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North Carolina trip report
While I was building my RV, I made a list of all the places I wanted to fly it when it was finished. It’s a long list but the top three were Oshkosh, First Flight Airport at Kill Devil Hills and JAARS Townsend field (N52) in Waxhaw, NC. Everybody’s heard of the first two places, but what’s in Waxhaw, North Carolina? Well it’s about as close to “home” for me as any place on earth.
It is the headquarters of the mission aviation organization JAARS that my parents joined in the early ‘70’s, and that’s where they were living when I was born in nearby Charlotte. While most of my childhood was spent in the Amazon region of Brazil, we spent a lot of time at the JAARS center whenever we were back here in the States. Got my first car there, started dating a pretty blond named Kathleen, and made lots of other great memories over the years. My parents now live right off the end of runway 22 and it’s only a four hour flight from KCID. So you wouldn’t think it would take me a year and a half to get around making this trip, but I wanted to spend some time with the whole family, not just make a quick round-trip flight. And the RV only has two seats. Sooo...
[EAA Chapter 33] (More)
UK RV-8 G-HILZ First Flight
Stan Hodgkins performed the first flight on October 29th, 2007 from North Weald (famous ex WW2 fighter base just to North East of London). There were only a few issues to be worked out before a second flight was undertaken that same day. Ellie rode along in the back as Official Test Observer / note taker. This was Ellie's first ever flight in an RV...
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Put-in-Bay after the tourists are gone
Late Fall, and the recipe is usually for dreary, cloudy, windy days or bright, sunny, windy days. Today we got two out of three: bright and sunny, but not much wind. Brave Sir Hogarth was clamoring to get out there and fertilize his little patch of lawn fairly early this morning, but the reward for being the guy to put him out was this promise of a great flying day:
The forecast had predicted this very thing, and against all odds it actually turned out to be right. Just in case the unthinkable occurred and we really did get the weather that was promised, I had checked in with Co-pilot Rick to see if he was interested in sharing a hop to Urbana for watery coffee and a filling breakfast. After setting that up, I ran the numbers for a follow-on trip up to Put-in-Bay, just in case he was amenable to a trip up there.
We had agreed on an 0830 go time, and the ambient temps at 0800 were best described as brisk gusting frigid, so I bundled up in a long sleeve T-shirt, the very comfy Ohio Valley RVAtors hoody sweatshirt, and an Ohio State jacket that would not only keep me warm but celebrate the decisive victory over Joe Pa's Nittany Lions Saturday night. Gloves and a hat completed the ensemble.
