I put the flaps down on mine because of the stiff wind across the tail kept over-riding the springs and was blowing the flaps down. Joe was smart enough to park his facing the prevailing winds.
We decided to go ahead and start for home on Sunday morning. The rule for any vendor airplanes is that you have to have your aircraft moved out of the display area either before the 9 am opening or after the 5 pm closing every day. They don't want airplanes being moved around in the crowds of people. So we met Budd and Bob at 8 am, loaded all of our stuff in the airplane and pushed it out to the homebuilt area. Once outside the gate, I taxied it over to where Bob had the Patrol and Joe Araldi had his newly minted, beautiful Bearhawk (with Cub yellow paint job) parked.
Here are the three airplanes parked together:
I put the flaps down on mine because of the stiff wind across the tail kept
over-riding the springs and was blowing the flaps down. Joe was smart
enough to park his facing the prevailing winds.
Bob also was departing on Sunday morning and asked me if I would come over
and help him get started. I had learned to prop airplanes when in high
school, so I offered to do the honors, helping Bob get the Patrol started.
Bob had me do exactly 7 pulls of the prop with the mags switched off,
then he turned on the ignition and with one good pull . . .
Success! - she started right up and I still had all of my limbs attached:
I watched as Bob taxied out to the active and lined up for take-off. The wind was right down the runway at about 10 to 12 knots and he was off in about 50 feet or so (that's how it looked to me anyway).
Michelle finished up some last minute shopping (t-shirts, massage chairs, etc.) and after everyone used the Port-a-Potty, we were off and running. We made our way back up to Perry/Foley airport flying at about 6,500 feet to stay in smooth air.
After fueling the airplane and again enjoying some free hot dogs and burgers,
we took off and headed back toward Mississippi. The clouds were scattered
to broken for this last leg of the trip so for a while I stayed down under
the clouds at 2,500 feet but we were getting beat up with turbulence so we
went on up to 6,500 feet, staying just above the cloud tops and in
smooth air:
Here is the view over the nose as we approached Panama City, FL on the way
home:
As we approached the coastline, the holes in the clouds started being fewer and farther between, so I ducked down below the clouds and found that once we were over the water along the beach line the air was smooth again. The clouds became overcast and forced us all the way down to 1,000 feet near Pensacola, FL and we stayed that way all the way to Mobile Bay, AL.
As we got closer at our home base (Shade Tree Airport) I tuned to the Gulfport, MS ATIS and found the winds to be 17 knots gusting to 21 knots. I knew that a cold front was approaching so we made it home just in time.
A great time and a great trip made possible with our Bearhawk.
At this point, N57EN now has about 90 hours on it and next month (May) we are due for the annual condition inspection. It's hard to believe that a year has already passed since I finished the Miss'ippi Mudbug.
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