Feature

Boone RV Fly-in

by Bob Collins

Despite the fact the RV-7 builders numbers may "roll over" and pass my builder number (70240) again before I'm likely to be flying, I've never been to an RV fly-in. I've patrolled the RV corral at Oshkosh, of course, but I've never been to one of the many grassroots fly-ins around the country.

So when the announcement came this year from W&C Aircraft Works of the Boone, Iowa RV fly-in, I asked my builder-pal, Warren Starkebaum, if he'd like to go check out those canopies (we're both working on that stage of our projects) and, oh yeah, "can we fly down in your plane? I'll buy the fuel." Warren flies a 1948 Cessna 170.

I've lived in Minnesota, now, for 15 years and the notion that I'm a stone's throw from Iowa still hasn't entered my consciousness. But this year, it'd be Iowa or bust.

Last Saturday dawned, however, with a low layer of scuzz, caused by a front extending along I-90 from border-to-border in Minnesota. Rats. Right between St. Paul and Boone, Iowa.

Warren was to fly over from Crystal (KMIC) to pick me up at Lake Elmo (21D) and I drove the 7 or 8 miles around 6:30 to check out the scene. All was quiet. No flying. I'd give up. Warren didn't. "Let's check back in an hour," he said. An hour later, I drove back. A few breaks in the clouds quickly closed. Warren still wasn't giving up.

A few hours passed and although it was now clear we were going to miss the forums in the morning, our goal was still to check out RVs for some clue of what we were to do next on our own projects. By 10 a.m., despite an increasing number of airports along our intended route reporting higher ceilings, I was disappointed when I drove back to Lake Elmo for a look-see, and saw another band of low-cloud showers moving across the airport.

I called Warren on his cellphone, but he didn't answer. So I left a "this isn't going to happen message" and headed back home, mentally reconfiguring my day to allow for lawnmowing and dog-crap picking-up. Fun.

Not far from the airport, the phone rang. "Where are you?" Warren asked.

"I'm a little south of Lake Elmo and it looks like crap down here," I said. "Where are you?"

"I'm here," he said. He'd made it the dozen or so miles and was at Lake Elmo, so I turned around and met him, and we evaluated the weather situation. Indeed, the airport was in better shape, but the clouds were dark south of the airport. And we needed to fly south.

The chapter house of EAA 54 was open, so we commandeered their television to watch the aviation weather channel that Minnesota provides. The front was moving East and we surmised that we could launch and if the I-90 area was still blocked, we'd land in Mankato and make some decisions.

And so we launched. And about 2 minutes later, we were at the very base of the clouds, about 1,000 feet AGL, me with my Garmin 296 ("there are towers over here, come right a little"), puttering along, still wondering if this would work. But a few minutes later things lifted a bit and some breaks of sun revealed a hole. We knew the band of weather was thin.

"Why don't we get on top?" I suggested. So we cork-screwed up and over the front, and could see right away that, the radar we'd watched a few minutes earlier was correct. Up to 4,500 we go.

It was a terrific, if slow by RV standards ride, as Warren and I compared notes on the decisions to come (I revealed my new fondness for the Vertical Power unit and an old disappointment that I hadn't yet achieved a level of wealth to build an RV). By Owatonna, the clouds evaporated and I got a breathtaking view of the Heartland. Minnesota is lush and green and displaying the promise that the America's midsection conjures up every spring.

I followed my GPS and a sectional that Warren had and as we crossed into Iowa, heralded by dozens and dozens of acres dotted with windmills and pig farms, I noticed a Boone MOA on the sectional and cursed my out-of-date database in the Garmin.

"You better call Flight Watch and find out if that thing is active," I said.

And so, Warren did and there was silence before the briefer came back and said, "I don't have a Boone MOA."

Sternly, Warren informed the briefer that we were flying to the RV gathering in Boone, which was right in the middle of the Boone MOA and we needed to find out if it was active.

More silence. And then, "There hasn't been a Boone MOA in 20 years," the briefer said.

Now the silence was at our end as I quickly unfurled the chart, turned it over, and looked at the date. August 1986.

There was only one way to get out of this. "Thank you," Warren transmitted as we both howled at our collective, ummm, errrr, well, you know.

Summer in the Midwest means haze, lots of haze, and as we got closer to Boone, our visibility declined significantly. Iowa is much browner than Minnesota this time of the year and we could only speculate as to why. We dropped altitude and as we did we heard someone with the world's greatest radio voice ever transmit that he was a flight of two RVs north of the airport inbound. We, of course, were a flight of one Cessna 170, north of the airport, inbound. It got our attention.

"There they are," Warren said, pointing out his window just behind...no abeam....err... ahead....way ahead of us, and slightly lower. It was the first time I saw an RV in flight from the air. And it was breathtaking. "I gotta build one of these things," I said.

We tried to keep an eye on them as we neared the pattern, but they got small quick. We entered the downwind and heard Mr. Great Voice announce they were on final and would make an overhead break for landing. As he said that -- and were abeam the numbers -- we saw the two RVs with their smoke on , over the runway. A beautiful blue RV-8 was pulling up.

"Warren, fly faster!" I wanted to shout as I could easily see the possibility of the RV-8 rolling over to get on our "six," pulling the trigger, sending to send us to our deaths, then announcing he was now "number one for landing."

"I gotta build one of these," I thought again.

We landed, taxied in, and got directed over to the "other side of the tracks," where non-RVs go, jumped out and introduced ourselves to the marshall, and headed for the chow line. We may be well late, but our timing was perfect.

Since I'm pulling together the RV BBQ at Oshkosh, I was as interested in how the logistics of feeding people was handled as I was how those stinkin' canopy frames get put together. And the crew did a terrific job. The tables were full of people, the line was moving smoothly (you know, that feed trough full of ice and water to keep the drinks cold is wayyyyy better than trying to stock 10-12 coolers as we're going to do at Oshkosh. Anybody living near Oshkosh got one we could use for a night?). First-class stuff.

Behind me in line, it turned out that Mr. Voice was none other than famed RVator Tom Irlbeck (photo), one of my all-time RV heros, accompanied by Stephen Foster of Somerset, Wisc. Originally, I was going to meet up with Tom at the fly-in to do an interview with him for a Hotline article, but I left my recording and laptop in St. Paul. We made loose arrangements for me to drive to his home one of these days to do it.

Tom is a CFI, built and flies the RV-8, and was a Top Gun instructor in the Navy. He flew F-4s. When I get my RV-7A ready to fly, I'm going to Tom for instruction and I'd probably try to convince him to be my test pilot. I can't wait to do the interview and the article.

I didn't see many familiar faces at the tables, but then again, I've never been to an RV fly-in before. I looked at the registration list and saw folks from Omaha, and Kansas City there and thought, "wow, that's a long way away," forgetting that I was (a) in Iowa and (b) at an RV fly-in.

I was particularly pleased to run into Kevin Faris of Omaha, whom I haven't seen since the first RV BBQ in 2003. He and his wife, Sandy, are in the final stages of their RV-7 project. He's in the electrical business and was helpful a few years ago when I was first trying to get my head around the issue. But I haven't heard from him lately and, frankly, I was getting concerned. Funny, how the RV community is, ain't it?

We looked around the W&C hangar and builder assistance center and saw several RV-10s under construction and an RV-9. And, after lunch, we hit the ramp. Kevin showed me canopy in the RV (a "6," I believe) he flew over in and gave me some tips in drilling the canopy and countersinking, etc.

Most of the RVs we saw were sliders; making me wonder if anyone is building tip-ups anymore and, if so, do they survive long enough to make it to the ramp at fly-ins where the temperature is 90 degrees.

I looked closely at some of the RVs and, thankfully, I found some that weren't perfect. Oshkosh is great, but it's a bad place if you're looking to build your confidence. There are more perfect RVs per square inch at Oshkosh, I'll bet, than anywhere else. And for someone like me, it's like Ugly Betty going to Paris fashion show.

I'm getting this RV fly-in thing. It's where real people go. Don't get me wrong: that's not a knock on the quality of the RVs in Boone. But I've been reading the forums and bulletin boards for years and I know the majority of RV builders have things on their planes they'd wish they'd done differently; I just never saw those planes at Oshkosh.

The folks at Cleaveland Tools had their bus there and we ordered a few things. They didn't have the drill bits Warren wanted, but Mike (I think it was Mike), said "I'll run over and get them." Right. Boone, Iowa. Home of Cleaveland Tools.

We stayed for a little over an hour, and then RVs started leaving. Of course, we had gotten there late, but I still wondered where everyone was going to fast. They'd obviously been there a long time. I wondered to Warren, though, whether having an RV and shortening the circumference of the earth, made one more likely to stay less time in one place once you got there? There's an article there somewhere.

Tom Irlbeck and Steven Foster left a little before us, in a much more impressive display of flying than anything I'll ever be able to match. They took off on a 90-degree day, pulled straight up -- or so it seemed -- and by the middle of the runway they were clearly 1,500 - 2,000 feet AGL, smoke on and levelling off. Man, that was cool.

We headed over to the FBO to refuel next to a T-6 (I think), and Dick Martin's RV-8. The folks running the tanks estimated about 60 planes had flown in , although they say they sold less fuel than they did last year.

When Warren and I left, the ramp was fairly empty, the volunteers were folding the tables and putting them into trucks, showing the type of organization and precision that makes he olde BBQ host jealous.

Having refueled -- auto fuel, love it -- we launched and headed for home, enjoying our late-afternoon view as we lazily headed north and, certainly, directly for our workshops, inspired and refueled by a dose of builder's motivation.

In our Cessna 170, it took 2:07 to fly the 188 miles down, and 2:05 on the way back.

I gotta finish this RV!

Related Link(s):
Bob Collins' and Warren Starkebaum's slideshow
Thread: Date change for SWRFI 2008 conflicts with LOE fly-in
More pictures from W&C Aircraft Works


« Back to the RV Hotline