Category Archives: Airports Visited
Awe Hail… Stormy Night in the Black Hills!
Sorry about the delayed posts... but, the weather was pretty bad and we found ourselves without internet access for most of the remainder of the trip and since we have been home, we have been caught up with catching up. Trust me there was plenty to talk about, both from South Dakota and Wisconsin!
The night from hail… after we made the previous post about what we did on day one in the Black Hills of South Dakota, we decided to head into Hill City to get a quick bite to eat. As we approached town, the clouds got darker and the rain started. Beth said “Was that hail I heard”… “naww, it’s just raining hard”, I said… Oh well, in about 30 seconds, I was looking for a place to pull over to escape the ice falling from the sky. We did find a parking lot that was slightly protected and luckily the hail ranged from pea to marble sized, so there was no damage to the rental car. After sitting in the hail storm for well over 10 minutes, we decided to bypass dinner for now and go back to see if the tent was still standing after the rain settled down.
KOA, Washed away!…Wow, as we pulled into the campground, the second wave of rain hit us. The hail from the previous wave was pilled up inches deep as we turned into the campground. At this point, we just knew the tent was destroyed and all of our stuff was wet. When we made it to the bottom of the hill where our tent was located, we were met with a wall of rushing water carrying sand and gravel and most of the road down from above… this made for VERY loose material to drive on and that is where we stopped moving! Well crap… at least we were stuck right in the middle of the road, so the KOA folks would eventually have to
Big Agnes after “round one” with the elements…
come push us out – so we waited – but, not for long. Out of the woodwork, help came from every direction in the form of six or seven barefooted, kind-hearted souls who literally picked up the front of our underpowered rental tin can and moved us out of the loose sand and gravel. In no time at all, we were liberated and moving up the hill again.
Best Tent Ever! (hold that thought)… So when we did make it up the hill, much to our surprise, the tent was still standing! Our neighbor’s large “kitchen” tent had collapsed with broken poles and such but our Big Agnes was still alive. After the rain stopped we went through all of our stuff in the tent and it was all still dry and in good shape. A few minutes later our neighbors arrived to assess the situation and from the looks of it, their “sleeping” tent was OK too, but… it is starting to rain again! So, to get out of the weather, all 6 of us pile into the Chevy Aveo for shelter. It is amazing how much camaraderie there is among campers and folks that like the outdoors. Our new friends from Bismarck, North Dakota had two great kids and were fun to visit with. After this last small shower passed, Beth & I decided we would head back into town to eat.
Karaoke from hail… We rolled into Hill City and found what kinda looked like a “Biker-Bar/Mexican Restaurant”. Margaritas seemed to be in order for the two of us, along with some pretty good food. As we were finishing off our meal, a guy came around and handed out the song books for “Talent Time” … yep, it was karaoke night! While I have been known to partake in song, I think my lack of body “ink” and facial hair would set me apart from this crowd in a way that would keep me way away from the mic. Luckily, there were many “takers” to provide entertainment and within minutes it got loud in the building, just not from music, yep, hail again! Lighting was crashing, the power went off, boy is this fun… At this point all we could do was order another drink and think about what shape the tent might be in now and enjoy the entertainment.
Check out the short video below…
Best Tent Ever! (hold that thought again)… After dreading what we would see when we arrived at the campground near midnight, once again we were surprised to see our tent standing in the head lights and in good shape after surviving two torrential downpours with hail. At this point our thoughts turned to our plane, which was sitting outside in the weather about 30 miles away at Rapid City. Our hearts were sinking as we watched the storm on radar move over KRAP, but there was not anything we could do tonight, but ride it out and hope for the best. Our plans now included heading straight to the airport the next morning to see how Caddie made it through the storms. More to come in the next few days….
New Video…. made with our GoPro Camera!
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Got Out of Mississippi Just in Time!
First Stop KFLP… Well, we made it out before the storms hit the Jackson area and into Flippin before it started raining here. We started out from Raymond at 8500 feet and went to 10,500 and realized we could not get high enough to get over the buildups, so the last 30 minutes of the trip was “down and dirty” at 4500 over the Ozarks. The Foreflight screen shot below shows what it looked like about two hours after we landed:
Clear Sailing, but HOT… We should be out in front of all of the weather that will be affecting the south. Tomorrow’s plan is to get up early and head to Grand Island, NE (KGRI) for gas and a stretch before the temps get so bad. Unfortunately, when we roll into Rapid City, it’s supposed to be 100+, but we should have clear skies most of the way. That’s all for tonight, we are in our “happy spot” in Arkansas with a nice bottle of wine and a cool place to sleep…
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Enterprise Rent-a-Car “We’ll Pick You UP”… just not at an airport!
Another RANT…
In the words of Earl Pitts… “Ya’ Know what make me sick?” – Getting screwed by a rental car company! While planning our trip to Oshkosh by way of Rapid City, SD (KRAP), I figured we needed a car for the four days we planned to be in KRAP. So I called the FBO at KRAP and asked about rental cars. The response was that we can get you a car from Hertz and have it here when you arrive or you can get one directly from Hertz. So, I decided to go online with Hertz to see what their rates were and if maybe there was another option. Sure enough, Hertz had a rate for the FBO delivery… $90 per day plus a multitude of taxes that amounted to a total over $450 for four days! HOLY KRAP!
BTW… this is the reason we bought our ’97 Grand Marquis to keep in Arkansas. The FBO at Mountain Home, Arkansas was charging us $65 + per day for an economy class car from Enterprise. One day when I found a special deal on a car from Enterprise for $29, I asked if they would pick us up at the airport – the response – “Oh no, we can’t do that, the airport is a protected market.” – WTF – “So you’re telling me, if I walk down the road a mile or so to the fire station on the main highway, you’ll pick me up” – “I guess we could”… well that was “too much candy for a nickel” as my dad would say. SO, we paid $1400 for a car of our own, in pretty good shape, and put it at a different airport (KFLP) that charged $0.80 less per gallon for 100LL. Now, after 34 nights of use in less than a year, I have saved over $2,200 and the FBO at Mountain Home has gone out of business…
Back to KRAP… So I decided to give Enterprise another try, this time at Rapid City… imagine that, EXACTLY the same price (over $450 for 4 days) as Hertz but they were located at the airline terminal and did not provide service to the FBO. So, I decided to look at their “in town” price since their slogan on TV is “we’ll pick you up”, WOW, you could get the same crappy economy car 7 miles away for LESS THAN $200 for the same 4 days! Well, I may be stupid, but I’m still cheap…I rented the $190 car online just to see if they said anything about excluding delivery or pickup at the airport. Sure enough, I get this quote printed on my receipt…
“THIS LOCATION IS UNABLE TO PROVIDE PICKUP OR RETURN SERVICE TO THE RAPID CITY AIRPORT. IF FLYING INTO THE AIRPORT PLEASE USE OUR BRANCH LOCATED AT 4550 TERMINAL ROAD. ”
What a racket… So much for their popular “pick you up” slogan. I understand that there may be some additional cost of doing business at the airport, but to be able to charge 141% more for the same car – I gotta call blowing snow here. So, I guess we will figure out a way to get into town, I’m sure I can get a cab to take me in for 20 bucks or so, which will still keep our rental cost below $250, that $200 saved will buy a lot of Leinenkugel’s when we get to Wisconsin!
FAST FORWARD 24 HOURS… After stewing over this CRAP @ KRAP, I got to thinking that maybe there was a local alternative to the national rent-a-car companies and the whole airport price fixing thing and after a quick Google search, I found several local companies that WOULD pick you up at the airport. I ended up calling Black Hills Car Rentals and talked to John, who said he would pick us up at the FBO for no extra charge and the rate was $37.95 / day plus tax! For a total of $193, we can be picked up at the FBO when we arrive and can leave the car at the FBO when we get ready to depart… now that’s customer service! So, I quickly cancelled the Enterprise contract and I will post our experience with the local company after we return the car, but I am confident, at this point, it will be a good one.
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Mercedes Benz?? Best Airport Crew Car EVER!
Flying for work… One of the perks of my job is having the ability to fly to our distant locations when needed. Flying the RV-9A actually burns less gas than my Dodge and when I can avoid the cost of an overnight stay its a win-win for me and the company. This was the case earlier this week, when I needed to do some work at our location near Bay St. Louis , MS. This is nearly a seven hour round trip drive that could be made in Caddie in about 50 minutes, one way, and the Stennis International Airport (KHSA) is just a couple of miles away. All I needed now was a ride to the plant…
I’ll take the Mercedes… Since renting a car would defeat the justifiable savings of being able to fly, I usually try to get a local employee of ours to pick me up or secure a crew car. So, I called the local FBO at Stennis (MILLION AIR), and asked if they had a crew car that I could use. “Yes Sir, we do…” the young lady said, so I gave her my tail number and told her when we would be there. Upon arrival at Stennis, we taxied to the ramp area, topped off the left tank (all of about 8 gallons)and proceeded inside to pick up the car. After photocopying my license she tossed me the key… well, not exactly a key, but a big plastic thing that had Mercedes written on it. “It’s the black E350 just out the door” she said … WOW, I’ve had crew cars from a Jeep Cherokee with the rear window taped up to retired police cars to a new bright yellow Camaro (KJKA), but I’ve never been offered a Benz.
NO PReNDLe… OK, “you know you’re a red neck when…” you can’t get the car in gear. We built our own airplane, wired the all glass – high tech panel and fly it all over the country, but put me in a car without a gear shift and i’m lost. There was no standard gear shift with the normal PRND12 symbols – aka “PReNDLe”, instead there was a “little shifter like thingy” that you pushed forward to go into reverse and pulled back to go forward (German engineering at its best). I did finally get the car going in the right direction without taking out the chain-link fence around the airport and the ride to work was great. This is a very nice car that had a real smooth ride and nice high tech gadgets in the panel.
After a successful trip to our plant, we returned to the FBO and pulled out our snack lunch and enjoyed our meal in front of the big screen TV. The folks at the FBO were very nice and the fuel prices were reasonable at around $5.70 a gallon. The airport has a nice big runway for the area we were in in Mississippi. At 8500 feet long by 150 feet wide, they can handle all sorts of large aircraft. Being an old “space nut” I may bring us back to visit the Stennis Space Center which is only a few miles down the road and maybe even get another ride in the Benz…
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Breakfast at Concordia
“Caddie” @ Concordia
This Last Weekend… we wanted to make a short trip Saturday morning just to get in some flying because we were going to drive to Laurel Saturday afternoon and visit family for Father’s Day and attend a benefit for a friend who was hurt in a motorcycle accident. Friday night, while we were trying to decide on where to fly the next morning, I received an e-mail about a fly-in breakfast at the Concordia Parish Airport (0R4) in Vidalia, LA, just across the river from Natchez. We had been to their breakfast events sevreal times in the past and always enjoyed the food and fellowship, so this was a perfect trip that allowed us to get our flying “fix” for the weekend and get a great meal too.
Short Trip… Concordia is only about a 30 minute flight in the 9A, so we went “wheels up” at about 7:45 to be sure we were there by 8:30 when breakfast is served. As we arrived, we heard one plane in the pattern doing touch & go’s and several more in-bound for a meal. The usual “landing judges” were standing at the back door of the FBO building and greeted us as we climbed out of “Caddie”.
Great Food and Conversation… Turn out for this morning’s breakfast was a little light, but that did not stop Mike McCrory and crew from fix’n up a nice assortment of breakfast foods ranging from the usual biscuits, bacon and eggs to fancy wraps. Throw in some homemade jams and jellies, some STRONG Louisiana coffee and this was a diet busters delight. Of course, when more than one pilot enters a room, talk of all things aviation ensues. This has to be the best part about breakfast events like this, the sharing of information and stories will keep us coming back time and again.
“I’ll show you mine”… Soon after all of the bellies are filled, most folks walk out to admire each other’s planes and talk about Lycomings vs Continentals and fuel injection vs carburetors and any number of other “mechanical” topics. Some take advantage of the cheap fuel ($5.00 / gal) at the pump and others go on their way to their next stop for the day. We hopped in and “hot started” the fuel injected Lycoming and took off into the clouds, a little heavier and a lot happier that we had our flying “fix” for the day.
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Panoramic view at Concordia a few months ago when 12 RV’s were on the filed at once (click to enlarge)…
Planning for Airventure – Oshkosh, Here We Come!
Every Year, About This Time… Aviation enthusiasts around the world start planning a trip to Oshkosh Wisconsin and Airventure — we are no different. The stats are incredible, 10,000 plus airplanes, 30, 000 plus camping and over a half million folks will visit the hallowed grounds of KOSH, making it the busiest airport in the world for a week. We pulled our 5th wheel camper to Oshkosh for 5 years before we were able to fly-in last year, in our freshly home-built RV-9A. Trust me, if you like airplanes and have not been to Airventure, you need to put this on your “bucket list”. It is truly impossible to take it all in, in three or four days!
Side Trip… This year, we are planning a side trip to Rapid City, SD (KRAP) to tent camp in the Black Hills and visit Mt. Rushmore for a few days. We intend to visit Wyoming, North Dakota and Minnesota, if the weather allows, and roll into Oshkosh near the middle of the week. We may even try to fly fish while we are there, just to see what they do differently. We will be in a tent for probably 9 of the 10 nights on the road (thank GOD for a wonderful wife!) and will wash clothes the night we spend in the hotel. I am currently researching campgrounds in the Black Hills around Mt. Rushmore, so if anyone has any ideas about places to stay, please, let me know.
Last Year’s Video… While were planning this year’s trip, I ran across a video I made from the approach to KOSH last year. It was a fun ride; we had made it to an airport about an hour south before we hit bad weather. After waiting it out all day, we found a nice opening that allowed us to make it in before dark on Sunday. It was very busy, with planes coming in from every direction, but we made it in safely and saw a friend of ours from Mississippi before we even got out of the plane – Only at OSHKOSH! So, check out the video below and as always, you can subscribe to our blog by entering your e-mail address in the box to the right or “LIKE” our Face book page at https://www.facebook.com/2FlyAmerica.
Memorial Day Baptism – White River Style
Windy Ride… The wind always seems to blow in the Ozarks and rarely down the runway, but we decided to wait until late in the afternoon to fly up, thinking if we get there about dark the winds will have died down a bit. This time our thinking was right, the afternoon winds had been gusting to over 25 knots and mostly a crosswind at KFLP, but had now calmed down to 8 to 14 or so. The ride to Flippin was uneventful and when we got there, the car cranked and we were on our way to the camper, waders & fly rods in hand!
Low Water!… After years of high water and flooding conditions on the White River, things appear to have returned to normal. Several weeks of low or no power generation has made the river safely wadable again and now we have nice new breathable waders (see old wader post!) and are ready to put them to the test. I had called our fly fishing instructor, Ron McQuay before we left, to check his schedule for the weekend and was able to arrange an outing with him on Saturday morning, but tomorrow was Friday and we were going fishing! We started at a familiar location just up from the camper, Wildcat Shoals. Wow, we have never seen it this way, we waded completely to the other side of the river and never got in over 2 feet of water. After fly fishing for hours without any bites, we had our usual picnic lunch next to the river. We decided to pull out out spin fishing equipment when we returned to the water and still had no luck. We could see dozens of fish just under the surface, but could not get them to bite. I even saw a very large brown trout and was able to get so close to him that I took a picture of him with my waterproof camera. We fished for a couple of more hours and gave into the hope of catching fish with Ron in the morning.
Beth’s Second Baptism… We met Ron for breakfast and discussed the water conditions and decided to start our fishing for the day down at Rim Shoals. The outfitter down there offers a water taxi service so we went up the river to where a creek enters the river. As we prepared to enter the water, Ron pulls out this jointed “stick-like” device and starts putting it together. “Hmmm, what is that?” I said, Ron’s reply was “a wading staff, they are nice to have…”. I’m thinking yea, well we waded all around yesterday without incident, so that should not be a problem.
We moved into the water, fly rods in hand and just as we got above knee deep, I hear Kuplush… I turned around to see Beth, my lovely bride of 30+ years, with her fly rod held high in her right hand and her whole left arm, up to her neck in the frigid water. I’m thinking, good girl, don’t drop that new L.L. Bean rod & reel into the water… only GOD knows what she was thinking. The good news is that the new, properly fitted, waders didn’t let a drop of water in and that fancy new fishing shirt she had on would dry out in a flash and we now have matching wading staffs on order…
First Trout… I had caught my first trout on a fly the last time we were on the White River with Ron (story here). Ron did not totally like the look of the water where we were, but we started casting, stripping & mending (cool fly fishing words, huh – only one of those words had anything to do with fishing before we met Ron). Soon, the fight was on… Beth had her first trout on a fly and it was a good one! After a few minutes of wearing him down, Ron netted the rainbow, pictures were taken & the fish was released. Just as I had been hooked by this sport a few weeks ago, Beth too, was being taken in by trout fever. We continued to fish Rim Shoals and Beth & I both caught another fish, but we left the island with Beth up two fish to my one.
Let’s Go, The Water is Coming!… Since the water at Rim Shoals was not exactly like Ron wanted, we decided to drive down to the Norfork River below the dam. The generators were shut down and the only water flowing was from dam and generator leakage. Wading in this area was simple, but Ron warned us of the very little notice we would get if/when they turned on the generators. So we waded upstream several hundred yards in mostly ankle deep water to find some nice looking pools that had fish that we could see. Ok… there she goes again, catching fish. Beth quickly caught a couple of rainbows in the pool of slow moving water while I was just casting away. We had been fishing for an hour & a half or so when something changed. I noticed the slightest change in the sound of the rapids just above us, so I picked out a rock to watch just to see if the water was coming up, then I heard Ron yell, “It’s a BROWN!” Beth had her first brown trout ever and it was on a fly rod! So, I moved down to where they were to take some pictures. About the time I got to them, one of the fellows fishing down stream from us yelled, “Let’s go, the water is rising”. As Beth and Ron took care of releasing the brown trout, I started the trek back to the access point. I was amazed at how fast the water rises when they turn on the generators. What had been a gravel bar when we walked upstream was now under a foot of water in just a few minutes, a great lesson to learn for future outings to the Norfork… at the first sign of changing water – get moving! When we got ready to leave the parking area, Ron invited us to a pot luck fish fry up at Copper Johns Lodge on Sunday night. That sounded like a good idea, especially since all of the fish Beth had caught had been in the catch & release areas and we had no fish to eat. So, we took the beautiful drive back to Cotter with more great memories in our rearview mirror and another day of fishing ahead.
Watch Video Below…
Beth’s turn to talk… Part 2 will come in the next few days and will be written by Beth about our fist successful day, fly fishing by ourselves…
You can subscribe to our blog by entering your e-mail address in the box to the right or “LIKE” our Face book page at https://www.facebook.com/2FlyAmerica. Once again, I would like to thank Ron McQuay for taking an interest in us. Ron is a very patient teacher and is very knowledgable of the White River fishery. Ron’s website is ronsflyfishingforbeginners.com.
New Orleans Day Trip, What Diet??
$100 Beignets??… In the spirit of the $100 hamburger, we set out for the land of sugar & spice and red beans & rice – New Orleans! With a lot of long distance travel days ahead of us in the next few weeks, we decided to make a short hop, Saturday day trip to the Crescent City. Years ago, when we lived in Laurel, MS, we went to New Orleans on a regular basis… Saint’s games, concerts, boat shows and even the occasional monster truck rally (yep, we are rednecks at heart – I really liked the “Grave Digger”). Since we moved to Madison, the 3 plus hour drive made it a less attractive destination and then Katrina came along, and well, you know…. Now it’s 2012 and things seem to be a little different in NOLA.
A friend of mine had told me that they had a cabdriver that they would call and he would pick them up at the Lakefront Airport and take he & his wife downtown and then pick them up when they were done exploring for the day. So before we went “wheels up” at KJVW for KNEW we called Henry the cabbie. Henry was not sure if he could pick us up, but would make sure someone was at the FBO when we arrived.
Caddy on the Ramp @ Flightline First
A little IMC… We left the Raymond Airport (KJVW), for the +/- 60 minute flight to Lakefront (KNEW) in great weather. As we approached Lake Pontchartrain, the clouds below us thickened and the likelihood of an instrument approach looked pretty good… not what was forecast, but, no problem. “24G, descend and maintain 3,000”, this put us right in the middle of the clouds. For the next fifteen minutes or so, we were in and out of the layer “over the lake”. Finally, we saw Lakefront through the broken clouds and were given a visual to RW36L. After landing, we taxied to the Flightline First FBO building and started to unload. The line guy was very nice and allowed our cab to drive right up to the plane. This was “red carpet” service for a couple of Mississippi rednecks! He asked if we needed fuel and I said no… we only burnt 8 gallons getting here, it wasn’t worth bringing out the truck. So we threw our backpacks in the cab and off we went to the Vieux Carré.
Irma Thomas’ Drummer… I asked the cabbie if he was Henry and he said no, his name was Larry and that Henry was on another “gig”. As we chit-chatted our way downtown, Larry was telling us a story about running out of gas in the everglades and fending off alligators with guitars and drum sticks… OK, I’ll admit, I had not really been listening up until this point. “So you play music?”, I asked, “Yep, I’m the drummer for grammy award winning artist, Irma Thomas”, he replied. Cool, now thats a real story to tell… Larry “Choo” Campbell went on to tell us about his travels in cars, busses and now airplanes! He has been to many countries playing the drums for Irma and will be headed to Japan soon. We enjoyed the rest of our ride into town with Larry and soon we were in the middle of the French Quarter where we parted company for our day of adventure. (BTW… I am now friends with “Choo” on Facebook, this guy is real cool!)
First Thought – FOOD!… So, what is the first thing you think of when you hit New Orleans on an empty stomach? FOOD! I “Googled” Cafe Du Monde to see how far away it was from where “Choo” dropped us off. Not too far and Beth agreed with my plan – Cafe au lait and beignets for brunch and then a late lunch of cajun faire later in the afternoon. We decided to split an order of beignets (Beth’s idea, if it had been up to me, we would have split three orders) to go with our coffee… It was as good as I remembered! After our brunch, we started our photo walk.
St. Louis Cathedral
Taking Pictures… One of the things I wanted to do was to make this day into a photo assignment to take a lot of pictures to enhance my skills. This was fun and Beth enjoyed it to. I set up my tripod in a few locations and snapped some HDR shots and even tried a time lapse sequence. I also got some interesting shots of street performers and the normal New Orleans targets. We spent most of the day walking around, camera in hand, trying to look at things from a photographic perspective. Later in the day, we even decided to take a horse drawn carriage tour that was very enjoyable and gave us an hour or so off of our feet. I will be creating a separate post with some of the photos I took in the next few days…
More Food!… After hours of taking pictures & walking in the quarter, we decided to get some creole food before we flew home. We were close to the Market Cafe on Decatur Street when hunger set in, so we worked our way into the outside porch seating area. Nice shade and cool Jazz being played, set the stage for a great meal. We had an order of boiled crawfish and the “Taste of New Orleans”, a sampling of seafood gumbo, crawfish etouffee, jambalaya and red beans & rice. The only thing missing was a mimosa or a glass of cab, but since we were flying, that will have to wait until we got home.
After our meal we caught a cab back to KNEW and loaded Caddy up for the ride home. The line guy at Flightline First thanked us for “prettying up” their ramp with Caddy! With a few late afternoon “boomers” on the horizon, we had to alter our route a little to the west, but eventually made it home safely at about dark with a camera full of memories and full stomachs. 🙂
Barnstormers’ Air Festival – Jennings, LA
Air Festival… So we got up early Saturday morning to head to the Jennings, LA Airport (3R7) to fly into the Barnstormers Air Festival. We intended to be “wheels-up” at around 08:00 with us in “Caddie” and our friends Charlie & Tupper England in their RV-4, but the weather at the destination was 100′ and overcast. The forecast was for it to clear out to VFR around 10:00 or so, so we decided to wait around until about 09:30 to leave. After an hour & 15 minute flight down, we found some holes in the clouds to descend into Jennings. This is a BIG airport covering lots of acreage with two paved runways and one grass strip. Runway 13/31 was closed by NOTAM and was being used by the car show folks, so we landed on 08 and taxied into parking. After securing the plane and meeting up with Charlie & Tupper, we headed to show center to see the what there was to see. There were only a handful of airplanes at this time and most were “spam cans” with a few RV’s and other homebuilts. There was one food vendor and a lemonade stand next to a stage and that was about it for food. At noon or so, the band cranked up and they were very good. Unfortunately, they just did not have much of an audience to listen to what they were playing.
Cars, Cars, Cars… Lots of cars, I actually think there were more cars there than airplanes. There were a lot of good looking classic and antique cars along with several chopped up rods… There was plenty to look at and I took a bunch of pictures. But, after a couple of hours in the spring sun and not a lot of airplanes to look at, we decided to head back home. Charlie had told us about the Jazz Festival in Ridgeland, MS that was featuring some folks he was interested in hearing, so off we went…
Final Thoughts… While we were a little disappointed in the turnout at Jennings, it was understandable due to the low IFR conditions that plagued the area up until 10:00 AM. Most folks just aren’t going to file IFR to go to a casual Saturday event or “Scud Run” at 800 feet to get there. So, take a look at the car photos (click them for larger view) and don’t forget to subscribe to the blog by entering your e-mail address in the box in the right hand column. You can also “Like” us on Facebook in the right hand column.
Pilots Needed!
Operation P.R.O.P. is THIS Saturday, May 12th and we need some pilot volunteers with their airplanes to be at the Raymond Airport! Please contact Linwood Nooe at the phone number or e-mail in the press release below to let him know you are coming. We really need some larger 4+ place aircraft to help us out at the event. Please try to be at the airport at 09:00 so that we can have a safety briefing and go over the flight details. I think you will find, as Beth & I did last year, that this will be a very rewarding experience for the participants as well as the volunteers.
Press Release…
| YOU ARE INVITED! ALL FREE! Operation PROP is pleased to announce the third Let’s Go Flying event on Saturday, May 12, 2012 from 10 AM – 2 PM* at the John Bell Williams Airport in Raymond, MS. Operation PROP is a nonprofit organization for People Reaching Outrageous Potential by introducing people with disabilities and Wounded Warriors to recreational and employment opportunities they may not know exist.Operation PROP is a gathering of pilots with a special purpose – to offer people of all ages with all kinds of disabilities the opportunity to break the bonds of earth and experience the joy of flight. Flying can be a life-changing experience that brings new adventures and builds self-confidence to better handle life’s challenges for persons with special needs.
A fun day is guaranteed for all! A few of the exciting activities include the joy of flying in an airplane for persons with disabilities, exhibition by Jackson’s own wheelchair basketball team, “The Rollin Tigers”, and the world renowned wheelchair fencing team, “The Blade Rollers”, art classes, face painting, lunch and more! And IT IS ALL FREE! Go to www.operationprop.com for more information. Main event contact: Linwood Nooe 601.624.4400, linwood@emcms.com. We look forward to seeing you on May 12! In the meantime, we wish you Blue Skies and Tail Winds! Click on the following link to view a short video from our last “Let’s Go Flying” event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xo4eYqYKY |
2 Fly America 