1890 Statute Miles (round trip) Flight Time: 16.9 hours total Fuel Used: 149.8 Gallons total
1890 Statute Miles (round trip)
Flight Time: 16.9 hours total
Fuel Used: 149.8 Gallons
total
July 25th - August 1, 2009
During the last week of July, the largest fly-in and airshow in the country occurs every year - Airventure Oshkosh. It is almost a right of passage that homebuilders bring their completed airplanes to Oshkosh to show them off. Michelle and I decided that this year, we would make the trip.
The following is our story of an interesting trip. A trip filled with a lot fun, some laughter, some tears of frustration, mixed with challenges to overcome and friendships made. In the end, looking back, we were blessed by God every step of the way.
Determined to live the whole Oshkosh experience, we bought a tent and some
camping equipment and decided that we would camp right there at Oshkosh for
the week. We started off by packing everything needed for the week
into the Bearhawk (tent, equipment, air mattress, sheets, bedding, pillows,
ice chests full of bottled water, suit cases, lawn chairs, etc.):
Here is our self-portrait as we make our way up to our first stop in Tunica,
MS just few miles south of Memphis, TN.:
Can you tell that Michelle is not a morning person?
Our plan involved leaving Saturday morning and just making the first leg
of the trip up to Tunica for the day. There we would meet with some
friends and have some barbecue, a few beers and a good time, then spent the
night at the Gold Strike Hotel Casino.
Most of Mississippi looks pretty much the same from the air - lots and lots
of open spaces and fields. An engine failure here is not usually a
problem - just pick a dirt road or an open field:
Here we are approaching the Tunica airport (KUTA) on the GPS showing 131
mph ground speed with a slight headwind:
Tunica AWOS was indicating a 14 knot quartering crosswind gusting to 19 knots
from about 45 degrees off the runway heading. Here we are turning from base
to final:
When I started to do the final flare to land I had a gust of wind that drove
me down onto the runway a bit hard. After taxing over to the ramp,
I told the attendant that we wanted to park overnight and he directed us
over to another area. As I started to make the turn to taxi over there,
my tailwheel fork broke right where its welded to the cross
piece:
Now that's a heck of a way to start out a trip! It didn't break during the landing, or when I was taxiing, but the hard landing probably contributed to it. It broke as I started to make the turn around to park on the ramp.
One note I'd like to make here about the Bob Barrows designed tailwheel. After I had already built this tailwheel, Bob Barrows sent out a change and updated the tailwheel plans to include a 1/8" thick x 1/4" wide steel strap reinforcement piece, wrapped around the weld area where this broke. This was in response to the tailwheel fork on Proto 2 breaking in much the same way. It's my own dumb fault for not making the change at the time. I later talked with Scott Weinberg who makes the Bob tailwheels and he showed me how they now reinforce that area and have tested it up to 1500 lbs without it breaking.
Well as luck would have it, at the other end of the field was a crop dusting business run by one of the most knowledgeable aircraft mechanics around, John Carson. The airport manager Skip, recommended that I go talk to John to see if he could help me out. After a brief discussion with John, he said "well if you can get it down here, I can weld it up for you".
So Skip and I grabbed the tug that they move 727's with and sat the tailwheel
of the Bearhawk on the front and strapped it down. Then we slowly backed
it all the way over to John's hangar (note, the following 3 pictures were
taken with my cellphone so are of poor quality):
John and I disassembled the tailwheel, straightened out the bent fork on
the right side, straightened out the bend axel bolt and then John welded
the broken fork back on:
Here is John and airport manager Skip, welding up the broken tailwheel
fork:
Looking back, I think it was a combination of a rough landing, a heavily loaded airplane and a tight turn that broke the tail fork.