Wild Onions & Wild Fires
The weather managed to hold together for the most part letting us depart southbound in a very light mist for the 18th Annual Wild Onions n' Eggs Flyin down in Oklahoma. Trip down was pretty uneventful, cruising along at 148kts. We arrived in the pattern with 4 airplanes ahead of us and one behind. A decent landing on the grass runway and we were shuttled to the "RV" parking area. It's pretty nice flying an experimental to flyins as you usually get the special treatment instead of getting relegated to the south 40. We were warmly greeted and signed in for breakfast. Allen Barrett was there to greet us as well. We ate our breakfast of wild onions with eggs, sausage, potatoes, and biscuits. 7 RV's made an appearance with maybe 40-50 other airplanes of various types. Alan Judy arrived in his nicely done RV-6. There were two RV8's, RV-4 and 3 RV-6's. After some breakfast, we stuffed Allen in the passenger seat (forgot to bring our spare seat cushion) and we went for a little tour around the area. Later he went up with AJ and had some serious fun.
Trip down.. notice the weather the 496!
Short final into 44M
Allen Barrett and I taxing out.
We left 44M around 11:30 or so headed back home. Just south of Grand Lake there was a HUGE grass/forest fire. Not sure that was a controlled burn as it was pretty windy and put up a cloud of smoke a mile wide and miles long. We landed at home around 1:00 ready for a serious power nap. Sandi was hoping we could get up to Illinois later that afternoon.
Fire on the ground!
Up at 3:30 and in the plane by 4:15 we winged it northeast bound to MO8 for some cheap gas. About 25 miles out we ran into a overcast cloud layer at 5,000ft so we had to dive down through a hole and leveled at 2,000 to say under the clouds. Was kinda looking like we wouldn't make it Illinois. We filled up and started looking at the METAR's on the new garmin and it was showing the weather SKC 30 miles north of our position and at our destination, so we departed for another run under the clouds at 2000 and 30 miles later we broke out in clear skies. Climbed back up to 5500, picked up flight following again and landed 5 mins before 7 at MLI. Sandi's dad was waiting for us.
This really shows you the power of the RV. Oklahoma in the morning followed by a 2 hour nap and then Illinois by sundown! By car that would have been 5 hours to Oklahoma and then 10 hours from OK to Moline. Holy Cow Batman! We did that in 5.5 hours in the RV! Very Nice!
PS - We rolled 180 hours on the hobbs on the way up here!
PPS - For Google Earth fans, here are the flights for the weekend.
We left 44M around 11:30 or so headed back home. Just south of Grand Lake there was a HUGE grass/forest fire. Not sure that was a controlled burn as it was pretty windy and put up a cloud of smoke a mile wide and miles long. We landed at home around 1:00 ready for a serious power nap. Sandi was hoping we could get up to Illinois later that afternoon.
Up at 3:30 and in the plane by 4:15 we winged it northeast bound to MO8 for some cheap gas. About 25 miles out we ran into a overcast cloud layer at 5,000ft so we had to dive down through a hole and leveled at 2,000 to say under the clouds. Was kinda looking like we wouldn't make it Illinois. We filled up and started looking at the METAR's on the new garmin and it was showing the weather SKC 30 miles north of our position and at our destination, so we departed for another run under the clouds at 2000 and 30 miles later we broke out in clear skies. Climbed back up to 5500, picked up flight following again and landed 5 mins before 7 at MLI. Sandi's dad was waiting for us.
This really shows you the power of the RV. Oklahoma in the morning followed by a 2 hour nap and then Illinois by sundown! By car that would have been 5 hours to Oklahoma and then 10 hours from OK to Moline. Holy Cow Batman! We did that in 5.5 hours in the RV! Very Nice!
PS - We rolled 180 hours on the hobbs on the way up here!
PPS - For Google Earth fans, here are the flights for the weekend.
posted by Matthew at 8:00 PM
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