International Flying

No... not quite what you think. We have started hosting foreign exchange students again. This year we have two boys: Nat from Thailand and Laurenz from Germany. Sunday morning we headed out to the airport to give them their first rides in the RV and in a small airplane. I spent about 30 mins with each of them, flying over the high school they will be attending and over our house. I also climbed up to 4k and let them fly around a little bit. Finished up showing them how an airplane stalls, does steep turns and finally a low approach down the runway. While I was up with Nat, I heard Ray (RV-10 N519RV) flying around, so he came down to Ottawa and we flew side by side for a few minutes. He had Brian and his wife Bonnie in the plane.

Both boys had a great time and really enjoyed it.

Oshkosh - Are we home yet?

Our trip to and visit in Illinois was fun. We got to spend time with Sandi's family including her Granddaughter. We got up Sunday morning and checked weather...again. Still looking kinda yucky over and around Ottawa. So we spent the day visiting some more. Around 4pm we decided to jump in the plane and try to make it home. We got about 60 miles SW of MLI and we were at 2000 feet to stay below a cloud deck. Looking ahead all we saw were clouds, haze and MUCK!! After a brief discussion, we decided to turn around and head back to Moline. Sandi called her parents as we were on final to come get us. We spent the evening watching the weather closely...looking for any opportunity to slip out. No luck. We spent the night again. Did a little geocaching Monday morning and spent MORE time with the family before jumping in the plane around 3:30pm to take another shot at getting home. We climbed to 6500 feet and were cruising along at about 167 knots. Before long, we were about 45 miles from home. About then, we ran into a little cloud deck and had to drop to about 2200 feet until we were about 10 miles from Ottawa where the clouds started breaking up. We landed without incident, unloaded the airplane, loaded the car and got the plane tucked away. It was 5:30pm when we jumped in the car for our 4 mile drive home. We had a GREAT time but it is WONDERFUL to be home!!!!