Red Stewart Airshow + EAA Fly-In this weekend!

It's that time of year again - Labor Day weekend means it's time for Red Stewart Airfield's annual airshow. The show is FREE for everyone and includes numerous aerobatic performances by local pilots. Check out the Dayton Daily News' article for more details.

On Sunday, the local EAA chapter will have a fly-in / pancake breakfast from 7-11. Afterwards, they'll be giving free Young Eagle rides for children; I'll be flying kids in the 150 myself. If you're in the area, definitely consider heading down to Waynesville for a bunch of fun this weekend!

Like usual, I'll be at the airport pretty much the entire weekend. Get in touch if you'll be at Stewart and want to say hello!

A mostly-solo day of flying full of firsts and milestones

Plane: Cessna 172
Route: 40I-I74-VTA-CMH-MGY
Weather - I74: Partly cloudy, 83 degrees, wind 100 degrees at 5 knots
Weather - VTA: Scattered clouds, 80 degrees, wind calm
Weather - CMH: Clear, 74 degrees, wind 090 degrees at 4 knots
Weather - MGY: Clear, 70 degrees, wind 100 degrees at 6 knots

Over the course of the past week, a bunch of random flying ideas became an extremely loosely-tied-together plan. The annual Mid-Eastern Regional Fly-In (MERFI) was going on up in Urbana and pilot friend Lenny had told me about an evening fundraiser for Youth Aviation Adventure in Columbus. To top that off, another pilot friend sent me a couple Facebook messages in the afternoon that led to a third stop.

Gina was working today and I asked if anyone wanted to tag along - but there were no takers. Crazy, I know. Either way, that meant I'd be doing a bunch of solo flying. Nothing wrong with that. It's nice to get up in the air, just you and the airplane, from time to time.

The first half of today's flying, ending with my first-ever Class C landing!

I took off from Stewart a little bit after 14:00 and flew up to Grimes Field in Urbana. Over the years I've come to realize pilots must be morning people, as fly-ins always fill up early. I'm most definitely a night owl, so I've resigned myself to always moving opposite the mass flow of traffic. Even though the field was clearing out when I arrived, I still spent a couple hours at MERFI and saw some neat planes on the ground. I also dropped off some flyers for Stewart's annual airshow (Labor Day weekend!) with Chris and Sarah, who were up there for the day.

On the ground in Urbana - I do like my Nexus' panorama mode

I do believe everyone would love to own a nice Glasair

You'd think this flew straight out of the movie Planes

I'd sure love to own this gorgeous clipped wing Cub!

Might be the nicest Cub interior I've ever seen

Love this perfectly restored Travel Air 4000

Gary's a blog reader and student pilot who I had never met in person, despite chatting online for years. He was finishing up work and would be near Newark-Heath Airport by 17:00 - and I had a couple hours to kill before I needed to fly to Columbus - so I decided to fly over and say hello! I departed Urbana and turned east; another 172 departed behind me and he flew just off and under my wing for a while as we headed east until he landed at OSU.

The controller along that stretch was quite busy but at the same time was super friendly. He rattled off instructions to a bunch of airplanes and vectored me north of a direct course to Newark to avoid CMH's arrival/departure corridor. Eventually I was cleared direct and had the pattern to myself as I landed on Runway 9 at VTA. Gary was standing next to the FBO as I taxied up, shut down, and we finally got to shake hands and say hello in person.

New electrical substation under construction near Columbus

Since he's on a break from his training, I decided to take Gary up for a quick spin around the area. He was very thankful and I enjoyed having him onboard to point out the local landmarks. We'd been talking about how he was still learning some maneuvers so I offered to demonstrate a few. I climbed up and did some steep turns, a power-off stall, and a steep spiral. We flew over his house, past the Longaberger basket building, and returned to the ground by way of a short field landing on Runway 27.

I finally flew past the ridiculously recognizable Longaberger HQ

Goes without saying that it's a darn good visual checkpoint for pilots!

After some fun with the fuel pump (it's full-serve only, courtesy of a lightning strike a few years back) I added 18 gallons of 100LL to top off the tanks. I hadn't planned on refueling but the extra stop made it necessary. Thankfully Harold, the FBO manager, was still around and glad to pump the Avgas. Gary and I said adios and I took off on Runway 27, heading due west towards CMH.

Although I've had my pilot's certificate for nearly five years, this would be my first landing at a Class C airport. Kalamazoo was the closest (they're a Class D with a TRSA) I had come prior to today. The aforementioned YAA fundraiser was being hosted by Spirit Avionics at Port Columbus International Airport. Yup, the one with 150+ daily airline flights and all the big jets!

Like usual, the CMH controllers were great. I called Columbus Approach just off Newark as soon as I'd listened to the ATIS, about 15 miles out. They vectored me onto a right downwind for Runway 10R. Note that controllers at such large airports are clearly used to jet traffic - they had me a bit over two miles away from the runway on downwind!

I gradually moved closer as I approached and was cleared to land Runway 10R abeam the tower. Seeing as it's a 10,000 foot runway and my destination was at the very end, I intentionally landed long - though I still ended up having to taxi about a mile. The airport wasn't super busy but there was an airliner on approach to 10L as I turned final for 10R, which was a cool sight.

Eventually I arrived at Spirit, shut down, and spent a couple hours there nibbling on hors d'oeuvres - which seriously hit the spot after a day in the sun. My rental 172 didn't exactly class up a ramp that held a beautiful P-51 and other nice airplanes, but it was cool to fly in. I also got to meet Brent Owens, fellow pilot/blogger at iFLYblog, who was there with his family.

My night flight home from Port Columbus International to Dayton-Wright Brothers

Around 21:00, I decided I should start preparing to fly home. Night current for the first time in forever as of last month, I was really looking forward to another new milestone - my first solo night cross-country flight. Ever. Why another long, five-year wait? That's just the way it works out sometimes when you fly out of an unlit grass strip!

I called Clearance Delivery, told them I was VFR to Dayton-Wright Brothers, and they gave me a squawk that would keep me on ATC's radar scopes all the way home. One final check of all the gauges (and my flashlights!) and I called Ground; they cleared me to taxi to Runway 10R. I was offered an intersection departure and accepted. Although it's not something I usually would do, it left me with nearly 5,000 feet of runway - which is still longer than most runways I ever use. So it seemed like a sensible decision.

Runup and checklist complete, I called Tower and was cleared for takeoff on Runway 10R at the B4 intersection. The runway is brand new - it literally just opened on Thursday. Way to test it right away, huh? :) Being new, it's got fancy LED lights built right into the pavement that look downright beautiful at night. It was quite the sight as they zipped past faster and faster as I rotated and lifted off into the smooth sky.

Downtown Columbus, OH after departing CMH

Night flying is so different from daytime flying...

 ...generally calm, smooth, and extremely beautiful

Tower immediately handed me off to Departure, who instructed me to turn on course direct Wright Brothers once I reached 2,000 feet. I flew past downtown Columbus and enjoyed the view of the sparkling city through the crystal-clear night air. Soon I was out of the area, with far fewer lights below, flying over the farmland that stretches between Columbus and Dayton. Somewhere in that general area I crossed 100 hours of total cross-country time.

The controller warned me about skydiving operations and turned me 10 degrees off course to deviate. Surely they were just responding to a NOTAM someone forgot to cancel, no? How wrong I was. A few minutes later I heard the jump plane call "jumpers away" near Greene County Airport. In the middle of a moonless night. That's a level of crazy I'm still shaking my head at! :)

Before long, the lights of increasing civilization around Dayton came into view. I spotted Wright Brothers 15 or 20 miles out - this was absolutely aided in part by my recent flight with Mike where we landed after sunset. It's extremely hard to spot MGY's airport beacon when you approach from the east because it's nestled in between a bunch of very bright ramp lights. But tonight I knew what I was looking for and spotted it much sooner than last week.

The pattern was empty and I clicked the lights up to full intensity on base, clicking them back down to low as I turned final. Sliding smoothly down the glideslope, I flew over our neighborhood, crossed the fence, and touched down extremely softly on Runway 20. A perfect 10/10, total greaser of a landing. Always seems to happen on solo flights, right?

Instead of writing a separate post, I'll just note here that Gina dropped me off at MGY and I flew the 172 back to Stewart on Sunday morning. That added another 0.3 to the Hobbs for a grand total of 4.3 hours in the air, 3.8 of which were solo. It was an extremely fun trip, full of firsts, milestones, and a bunch of great piloting experience!

Flight Track: Google Earth KMZ File 
Today's Flight: 4.0 hours + 0.3 hours on 8/25
Total Time: 285.8 hours (100.8 hours XC)

2013 Red Stewart Airshow + EAA Fly-In (Labor Day Weekend)

If you're anywhere near the Dayton/Cincinnati area, you should head on down to Waynesville for Red Stewart Airfield's annual FREE airshow on Saturday, August 31st. Heck, even if you're not close by, it's worth flying in for!

There are always tons of cool old airplanes (Stewart's taildragger heaven, after all) on the field and the airshow's great. Make sure you arrive early enough for dinner and hang around overnight (camp out on the field, if you'd like!) for a great pancake breakfast Sunday morning. The on-field EAA chapter will even be giving free airplane rides to kids as part of the Young Eagles program after breakfast, too.

I'll be at the airport most of the weekend - likely all day Friday and Saturday, and part of the day Sunday - so be sure to let me know if you'll be around... I'd love to say hello! :)

Fly-ins, pancakes, balloons, and lasers

Plane: Cessna 172
Route: 40I-BTL-2H4-OEB-40I
Weather - 40I: Clear, 50-65 degrees, wind calm
Weather - BTL: Clear, 64-72 degrees, wind light and variable

Today was, quite simply, a perfect day for a pilot. We've been planning to fly to Kalamazoo for the day to attend the Triple H Fly-In for a while. My friend Rob has been telling me how great it is and I've been trying to get up there for it. Today, the weather and calendar finally cooperated.

It also turned out to be the day Western Michigan University's College of Aviation was holding their annual Pancake Breakfast Fly-In. Both Gina and I are WMU alumni and I'd never landed at W.K. Kellogg Airport before (home to the College of Aviation) so those were more than enough reasons for a last-minute change in plans. I decided that we would stop at BTL for breakfast, then continue on to 2H4 for the fly-in. We arrived at Stewart around 7:30, just after sunrise.

There were some visitors at the airport before we took off

As we were preparing to leave, a hot air balloon began descending over the airport. I assumed they were going to land and asked (yeah, you can easily talk to people in balloons - they're neat, and quiet, aerial contraptions) if I should move the plane. They said nope, just passing by for "in-flight beverage service." One of the ground crew members proceeded to toss bottled water to the people in the basket. Ha! Gotta love the good folks at Bella... :-)

One thing about early morning, cool-weather departures in parked-outside airplanes is that the windows love to fog up. I wiped them clear during preflight but knew it would take a minute in the air to rid them of all the moisture. Forward visibility was sufficient as I pushed in the throttle and the Skyhawk took to the crisp, fall-like air. As anticipated, the view fully cleared in seconds.

Highlights from all of today's flying - BTL, 2H4, OEB, and more!

I contacted Columbus Approach and got a squawk code for flight following all the way to Battle Creek. An Air Force KC-10 was up early practicing approaches at DAY; the controller called the traffic as they passed about 1,500 feet beneath us. We made our way northward, eventually receiving a handoff to Fort Wayne Approach.

Some early-morning clouds were lingering near Eastwood Lake

Thousands of cars were parked at the USAF Museum for the Air Force Marathon

Windmills stretch for miles in the Blue Creek Wind Farm near Van Wert, OH

Crossing into Michigan while flying parallel to I-69

Somewhere near the Michigan-Indiana state line we were told to contact Kalamazoo Approach. They called out one airplane (which we never spotted) and told us to contact Battle Creek Tower about eight miles from the airport. The controller told me to enter a left base for Runway 23R but traffic was so light that he cleared us to land well before we reached that point.

Downtown Battle Creek lies ahead

I made a pretty good landing - until the nose wheel started to shake like mad. Back pressure on the stick, a little dance on the brakes... ahh, all better. Mental note to tell them to check the shimmy damper when we get back to Stewart.

We parked on WMU's ramp and hopped out, hungry for some pancakes. They were delicious and lived up to their "flying" reputation - the cook tosses them into the air and you have to catch your meal with your plate. I'm happy to report that Gina and I went five-for-five on the morning.

After the blood sugar boost, we wandered around for a little while. I ran into another WMU grad who now flies for United and we talked for a few minutes about his recent 787 upgrade training (jealous!) and aviation in general. Then it was time to head to Triple H, so we climbed back in the 172 and contacted Ground. We were airborne off Runway 23R a few minutes later.

It's a very short flight from BTL to 2H4 - when I checked on the video back at home, it was only 13 minutes from takeoff to touchdown. However, those were a relatively busy 13 minutes. Being a grass strip nestled amongst trees on all sides, it took a few minutes to find the place. Thankfully I was able to spot other airplanes in the pattern and entered on the 45 from a few miles out.

My landing was less than graceful but it got the job done. I set up for a short field approach using all 40 degrees of flaps and a 70 MPH approach speed. It worked out perfectly until the flare when, due to the limited remaining energy, I flared a bit too much... right when we hit ground effect, which caused me to balloon up more than expected. I recovered, though, relaxing the back pressure and touching down rather softly. We turned off the grass runway about halfway down its 2,400 foot length.

This one photo pretty much sums up the fly-in

A pristine 1959 Imperial and a Studebaker Champion

A beautiful first generation Chevy Impala

You're not going to find many better-looking Cessna 140s 

I love Cessna 195s - this guy made an awesome pass on departure, too

Piper J-5 Cub Cruiser with a hard-to-miss paint job

It's not a proper grass strip without a yellow Cub on the ground!

This polished Ercoupe is a thing of beauty; we ran into the pilot at OEB later, too

Gina and I wandered around with Rob and his girlfriend Abby for a while. As you can see from the photos above, it was a pilot's kind of place and a perfect example of a grassroots fly-in. Old airplanes, old cars, (some) old people. Not to mention free food! We brought one of Gina's famous strawberry pies (the crowd must have agreed - it was gone long before we made our way up the food line) as our dish to pass.

You can't beat this vantage point for watching T-6s depart up close!

Eventually, we all climbed into Rob's SUV and headed into Kalamazoo. It's a city that both Gina and I love so we appreciate any opportunity to visit, even if it's only for a couple hours. We ended up at Olde Peninsula for some snacks and drinks - a Coke in my case, since I had to fly. Not that I didn't figure out a way to enjoy some of their famous beer. We bought a growler of their seasonal Pumpkin Ale to enjoy back in Ohio!

We said our goodbyes and prepared to depart around 5:30. It's handy having friends who are awesome aviation photographers. Rob took a bunch of great shots of us leaving Triple H! I've included a few of them below for a different perspective of our departure...

Lifting off in a combination short/soft-field takeoff

About to wave the wings to say goodbye

Making a low approach before departing towards Kalamazoo

The only other time I've flown over Kalamazoo was way back in 2002 on the third flight ever recorded in my logbook, before I even was thinking about attending WMU. Since I don't know when we may fly overhead again I figured we shouldn't pass up the opportunity to fly over campus for some photos. Kalamazoo Tower gave us permission (it's at the edge of their airspace) and Gina manned (womanned?) the camera while I flew a wide circle overhead.

WMU's Goldsworth Valley - where Gina and I lived freshman year

Zimmerman Hall - our sophomore year home in Kalamazoo

Looking northeast down West Michigan Avenue

WMU's West (Main) Campus

West Campus and the recently-completed "New" Sangren Hall

Waldo Stadium - Go Broncos!

College of Health and Human Services on East Campus

The famous water tower at Kalamazoo State Hospital

It was a ton of fun to see so many familiar buildings and sights from above. Admittedly, I was concentrating on flying at the time and didn't get to fully appreciate the view until I got home and looked at the photos. Gina and I really do love WMU, Kalamazoo and West Michigan in general (have I said that enough yet?) and we both had a blast circling over campus.

Anyway, I pointed the nose towards Coldwater and Kalamazoo Tower handed us back off to Approach. There were no clouds in the sky and the sun was at that just-right angle where everything below was lit up in beautiful, vivid color. I enjoyed the view while Gina read a book during our short hop to Branch Co. Memorial Airport.

We landed on Runway 04 and taxied to the fuel pump. It took a minute... guess I should've Google Earthed the airport before we left home to figure out where the pump was located! The airplane took 25 gallons of 100LL, which calculated out to a fuel burn of about 8.0 gal/hr. That's precisely in line with the numbers I've seen on previous long trips in 14L. It's nice when things work out like that.

Shortly thereafter we were back in the air, climbing to 7,500 feet and talking with ATC. I heard what was one of the best radio calls I've ever witnessed while we were under the control of Fort Wayne Approach. The controller asked a helicopter pilot where he was headed; he replied that, oh, he was just dropping a bride off at her wedding. Love it.

Descending over Dayton, we experienced something I honestly never thought I'd encounter in the air. Someone was shining a laser into the sky and, as far as I could tell at the time, was aiming at our airplane. Thankfully it was still light out and we were relatively high so it wasn't anything more than a brief distraction. Not-so-thankfully (for the idiot shining lasers at airplanes) I happened to have the camera recording at the time. It's all captured on the video below. The investigation's in the FAA's hands now so that's all I currently have to say about it.

The camera was recording when we were hit with a green laser over Dayton

The sunset was beautiful tonight. Gina took some photos as we passed over downtown. The lights of the city twinkled below in the dwindling daylight. It truly was a beautiful view during our final descent down to pattern altitude.

Passing over top of downtown Dayton just past sunset

It's blurry, but the colors are too good not to include it!

I crossed over the airport midfield and made a smooth landing on Runway 26. We were safely back home after a really fun flying adventure! Although it was still plenty bright to see, my video camera doesn't have the best low-light performance. That's why the video at the top of the post ends while we're passing over downtown Dayton.

There's not too much else to add about today. We flew a lot, saw a lot, ate a lot, and expended a lot... of energy. Both of us were pooped by the time we got home. That said, we'd do it again in a heartbeat. You just can't beat a good day trip made possible by general aviation!

Flight Track: Google Earth KMZ File 
Today's Flight: 4.8 hours
Total Time: 243.6 hours

MERFI 2012, a precautionary landing, and carb ice

Plane: Cessna 150
Route: 40I-I74-40I
Weather: Scattered clouds, 80-90 degrees, wind variable at 5 knots

Unable to attend for the past two years, I marked MERFI 2012 on my calendar many months ago. Somehow time has flown by and it was already three years ago that I last landed in Urbana during the regional EAA fly-in. Gina made the trip with me this year. We took off from Stewart around 9:30 in the morning and were in the pattern at Grimes Field just over 30 minutes later. The place was hopping, the pattern full, and the CTAF clogged, but we sequenced in nicely and I made a safe landing.

2012 or 1942? Just your average summer morning in Waynesville... 

First on the agenda was breakfast. It's not a proper fly-in without pancakes and sausage, now is it? Both of us scarfed down everything on our plates and then wandered around for a while.

The entrance, a nice homage to the infamous Brown Arch

Quite the tasty spread, especially for five bucks!

I went to an FAA Safety Team seminar at 11:00 about runway incursions that counted towards my WINGS credit. Gina wasn't very interested in the merits of proper phraseology on our taxiways so she continued to roam around the airport. After the seminar, which was pretty good, I had the chance to meet up with Samuel. He's another pilot who flies at Stewart who I'd only spoken with electronically up to this point. It's always enjoyable to meet folks who fly there and read the blog!

Gina wandered back over and I said goodbye to Samuel. My bride and I then headed over to the Champaign Aviation Museum for a few minutes to escape the heat and look at their B-25 and B-17. Eventually it was time to head home so we walked back over to the 150 around 1:00.

Here's where the day got interesting...

We took off and I noticed a weird sound shortly after leaving the ground, but beyond the point when I would have landed back on the runway. It quickly became an extremely loud banging noise. At first, I thought it might be an engine problem but all the gauges were in the green and I didn't see anything odd outside. Then I figured it was probably something hanging out the door, but we both checked our seatbelts and headsets and it felt like everything was inside the airplane.

Still, something wasn't right and the noise was really loud. I immediately decided it was best to sort this out on the ground and made a quick lap around the pattern, returning to land on Runway 20. In the end, it was my seatbelt; the very end of it, only an inch or so, had gotten stuck in the door when I pulled it closed. It was so small that I couldn't tell it was caught when I tugged on the belt to check it. But it was certainly big enough to make a heck of a racket banging against the airplane in the wind.

Unedited (other than some added commentary) video of the takeoff and precautionary landing

Problem solved, I started the airplane back up and we again taxied down to the end of the runway for departure. There were about four planes in front of us so we were sitting there at idle for a few minutes before it was our turn. Onto the runway, full power, and...

Well, just watch the video below.

Our second attempt to leave resulted in an aborted takeoff - here's the unedited footage

My best guess, as narrated in the video, is that we were in that magical temperature/humidity range and carburetor ice formed while we were waiting in line for takeoff. I had done a run-up and checked the carb heat; everything performed normally. However, it was a few minutes later that we finally rolled onto the runway for takeoff. Thankfully, it happened within seconds of pushing the throttle in and we were still on the ground.

You may be wondering if I felt we were doomed at this point. Honestly, I wasn't. Although at the time I was thought it was an issue with the carburetor accelerator pump (the carb ice idea didn't cross my mind until discussing it with other pilots later) everything else appeared normal. I did two extended, full-power run-ups and had no issues so I felt confident that everything checked out mechanically. We took off and - finally - headed home on an uneventful, 30-minute flight. Third time's the charm, eh?

More of Stewart's unique normalcy - all these planes were preparing for a stadium flyover

As you can imagine, this was a great learning experience. I feel as though I did the right thing in both instances. Diagnosing a problem on the ground and flying the airplane first (aviate, navigate, communicate!) is always the best option. I'm also a bit surprised that carb ice didn't cross my mind when the engine lost power and ultimately died. Still, I checked everything I could check prior to deciding to fly home and it all checked out. I also know that I'll likely never forget to consider carb ice in the future if I experience anything similar.

And lest I forget, the fly-in was a lot of fun too! :)

Flight Track: Google Earth KMZ File 
Today's Flight: 1.7 hours
Total Time: 235.7 hours