500ft gravel runway. (I've been practicing short/soft field T/L) Builder-Buddy-Bill and I flew down last year in the Cessna RG and landed here. Bill did a decent job of getting it on the ground and we used most of the runway getting off.:-) I wasn't too worried about landing but taking off had me a bit concerned. Turns out my landing was crappy but the departure out Saturday morning was beautiful. My landing was crappy because I got it too slow and it fell out a bit as I was flaring. I had plenty of room, I should have just landed normally and not worried so much about it being short. For the departure Saturday I put in 15 degrees of flaps (per Mel's recommendation) and we were off the ground in 600ft and climbed right out. Whew! We had a great time with Mel & Ann. Aviation people are good peole!
Mel & Ann's place
On our way to Midlothian Saturday morning, we stopped at Mesquite airport for $3.40 gas and then on to the fly-in. The fly-in was great... 81 RV's came in throughout the day. Quite a few RV-9's this year. I was glad to see I wasn't the only unpainted RV on the field. Mike Schipper parked right next to me, reinforcing the fact that I need a PAINT JOB! Mike's plane is gorgeous. Sandi evern had a good time at the fly-in. We walked around looking at paint schemes. She also spent some time hanging out in the hangar with a few other ladies, showing off her airplane scrapbook. I met Brian Sowell and his RV-9A and saw Clay Rossimer's newly painted RV-9A as well. I spoke with a lot of other RV builders as well.. many asking about the SJ cowl and the long range tanks.
After lunch time, planes started heading out in droves. One interesting plane came in... it was HUGE. Check it out! When it took off 10 minutes later we thought it was going to fall out of the sky... it was slow and wouldn't climb. Not sure if the pilot was showing off or it is just a beast of an airplane.
With everyone heading out, we followed suit saying our farewell's to everyone and heading towards Arkansas to Petit Jean State Park. This is the nations first state park and it has an airport on the property. Nice long runway up on a hill. We landed only to find a couple dozen Cessna's! We landed in the middle of a Cessna 170's fly-in. A bunch of 170's with some 195's sprinkled in and another RV to boot. We were quickly invited to hang out with the group if we wanted. We called the lodge and they sent a van out to pick us up. We checked into our room and took a short nap and had some dinner. We then headed out on a short hike to see a waterfall. Nice little hike, very pretty in the Arkansas mountains. Our plan was to spend most of the day Sunday doing some more hiking, maybe get out on the lake but like every one of our trips so far, weather put a kink in our plans. Sunday morning we watched the weather channel to see a whole host of t-storms rolling through Oklahoma and southern Missouri. A call to FSS didn't paint a rosey picture. It wasn't awful but it wasn't blue skies either. We went for another short hike and then decided to head to the airport. We loaded up the plane and pointed towards home thinking we wouldn't get very far. As we climbed up it really didn't look bad at all! It was certainly soupy/hazy. We punched in direct OWI, got on flight following and let her rip. We made it home without running into any weather at all. Visibilty wasn't too good by the time we got home but certainly VFR. Per routine, we landed, unpacked and went for lunch at Applebee's. :-)
7.1 hours of total flight time, 5 landings, 4 new airports visited! A great weekend indeed!
On our way to Midlothian Saturday morning, we stopped at Mesquite airport for $3.40 gas and then on to the fly-in. The fly-in was great... 81 RV's came in throughout the day. Quite a few RV-9's this year. I was glad to see I wasn't the only unpainted RV on the field. Mike Schipper parked right next to me, reinforcing the fact that I need a PAINT JOB! Mike's plane is gorgeous. Sandi evern had a good time at the fly-in. We walked around looking at paint schemes. She also spent some time hanging out in the hangar with a few other ladies, showing off her airplane scrapbook. I met Brian Sowell and his RV-9A and saw Clay Rossimer's newly painted RV-9A as well. I spoke with a lot of other RV builders as well.. many asking about the SJ cowl and the long range tanks.
After lunch time, planes started heading out in droves. One interesting plane came in... it was HUGE. Check it out! When it took off 10 minutes later we thought it was going to fall out of the sky... it was slow and wouldn't climb. Not sure if the pilot was showing off or it is just a beast of an airplane.
With everyone heading out, we followed suit saying our farewell's to everyone and heading towards Arkansas to Petit Jean State Park. This is the nations first state park and it has an airport on the property. Nice long runway up on a hill. We landed only to find a couple dozen Cessna's! We landed in the middle of a Cessna 170's fly-in. A bunch of 170's with some 195's sprinkled in and another RV to boot. We were quickly invited to hang out with the group if we wanted. We called the lodge and they sent a van out to pick us up. We checked into our room and took a short nap and had some dinner. We then headed out on a short hike to see a waterfall. Nice little hike, very pretty in the Arkansas mountains. Our plan was to spend most of the day Sunday doing some more hiking, maybe get out on the lake but like every one of our trips so far, weather put a kink in our plans. Sunday morning we watched the weather channel to see a whole host of t-storms rolling through Oklahoma and southern Missouri. A call to FSS didn't paint a rosey picture. It wasn't awful but it wasn't blue skies either. We went for another short hike and then decided to head to the airport. We loaded up the plane and pointed towards home thinking we wouldn't get very far. As we climbed up it really didn't look bad at all! It was certainly soupy/hazy. We punched in direct OWI, got on flight following and let her rip. We made it home without running into any weather at all. Visibilty wasn't too good by the time we got home but certainly VFR. Per routine, we landed, unpacked and went for lunch at Applebee's. :-)
7.1 hours of total flight time, 5 landings, 4 new airports visited! A great weekend indeed!
posted by Matthew at 8:15 AM
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