The last flight of 2011 – with Stan and Kathy

After a couple of false starts, the great quest for the $100 hamburger brought Stan (the Grizzly Bear) and Kathy (patient chronicler of flights and motorcycle trips) to Rutherford County Airport NC … we had tried a couple of times to meet up there but for various reasons couldn’t make it happen until nearly the last moment of 2011 …

Thanks to Kathy for all the nifty pictures … Griz and I were kept busy navigating and aviating.

Looking east for the first time, the Blue Ridge Parkway with some snow in NC, Houses east of Asheville NC

Griz said the flight down from Tennessee was really nice. They had time to do a little sightseeing on the way, enjoying December scenery that is usually of the white-ish variety, but very little snow so far this year … only a dusting here and there.

Getting down toward the flatlands, that’s Hickory Nut Gorge on the left, Kathy’s reflection on the side window taking a picture of Chimney Rock and Lake Lure. My Dad said he grew up in the bottom of what is now Lake Lure. Directly below the airplane is Lake Lure Inn where a lot of the movie “Dirty Dancing” was made.

So anyway, here are Griz and Kathy just cruising along enjoying the countryside and I’m pulling the Cub out of my hangar to join them. They had further to go, across the Blue Ridge Mountains … I just had to hop over a ridge at World’s Edge and set up a gradual descent to Rutherford County, which is 1,000 feet below my home field.

Final approach for Rutherford County, Kathy in her John Deere hat and Grizzly Stan posing with their Cub.

S&K arrived early - I managed to drag in at about 11:30. The 57A Cafe was just a short walk from the ramp.

I got my picher took, there are the 2 Cubs side by side on the ramp and the 57A Cafe through the Jeep frame.

The burgers and Stan’s taco salad went down just fine but we were mindful that the weather was due to change later in the day so we decided to skedaddle while the skedaddling was good. Outside, the windsock began doing a dance and the winds were already picking up in advance of the weather front. We went through our preflight inspections and performed “armstrong” starts and were off in pretty short order.

I’m first out of the chocks … the weather toward my route looked ok-ish, S&K’s outlook is to the right. What the picture of my route doesn’t show is the rush of southerly wind accelerating on the south face of the mountains.

By the time I taxiied into position on the runway, the windsock was pretty much straight out from the pole. The Cub and I were off the ground before I had pushed the power all the way up. I was hoping the wind would hold because if I had been riding a gust and the wind had gone away, I’d run out of airspeed, altitude and imagination at about the same time. As it was, we kept flying (thank goodness for 85 horsepower)and I set course to cross the ridge at World’s Edge again – you definitely do NOT want to fly Hickory Nut Gorge in windy conditions.

Meanwhile, Stan and Kathy were enjoying a leisurely ride up the long, delirious, burning blue … topping the windswept heights with easy grace … but I’ll let Griz tell his tale:

Oh yeah! once we got past I-40 things started to settle down and even more so once we got across that ridge west of Mt Mitchell where the Blue Ridge Parkway goes along. We had just scattered clouds, tops around 7,000 (LOL) and we actually got to an altitude of 8,500 (it was cold up there), didn't really want to but with those high winds I just felt safer the higher up we were able to go since every now and then we were getting an elevator ride. We almost kept going as I have always been curious if both Kathy and I could get to 10,000' with the 65hp engine, but the numbness in my toes got in the way of holding the stick back. After the last ridge, the NC/TN border, we descended back to 2600' for pattern altitude and it got choppy again. Winds on the runway were only about 5 knots though pretty much in line with the runway. Flight time was 1.5 going down and 1.4 coming back.

Notice the cool, detached “it got choppy” comment? Pilots do that. A pilot can go through the seven tortures of hell and if someone on the ground asks he might say “yeah, it was a little bumpy”.

Climbing through 8,000 feet, Crossing the NC mountains, Last ridge in sight I-26 below. (Whenever I think of “the last ridge” I think of an old movie “The Bridges of Toko-Ri” … the last ridge proved to be too much in that movie but the Gallavanting Grizzly and his Kathy-belle made it just fine).

I’ll spare you the details, but it got “a little bumpy” on the way to World’s Edge. Once over the ridge, though, we are in a little piece of heaven where winds are civilized for the most part and my ride was pretty good for the last few miles to Runway 15 at Johnson Field.

Johnson Field (the grass runway to the right) on a summer day, and the Cub back at home in its hangar.

It just doesn’t get any better than meeting up with friends with Piper Cubs. Maybe the weather could be better next time, maybe a little warmer, maybe we could talk some other Cub people into joining us. So long, 2011. Hello, 2012.