It was reasonably warm by 10:30 yesterday morning so I decided “What the hay?” and trundled out to the airport. There were a couple of airplanes flying so I opened up the hangar and chatted a few minutes with an old timer about this and that.
Looking northward along Runway 33, Johnson Field
Rolled the CallAir out after checking the oil and fuel drains (my engine doesn’t use oil much at all), attached the tail tie down and she started on the second pull of the prop. Being almost a direct crosswind from the SW, I elected to depart on 33 at Johnson Field. What a day! Crosswinds from the SW make for some exclamations near the north end of the field but the mighty Continental (Powerful as the Nation) pulled us through and we bounced our way through an overhead departure to the northeast and around the Valley of the Old French Broad. Well, not exactly. It was more like the Valley of the Old Clear Creek.
Clear Creek, or something like it, from Google Earth. Sugarloaf VOR at right.
It didn’t take long to have enough fun for one day, so with the skies now empty, bounced back to a left downwind entry to 15 at Johnson .. whereupon the rollers over Barker Heights really rolled and the geese on the runway tried downwind takeoffs toward 0A7 with some comical panic but I landed past them in an amazing, beautiful wheel landing that, of course, nobody witnessed but me.
Since you weren’t around to sit in the hangar and marvel at my prowess or be regaled by my description of it, I thought “why deny my friends”.......
It was too chilly and lonely for a celebratory beer (reminiscent of Saturday’s breakfast when landscaping duties and fallen trees decimated the ranks) so I packed it in and returned to chores aplenty, always pending, sometimes done.
Hendersonville NC. Home of the Fairweather Flyers
