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What I Did on My Summer Vacation 2005
• Brian Oetting |
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On Friday morning my trip started out
with a drive to the airport and bright blue skies, not a cloud in sight.
Leah and I pulled the Warrior out of it's home and were airborne by 8:30
am enjoying smooth air and 50 degree temps at 5,500 feet. After about an
hour we were VFR on top of a solid overcast layer, another hour later we
started to see the ground again, then shortly after that we had the
"mighty Mississippi" and CWI in sight.
After landing we were greeted by Gordon, who promptly gave us ride up to the FBO to check in. What really cracked me up was two people, whom I never met before in person (Robbie Culver and Ed Pataky) asked me if I was the "Piper guy". Now I'm pretty sure they didn't see me get out of my plane so I have NO idea how they knew! |
Friday night luau was fun as always
with great steaks and beer, running into old friends and making new ones.
Then after the sun went down and folks headed to their motel rooms there
was another party getting started under Ed Pataky' s wing. I tell ya...there
was some pretty good talent being demonstrated that night. 
"The Piper Guy's" Reserved
Parking
Saturday brought marginal VFR, but did give everyone
a break from the summer heat. The contests were fun to watch, especially
the package delivery with the Nerf finned footballs, which were a GREAT
improvement over the old water bottles. 
My Daughter Leah handles precious
egg drop cargo 
I'm not so sure about this
guys...Our team of highly skilled egg packers...Oh yeah...Did I happen to mention that ours BROKE!? The Saturday evening banquet was
OUTSTANDING!!! I don't know how many people I told
over the weekend that this was by FAR, the best fly-in yet! I really hated
to to see Sunday come because I knew I would be taking down the tent,
saying goodbye to every one and Clinton '05 would be in the history books.
After we fueled up and prepared to depart our "one weekend a year" home,
we had a flight of five heading east to my home base in Portland IN, Greg
Hopp, Robert Cressman, Kirk Wennerstrom, Will Dirickson and myself. We
flew 255 miles in 2.4 hours! I took off about 5 minutes after everyone
else and I never caught up to everyone till we got the the IN and IL state
line. Chatting the entire way on the air to air freq. really made the trip
go by fast! We flew at 3500 feet for about the first hour then climbed to
5500 feet to get above the haze and much cooler air. I did manage to get
several good in flight pics of of Kirk, Greg and Wills' planes. Well that's about all I can think of,
so much fun in such a short time! Royson and Lori, thanks for having this club and putting on this event!
Bryan Oetting |