Trip Report 37 th Annual EAA Cracker Fly-In Gainesville, Georgia

Transcription

1 Trip Report 37 th Annual EAA Cracker Fly-In Gainesville, Georgia Ted Hughes N4372S, Piper Archer We had been planning on attending the 37th Annual EAA Cracker Fly-in at Gainesville, GA for the past few weeks. We got up early Saturday morning bright and early to check the progress of Hurricane Dennis. Hoping that he was still far enough away that we could make the journey in N4372S to our first fly-in as a family. For those of you who don't know me, my wife and I got married last November, so all of this flyin' and aviation "stuff" is still all new to her. We checked and double checked the weather, filed an IFR flight plan and by 8:00 am we had the car packed with our lawn chairs and was off to the Island. Once we arrived we started gathering the things from the car. Everyone has pitched in and took on little duties they enjoy doing. I start the preflight while my beautiful wife takes the cover off the airplane with the help of our 7 year old daughter who also heads for the front of the airplane to take the cowl plugs out and place them with the cover which is neatly folded and put in the baggage compartment. By 8:45 we are taxing out. I chose to pick up the IFR on the ground since there seem to be some ground fog around the river. A few minutes later we are airborne and headed south. Once over the mountains we hear another airplane from RKW I believe checking in with TYS Approach headed to GVL as well. It was a beautiful picture perfect morning with the ground fog hugging the foothills and the air was as smooth as you could ever want. A morning every pilot dreams about. A man at peace with his machine and family, I heard alot of ooos' and ahhs' coming through the intercom as we continue over the Smokies. Cruising right along at 8000 feet just a few miles north of the HRS VOR we tune up the GVL AWOS and check the weather, Great I tell the wife, 10 miles vis, clear skies, then we switch over to the CTAF on #2 COM and man is that place busy I think to myself. It's been awhile since I have flown into an airport with this much traffic and no tower.(i fly in and out of places such as DTW, DCA, LGA, BOS all the time, but I have a Controller telling me where to go there, today it's me and the 10 other airplanes trying to get into the pattern.) One of the first few calls I hear is a Luscombe escorting 2 other aircraft with no radios and the second call I hear is another airplane escorting 2 ultralights, which I thought was a great idea to keep everyone safe and the traffic flowing smoothly. About 15 miles or so out from GVL the very busy ATL center controller(who probably wishes she had stayed in bed that morning) points out the GVL airport 11 O'clock and 15 miles advise when you have it... Roger, I say we will go ahead and cancel and continue VFR thanks for the help have a great weekend! As we start making position reports on CTAF and fall in line behind another Luscombe very shiny and polished. Once on the ground directed to the grass infield and parked. We sign in and head for the Hamburger/Hot Dog line. There were quite a few very nice looking Warbirds as well as Antiques. I also ran into another Knoxville based pilot who had brought his 310 down and actually won 2 awards. Mr. Steve Rogers, won the best monoplane as well as the ladies choice award. I believe they said the ladies chose it because he had let his wife choose the color and it had new leather seats. Somehow I failed to get a good picture of it. You can see it in the background of a picture our daughter took of an RV- 6 with us in the background. We had a great time since my wife is from GVL she got to see some folks

2 she knew and went to church with and our daughter got to also visit with her Grammy and Papa for a few hours before we headed back north to beat Dennis' advance. We also got a great deal on fuel. We had an early dinner with the wife's folks and got back to the airport around 5:00 and we still got the fuel discount. Normally they charge $3.95/gallon there at Champion Aviation, but for the EAA Cracker Fly-In we got topped off for $2.94/gallon, a lot cheaper than we could have got it even at home at the Island. The trip back home was almost as smooth as the trip down, just about over RHP we had to deviate around some Towering Cumulus and got just a few bumps. Even though we got there to late for the pancake breakfast we had a great time.

3

4

5

6

7