Isaac, a big problem for weekend flying

Sep 2012 Isaac, a big problem for weekend flying

I managed to scrape some fun flying out of this holiday weekend’s crappy weather but have to admit it could have been a whole lot better. Friday good – Saturday … doable for a while – Sunday – forget it! With heavy rain falling off and on all day, it’s the first  Sunday in ages I didn’t even make it to the hangar to check on my Rans S7.

I can’t seriously complain knowing how long Isaac sat, rotated and deluged the Gulf coast but it did eventually make its way north and no doubt cancelled many a people’s plan for an end of summer flying weekend. With a forecast like this, most pilots didn’t even think about pulling their airplanes out and trying and navigate around this stuff.

Lucky for me that forecast didn’t turn into reality quite as fast as predicted. My husband Boyd has a Mooney 231 (but he’s looking for an RV8 to trade if you know of one)  and we were able to make it to the one event we always go to – Ray Johnson’s Marion, Indiana Flyin/Cruisein.  We flew up on Friday afternoon but with nasty weather lurking close by decided the Mooney was the right choice this time. Only 4 airplanes flew in Friday for the overnight; the big crowd pleaser, a Corsair, a Bird Dog, the Mooney and Bill Tracy’s Super Cub. Although not the usual group, hopefully it was enough airplanes for the locals driving in for the early Saturday morning pancake breakfast to feel like it was an airport.

Two Judys! Right after I got there Judy Johnson gave me a ride in her Jim Bede designed Pulse, a motorcycle modified to an enclosed tandem seating vehicle that looks more like an airplane than anything else.

What an attention grabber. Accelerating, I kept thinking we should be at V2 any moment except the fact those aren’t really short little wings at all, just outrigger wheels. Pretty darn fun!

Hey, looks like a cockpit!

Talk about a lonely airplane, this beautiful Corsair probably wondered if anybody would be there to appreciate it the next day when all the action usually happens – the pancake breakfast.

Happily the t-storms held off and some aircraft started arriving Saturday morning. Pilots walked around with the wx up on their iphones guesstimating how much time they had left before making a fast get away.

I’m happy to say the weather even held out long enough for us to fly back to MQJ, pull out the real airplane and fly it back to Marion for just a little while!

There’s a pretty gorgeous Extra 300 that calls Marion home.

There’s never a guarantee a fly in event isn’t going to be affected by weather but the downpours did hold off till the afternoon at Marion. A great thing for a fly-in pancake breakfast!