Maybe this will explain….

If it looks like this inside the hangar, can you imagine the outside?

There’s plenty going on in the back of the hangar, though!

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Ya still gotta airplane, doncha??

Yes, I know. It must seem as if I’ve completely forsaken flying my RV-6 and writing to the Papa Golf Chronicles in favor of building an RV-12 (which you have to admit is twice as good as an RV-6, if only numerically) but between the unfavorable weather and a lingering lower back pain, I simply haven’t been able to fly. Until today, that is.

While the Weather-out-the-Window™ screamed “Fall Football,” it was still adequate for a local trip. More than adequate, really, with crystal clear air and very few clouds hanging around up at the 6,000′ level. A little windy, though, with winds out of the north at a brisk 10 gusting 15. Well within my limits, of course, but maybe a little challenging after not having flown for awhile. Just the kind of thing that one could accurately call “good practice,” or maybe even “character building.”

Bolton was using runway 4 which equated to a roughly 45 degree crosswind from the left. As I lined up for takeoff I reminded myself that a left crosswind accentuates the normal left-turning tendency on takeoff caused by the torque of the engine, so I’d need to be ready with copious amounts of corrective right rudder. I reminded my brain just fine, but as is sometimes the case, my feet didn’t get the memo. The first 50 yards or so of alternately swerving towards the grass to the left and then to the right was enough to wake them up, the lazy good-for-nothing slackers.

I could tell almost right away that while the skies looked benign from the ground, in actuality they were going to be pretty bumpy. Why that came as even a slight surprise to me in light of 10 gusting 15 winds is beyond me – I should have expected it. I tried to take a few pictures of my neighborhood as I flew past, but the bumps kept me from getting any in sharp focus. This one was the best I could get:

With no real plan in mind, I headed towards the south east to see how the fall foliage was doing. I took a circle around Mister Sterling (which is what Co-pilot Egg and I call Mt. Sterling after seeing a road sign the misspelled it as Mr. Sterling) and grabbed a shot of the dam:

As I was cruising around (and by “cruising” I mean 2,000 rpm and 120 knots, which both saves gas and gets me acclimated to RV-12 speeds) I noticed that my articial horizon had devloped a bit of a bad attitude. It was, in fact, spinning faster than a White House Press Secretary:

Good thing I don’t need it, eh?

I pointed Papa back to the north for the short trip back to Bolton with the idea that I’d approach the field from a position between Bolton and Rickenbacker International. That would set me up for either a right downwind or a direct entry into right base for runway 4, whichever suited the tower controller best at the moment. I called in while still eight miles southeast, hoping for the direct to right base approach. That’s right around the time all hell broke loose. A Cessna followed right on my transmission with a call that placed him right in my current area, two more Cessnas were struggling for position on right downwind, and a helicopter wanted to transition the Class D airspace. I was given clearance to enter a right downwind with the stipulation that I should report 3 miles from the field and should also start looking for the Cessna that was somewhere nearby. He was cleared to watch out for me.

As I usually do when confronted with the info that there’s a Cessna near me and headed for the same place, I abandoned my RV-12 acclimation training and goosed Papa up to 2,600 rpm. Better to get there first than it is to get there together, I always say. It worked fine for that, but unfortunately caused a wee bit of bother when I reached the 3 mile point:

“Six Papa Golf, three mile right base runway four.”

“Six Papa Golf, continue right base, report turning three mile final. Zero Six Bravo, make a 360 from your downwind and report re-entering downwind. [pause] Zero Six Bravo, make a 360 from your downwind and report re-entering downwind. [pause] Zero Six Bravo? [pause] ZERO SIX BRAVO??”

“Tower, Zero Six Bravo, we’re on a right base.”

Me: cringe! So am I!!

Tower: “Oh. Cessna Two Six Six, make a 360 from your downwind and report re-entering downwind.”

By that time, I was ready for the turn onto final, and reported that to the tower.

“Six Papa Golf, cleared to land number two behind the Cessna on right base.”

“Tower, Six Papa Golf, traffic not in sight.”

“He’s now on short final, just over the numbers.”

Ah, there he was. Four airplanes stacked up behind him and me on final, and he was landing right.on.the.numbers. If ever there was a situation for intelligently landing a bit long so as to clear the runway more quickly, this was it. I still had a pocket full o’ scoot going and was really working hard to get Papa slowed down to 100mph so I could drop the flaps to help get him slowed down even more. Now here’s a bit of free advice for you: if you’re going to insist on landing right on the numbers and giving yourself a three-quarter mile taxi to the first available taxi way on a day when four airplanes are stacked up behind you, don’t slow to a crawl on the runway and taxi at walking speed. Really. Just don’t do it.

I had planned on landing long as is my wont when arriving on runway four, but that clearly wasn’t in the cards any longer. And getting slowed down in time to land shorter than I had planned required a bit of hard rein on Papa, but I got it done. Even with all that and the gusty winds besides, it was actually a pretty good landing.

At the end of the day I’d say some character got built, especially considering the high degree of hecticity on the landing.

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Baby steps

Walk before you run. Dip in a toe before diving in. Slow and steady wins the race.

All well and good, but here I am sitting inside on a rainy, gloomy Saturday with nothing to do when I could be deburring the vertical stab ribs.

I’ve been pacing myself on the RV-12 so as to minimize the shock to the normal family routines and pace of life, but I decided this morning to make a major step forward: I printed out and filled in the Vans Order Form for the RV-12 Empennage.

All that’s left to do now is fax it in.

I should have that done by early December at the latest.

Baby steps.

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Oshkosh: A few pix that were trapped on my cell phone

Two hints that you’re driving to Oshkosh:

Hint 1: You’re stuck in Chicago traffic.
Hint 2: You’re stuck behind some dude pulling a helicopter.

These are a couple of pics from the rib building workshop:

And completely apropos of nothing, here’s the odometer on my Miata crossing a huge generational demarcation. It’s officially an old car now:

Still runs great, though.

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I go through this now and then

Every now and then, I sit back and ask myself what’s next for me with regards to flying. Would I, for example, like to move up to a more capable airplane, perhaps one offering more power or additional seats? ‘Tis certain that if that were the case, I’d also want an upgrade in avionics to allow for more predictable travel on longer trips. Which is to say, I’d want IFR capability. And a two-axis autopilot. And I’d want to stay at least in the neighborhood of the 150 knots I get from Papa. It gets thorny quickly when thinking along these lines because it doesn’t take very long at all to populate a minimum requirement list that equates to a six-figure cost.

Or would I prefer to move down into a simpler plane, perhaps one of the spiffy new LSA types popping up on the market from such trusted sources as Cessna and Cirrus? Well, those are brand new airplanes and as such also quickly exceed the six-figure plateau. And the result should I take this path? A small two-seat airplane that can’t fly at night or in IMC conditions and can only (by law!) cruise at speeds less than 120.1 knots. There are also benefits, of course, but they are of the nature that they won’t be beneficial to me until I begin to get concerned about passing the FAA Class 3 physical.

There’s nothing magical about a six-figure price tag; with the proper financing I could swing it. But there’s the rub: debt sucks. Debt on things like, oh, houses makes sense. Debt on heavily depreciating things like cars? Not so much. Debt on a pure luxury item like an airplane? Really, out of the question. There’s also the issue of ongoing costs. Insurance would surely be higher as the hull value climbed. In the case of a store-bought plane, maintenance costs would also become more burdensome. These are hard increases to live with in the absence of some serious increase in needed capability.

So, what is it I need? As I look out the window this morning, I see moderately low clouds and the promise of afternoon haze. Let’s say that I wanted to fly somewhere today, or in a more typical scenario, let’s say that I flew somewhere yesterday and spent the night. I’m looking at maybe 1,000′ ceiling and three miles visibility today and I’m not going to be able to fly home. This is light IFR and is exactly the kind of weather I’d like to be able to deal with when it arises. I don’t need the capability to make an ILS approach to 1 mile and 200′ minimums; I’d be satisfied with being able to make approaches to the typical GPS or non-precision minimums of 800 and 1.

With that in mind, I always circle back to the question of whether I need a new airplane to do that. The answer is no. With the right avionics, Papa could do that. Note that this is by no means a revelation – I’ve noodled my way down this path many times. The problem, as you can imagine, comes down to cost and effort. I haven’t quite figured out what it would cost, but I know it would be a lot of effort. I figure I’d need at least:

– a glass panel six-pack replacement such as the Blue Mountain Sport EFIS ($6,995!!) or something from Dynon
– an ICOM A-210 ($1,500) to replace the quirky A-200 I have now
– a two-axis autopilot ($2,500 – $3,000)
– a better pitot tube (I could buy this today)

This is the Blue Mountain EFIS:

It’s amazing technology and at $7,000 is a relative bargain. The problem there, though, is the “relative” qualifier. Relative to, say, a Garmin 600 or a full-blown Chelton/Dynon/Grand Rapids set up, it’s dirt cheap. Relative to home enhancements, food, clothing, a vacation, or any number of non-aviation related items, it’s pretty expensive. It would provide an increase in the market value of the plane should I ever decide to sell it, but those boosts are never anywhere near the cost of the enhancements. You just can’t bank on intangibles like that. There might be something to be said for increased safety-of-flight, but I have something similar to that already: I don’t fly in marginal weather. Can’t get a whole lot safer than that!

I’m guessing at a $10,000 – $13,000 price tag just for the hardware. The installation would take either months for me to do, or a couple of thousand dollars more to pay someone to do it for me. And get ready for the recurring costs! Database updates, XM NEXRAD subscription, and the IFR pitot-static/transponder check every two years. Well, I already have to do the transponder check, so I guess I’m already paying for at least that part of the recurring stuff. Still, do I need another $100/month in recurring costs?

I used to think that it would be more cost effective to sell Papa and just buy a plane that already has all that stuff, but now I’m not so sure. First, I’m no longer confident that the depressed market would value Papa as highly as I do, although the replacement plane might be had at a bargain rate as well. The second (and larger) problem is that I don’t think it would be easy to find a plane that has the ramp presence of Papa. And, well, we’ve developed a bit of a sentimental bonding too.

For anyone that’s read this far, I’m sorry to say that there’s no conclusion to be had here. This has been an on-going debate for a couple of years now, and it will continue as such. But here’s the cool thing: Oshkosh is less than a month away, and there is no better data-gathering/daydreaming-emporium on the face of this planet than Oshkosh.

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Too windy to fly

The Weather-out-the-Window&trade had winds at 20 gusting something. The ‘something’ doesn’t much matter – I was grounded by the ’20’. So, chores today. I got an early start, finding myself in the parking lot of the local Sears at 0845, hoping to buy a new weed whacker. They open at 10. I don’t know how they survive; I was in the hallowed halls of Home Depot by 0850, with a cart full of weed whacker, ancillary supplies, and a lilac bush that I would later plant for the Co-owner as a Mother’s Day gift. By the time I would have been admitted to Sears, I had the new whacker assembled, started, and the job of trimming the grass under the fence surrounding my stately manor already completed.

The next task on the list was to remove the old Ohio registration numbers from the nwe kayak. The numbers came off easily enough, but the annual registration tag left a foil residue embossed with rows and rows of the word ‘void.’ Nice. A, oh, way to go Ohio, in the immortal words of Chrissie Hynde. I don’t want to scrape it off with a razor blade – I’m afraid I’d cut into the plastic. Oh well, it’s one of those things that I will just stop noticing eventually.

I also wanted to wash the Miata and get some pictures of it with its new wheels and tires. Having already purchased two complete sets of tires within the last six months for the Subarus, I decided I might as well get some for the Miata too. The alignment of the right rear was significantly off kilter, resulting in a camber angle that was eating the inside of the right rear tire. I thought to just replace the tires, but it has 14″ wheels on it, and it seems that quality 14″ tires are hard to find anymore. All I could find was brands that were named as if a Saturday Night Live team if writers had been assigned the job of making up almost-Brand names. Goodyang? Firestove? I mean really, Uniloyal??? Please.

The only answer was to also buy a set of 15″ wheels.

Which I did:

It drives much better than it did, partially because the wheels have been aligned, and partially because of the shorter sidewall on the 15″ tires. When you consider that it drove pretty well already, well, you gotta figure it’s just amazing now. It has the responsiveness of, oh, something like a Van’s RV, and there’s nothing superior to that!

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Squeezing a full weekend into Sunday morning

The rumors of a rainy weekend were, in the actual event, greatly exaggerated. In fact, once the torrents of rain that drenched me while I was loading up the new kayak on Friday afternoon had enjoyed their little prank, we had very little additional rain at all. But, having fallen prey to the temptation to believe the worst about the weather in much the same way that I believe my decades-in-the-making 401k balance to be irretrievably lost to the vagaries of our turbulent times, I had resigned myself to an indoor weekend. That was partially acceptable, though, because I needed to get to the sporting goods store to acquire the accessories required for my new boat.

Specifically, I needed a second set of car-top carriers to allow for the simultaneous loading of the boats (just in case someone wanted to fly in and go kayaking) and I was hoping to also find a more kayak-suitable PFD (Personal Flotation Device) than the one that I’ve been using. The PFDs designed specifically for kayaking are designed to place the buoyant parts up high and the chest and back in order to make sitting down inside the small and narrow confines of the kayak more comfortable. Unfortunately, they’re expensive. The last I looked for one, the cheapest I could find was over $80.

The shopping went extremely well. I found a set of Thule J Carriers on sale for $129, and a Harmony FZ 6.7 marked down to $49. There must have been some other sale going on that we didn’t know about because the car carrier came up on the register at $99, and the PFD came up at an unbelievable $29! Combined with the great deal I got on the kayak itself, this entire acquisition has been extremely painless, albeit only in the pecuniary aspects. I haven’t forgotten that downpour that I stood in while loading the boat on Friday quite yet.

With the accessorizing taken care of, the only remaining task is to send in the registration form and get the decal back from the State of Ohio that will allow me to use the boat on “public” lakes and rivers. Don’t get me started… Well, to be fair, there are a couple of benefits that we get from the $20 registration fee. The state actually does a very good job of keeping the water ways clear of fallen trees and other obstructions, and they keep track of the boats by their Hull ID Numbers (HIN) which is probably helpful if one ever gets stolen.

Sunday also arrived with better than forecast weather, so Co-pilot Rick and I flew up to Urbana for a quick breakfast. Co-pilot Egg had a band concert scheduled for 2:00 and I needed to be back in time for that. The flight to Urbana was glass smooth under a thin overcast, and the pattern was completely empty when we reached the airport. In fact, there wasn’t a single airplane in evidence as we looked at the ramp from left downwind. With the air being dead calm, I had hoped for a perfect landing but that didn’t work out quite as expected.

As we were flaring over the numbers, I saw a couple of geese standing in the middle of the runway. Geese, who must be amongst the dimmest creatures on the planet and who exhibit a bare minimal level of a will to live, have a tendency to not move out of the way until absolutely required to. Luckily, when they finally do deign to remove themselves from the area in contention, they move in a predictable direction. Unlike, say, squirrels, who will often turn around and take the longest path out of the way. Thus was I able to swerve around them on the runway, avoiding what would have been a very expensive meeting of propeller and goose.

We got back from Urbana in time to load the new boat onto the ever-willing Subie for a quick 20 minute jaunt out to Madison Lake. I just wanted to paddle it around a bit to make sure it would float, and I thought it might be good experience for the Co-pilot, whose experience to date had been limited to canoes. They aren’t all that different, but you have to get used to the tippiness inherent in a kayak, and it’s easier to get a feel for the way you use the paddle for turning in a wide open lake than it is when running down a river and find yourself confronted with an immovable object. Go ahead, ask me how I know…

Yes, I know. I have the paddle upside down. Doh!

Rick, even on his first time out, managed to hold the paddle with the correct orientation:

The new boat works just fine. It paddles very much like the Shearwater in that it is easy to get it moving, it tracks well, it’s fast, and it takes serious effort to get it to make tight turns. Really, it’s just what I was looking for. We only had an hour or so to spend at the lake, but it was enough to get a good feel for the boat, and I think it was enough to hook Rick into coming back for more. I didn’t want to stay out too long anyway since the boat isn’t registered and it would be just my luck to run into a park officer with a citation quota to meet.

Despite the activity filled morning, we easily made it back in time for Egg’s concert.

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The AirPigz Video

This is the video resulting from Saturday’s trip to Warsaw (Indiana, not Poland):

AirPigz and Dave Gamble’s AarrrrV-6! from AirPigz on Vimeo.

We did that interview unrehearsed and in one take. I think that was beneficial – if I had had too much time to stew about it, I don’t think it would have gone as well.

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There are two sides to every story

This is the story from the other side of the ride that Papa and I took with Lynda from Girls With Wings:

http://thegirlswithwingsblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/now-this-is-flying.html

It’s a rare treat for me to see how things looked from the other point-of-view. As they say, a good time was had by all!

I left a comment on Lynda’s story:

“Was he laughing at me?”

No, empathizing. The same thing happens to me now and then. I’ve just learned to recognize the signs – not everyone will confess to how they’re feeling for some reason – so I keep an eye on how’re they’re looking.

One of my life dreams was to fly in a Pitts Special biplane. When I finally got to do it, I had to ask to go back to the airport after only 20 minutes. I felt horrible, but that part is all a distant memory. What I do remember far more clearly is the flight itself, how the airplane felt in my hands, just how uncomfortable 5 negative Gs is, and what an awesome experience it was. Oh, and how hard it is to see out the front of a Pitts, even in the air.

I’ve been thinking all weekend about what you said as we were flying over my house: I truly am lucky. One of the best aspects of giving rides in an RV is how the wide smiles people wear serve to remind me just how incredibly special it is that we have the freedom to fly the way we do, and how fortunate I am to have such a wonderful machine to do it in.

Maybe we can get a do-over on the Mexican food next time you’re in town, or grab some of those ribs at the airport. It’s super easy to get me to go to either of those places.

The freedom to fly where and when we want to is truly one of our more precious freedoms. And there are few better ways to do it than sharing the experience in a Van’s RV!

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Warsaw? That’s in Poland, right?

I’ve mentioned before how the internet has been the vehicle through which I have met many new and interesting people. You may have heard of a new(ish) internet-based social networking phenomenon called Twitter. People that haven’t used it (and many that have) profess to not understand what it’s used for, editorial cartoonists and stand-up comics mock it, and millions of people are addicted to it. Wikipedia (I have to assume that you already know what that is or we’ll be here all night) yet again fulfills its apparent raison d’etre of using a whole lot of words to deliver absolutely no meaningful definition:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications.

Yeah, and the Sun is a big burning orb of gas, but why should I care? The definition of what Twitter is is technically correct, but most people will not read that and have any inkling at all what function it provides. Unfortunately, there’s no single correct answer to that question. It’s similar to a hammer. Sure, you can drive nails with it. But is that to say that using it to crack walnuts is somehow wrong? Of course not!

At the end of the day, Twitter is what you make of it. To me, Twitter is a way to share my incredibly witty and insightful observations of life to an audience that could not care less about them. You know, kind of like a blog but with the added benefit of a 140 character limit that at least precludes my normal long windedness. The thing is, though, that every now and then someone will inexplicably find something I say to be at least minimally interesting and select my Twitter name to ‘follow’, presumably under the mistaken assumption that I will someday deliver yet another interesting thought. They then show up in a list of people that follow me, and I will usually go take a look at their tweets and see if I am interested in the types of things they say. Tweets can be replied to, and through time there emerges a list of fellow Twitterers that you begin to have conversations with. Through twitter, I have met people like @ou_flyer, @GirlsWithWings, and @AirPigz.

Which (after much ado) brings us to the topic of Warsaw. @AirPigz, whose real name is Martt, maintains what he calls a Blogizine at www.AirPigz.com. It’s an apt term describing a web site that is part blog, part magazine. In furtherance of the magazine aspect of AirPigz.com, Martt had invited me to fly to Warsaw, Indiana in order to make a short video about Papa Golf and RV airplanes in general. I pushed that idea onto the stack of destinations waiting for a day that would provide the good flying conditions and bright light that would provide just what was needed for making a good video. As you can see from the Weather-out-the-Window&trade forecast for this morning, we had a strong indication that today might be that day. The worst weather of the day was forecast to be a scattered layer of clouds at 7,000′ later in the afternoon. So, with that benign prognostication working in our favor, Co-pilot Rick and I decided to make the trip. Well, to be perfectly honest, I never got a chance to fully explain to Rick why we were going. Like me, for him it was enough just to know that we were going to go flying somewhere – the destination is usually only a secondary concern for either of us. We agreed to an 0830 departure which according my detailed and analytical flight planning equated to a 1000 arrival in Warsaw.

The one in Indiana, not the one in Poland.

We almost made it one time, too. Two things that I had failed to enter into my equations were the headwinds we found lurking in the azure morning sky at our cruising altitude of 6,500′ and the fact that I have not yet reinstalled the wheel pants that I removed for the annual inspection. My story is that I’m still monitoring the right brake caliper for fluid leakage, but it’s at least equally true that I’m just too darn lazy. With those factors working against us, we ended up with GPS-reported speeds across the ground ranging from the high 120’s to the low 130’s. That added a few minutes to the flight and made us a few minutes late on our arrival, but those are simply trivialities. No, the real cost came about because I had failed in yet one more aspect of my flight preparation: getting my caffeine fix via low-volume, bladder-friendly espresso instead of accident-waiting-to-happen coffee. Some lessons just need to be learned, re-learned, and re-re-learned, I guess.

As we landed and taxied around the fairly good-sized airport looking high and low for the terminal building (the location most likely to have a restroom), I had ample time to rue my dereliction of my duty to caffeinate wisely. After what had to have been at least two hours (as measured in Eastern Full Bladder Time, which is about 30 seconds in clock time) we eventually caught sight of a small sign pointing in the direction of the terminal and proceeded down the correct taxiway. As we pulled into the ramp in front of the terminal building we were met by two video cameras pointing our way, so we were fairly sure we had found Martt. We just weren’t sure which one was him. That was all quickly sorted out (20 minutes EFBT) with introductions and, after a quick potty break, we got down to business.

If there’s anything I like more than being the center of attention, it’s Papa being the center of attention. Martt and his fellow videographer Tim paid ample (and appropriate, even if it’s me that’s saying it) attention to Papa. Once they had their fill of him, it was my turn. Martt did a very professional interview with me, allowing me to stammer my way through the story of how and where I found the airplane, some of the benefits and challenges of owning and maintaining an RV, and some of the unique operational aspects of flying with such a low aspect ratio wing. It was kind of fun – I’ve never done anything like that before. As usual, I probably talked too much and too fast, but surely not nearly as badly as I would have had I been fueled by espresso. So there is that, anyway.

The next step was obvious: Martt and I saddled up for a ride. Martt has been surrounded by airplanes for his entire life as you can see in this very touching tribute to his recently deceased father. Still, there’s just something about an RV that is incomparable to any other airplane. Don’t believe me? Well, look at this RV grin and tell me that this man has not just returned from a unique experience.

With the flying done (at least for awhile), our thoughts turned to lunch. Well, at least everyone else’s did. I wasn’t particularly hungry yet, but I figured I could still have something small to munch on. We went into Warsaw to eat at Mad Anthony’s, an Indiana-based chain of micro-brewery restaurants. Good old Mad Anthony had a couple of very intriguing menus, but with a flight home still in the offing, I was only able to seriously consider ordering from one of them:

There were at least a dozen things on each menu that I wanted to try, but neither spicy, heavy food nor alcoholic drinks were deemed to be conducive to a safe and/or comfortable flight home. Even with that, I took a little stroll on the wild side. All pilots know the “8 hours from bottle to throttle rule,” and years ago I instituted my own rule regarding beer batter onion rings (“2 hours from rings to wings”), but nothing has prepared me for making a decision on this menu item:

Bavarian Pretzels
Two jumbo soft baked pretzels served with pale ale mustard and jalapeño beer cheese – perfect with one of our handcrafted ales or lagers!

Ok, I’m pretty clear on that last part about the handcrafted ales or lagers. Those are right out, no question about it. But pale ale mustard? Jalapeño beer cheese? Who knows! Having failed to come up with a nicely rhyming rule, I threw caution to the wind and had a pretzel dipped in the beer cheese. In my defense, I was clever enough to at least make sure that I avoided the jalapeños.

After a quick but fruitless stop at Wal-Mart to pick up some of the local brew that I found particularly appealing (they were out of it) , we made our way back to the airport to head home. As far as the War Bird beer goes, I have a new potential destination on my list of places to fly. I’m going to see of the War Bird brewery offers tours.

Ok, that was quick. It’s amazing that I still sometimes manage to underestimate just how much the Google Oracle knows:

Warbird Brewing Co. tours: http://www.warbirdbrewing.com/tour/tour_home.htm

Granted, that’s just a virtual tour, but I’m still going to fly to Indiana and bring back some non-virtual beer.

The wind had picked up a bit and we were starting to see some clouds in the sky as we climbed out of Warsaw and set course to Bolton Field. Those are the conditions that point to a bumpy ride home, and that can only mean one thing: it’s Rick’s turn to fly. It’s amazing how it always seems to work out that way, isn’t it? With nothing to do but look out the window and fiddle with the radio, I whiled away the miles, well, looking out the window and fiddling with the radio. It is thusly that we found ourselves tuned into Bolton tower while still 35 miles out, and it is thusly that we heard a kerfuffle going on between the tower and another airplane. More accurately, we could only hear one side of the story, but it wasn’t pretty. There were questions regarding whether or not it was possible that something had fallen off of the airplane, and more concerning questions (to us – we were heading straight at the place at 168 knots, after all) related to whether or not the airplane in question was still on the runway. As it turns out, the answer was “No.”

Plane Lands Off Runway At Bolton Field

Saturday, April 18, 2009 1:54 PM
Updated: Saturday, April 18, 2009 2:39 PM

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Investigators were called to Bolton Field on Saturday afternoon after a small airplane experienced a problem with its landing gear, causing it to land off the edge of the runway.

The landing occurred shortly after 2 p.m.

David Whitaker, vice president of business development and communications for the Columbus Regional Airport Authority, said the pilot was the only person on board the aircraft, 10TV News reported.

The pilot was not injured during the landing, Whitaker said.

Whitaker described the plane as a general aviation recreational aircraft, 10TV News reported.

Whitaker also said that the airfield would follow protocol and close to commercial traffic until an investigation was completed.

And to think that Rick and I had just been commenting on the idea that we could pack so much into a day and still be home before 3:00. That clearly wasn’t going to be the case. In fact, the best that the tower could tell me was that the runway was closed and that they had no idea when it would re-open. As luck would have it, I had just programmed the tower phone number into my cell phone on Friday, so at least I would be able to call them for updates from wherever we ended up landing. They didn’t seem keen on that idea when I confirmed the phone number with them, but that was probably because they were still in the throes of their incident response activities.

Rick and I figured we had two choices: Darby Dan or Madison Co. I decided on MadCo, figuring that they’d have better magazines than Darby Dan which really hasn’t got much more than a hangar. For some reason, I never even thought of the grass strip at Columbus Southwest. Probably because with it being only 2.5 miles from my house, it wasn’t nearly inconvenient enough. That’s water under the bridge, though. We landed at MadCo. After a couple hours of relatively entertaining conversations with some of the MadCo denizens, another stranded Bolton-based pilot, and completely uninformative calls to the tower, I decided that we couldn’t be sure that the runway was going to be returned to service at all. I made arrangements for a temporary home for Papa with the always helpful folks in the airport office and called home to have the Co-owner make the half hour drive to come pick us up. Regular readers of The Chronicles have probably already seen this coming: with my inherent sense of ironic timing, I called the tower again when the co-owner was about five minutes from arriving to give us a ride home.

The runway was open.

She pulled into the parking lot two minutes later.

All told, we spent almost three hours waiting at MadCo, but I figure that’s just part of flying. We pride ourselves on being able to respond to ever-changing situations and solve unexpected problems. And after all, there are certainly worse places to spend a few idle hours than at a county airport on a fine spring day!

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