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 Previous Item - Another newbie
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Another Nice November Day |
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Dan Nickens - Oct 11,2003
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Col. Gracy is widely known as “the Noon Balloon.” The X61 squadron had to wait for his arrival the next day before setting out on an adventure.<br /><br />When I arrived at the airport, Oscar was briefing a pilot-passenger for a demonstration flight in his Buccaneer. “I’ll let you handle the controls except for takeoff and landing,” he told him. “If I say ‘it’s my airplane,’ let go. If you don’t, I’ll knock you out.” From Oscar’s serious look and the stunned look of the passenger, I doubted there would be any such problem.<br /><br />As soon as he arrived, Col. Gracy started polishing his airplane. Most people, if they cared at all, would do that after flight. Not the Colonel. In his polishing he found fuel stains on one of the flaps. “I’m grounded,” he announced.<br /><br />“HA!” I say. Not at X61. We have a full parts warehouse. We need it. Sure enough a new set of float bowl gaskets were located and installed. I guess some people don’t bother to read their maintenance manuals. The gaskets have to be periodically replaced.<br /><br />Jon didn’t wait around for us. He was out making Jane airsick. By the time we were ready to launch for late lunch, Jane didn’t want to eat. (I think Jon did that on purpose to keep her away from the waitresses at our lakeside hamburger place.)<br /><br />Oscar dumped his pale passenger and joined up with us to fly to Lake Minneola. It was a good excuse for Frank and I to practice slow flight. “Let’s see…at 65 mph it will take only 1.2g to stall.” Oscar shut off his radio. He didn’t want to hear about it.<br /><br />It was a shock to find that our eating place had been discovered. Oscar, in the lead, landed right behind a C-172 on straight floats. A Lake amphibian sat on the beach. We had to hustle to find a parking space. While parking we were buzzed by a couple of wayward Buccaneers from Gator Field.<br /><br />Oscar and the Colonel have no sense of one-upmanship. The C-172 and Lake were nudged onto the beach. I dropped the gear and taxied right up onto the sand. I stepped out onto dry land with a smug grin on my face. Then I struck a pose while looking for an audience. Unfortunately no one noticed.<br /><br />Another unfortunate circumstance was that the waitress remembered Frank from our prior visit. She let him know how insulted she was. He had no idea what she was talking about.<br /><br />A couple from Connecticut sitting at an adjoining table intruded upon our conversations. They wanted to talk about voting and elections and Democrats. They soon discovered that unless the topic somehow involved airplanes, it would get no response from this crew. Not on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.<br /><br />We soon departed the area to exploit the lakes around Leesburg. We were looking for a deserted sandy beach to use as a platform for photography. I found one and landed with Oscar close behind. Frank stayed aloft in hopes of catching some good rays on film.<br /><br />It was a good thing Oscar was along. He intercepted a couple of beachcombers and held them at bay. It freed me up to do important stuff like documenting how not to land. Photographs of Frank’s landing(s) should be a highlight.<br /><br />Oscar and the Colonel decided that sunset was a good time to park the airplanes. By the time I caught up at the airport, they were on the ground with their beer cans in the fully open position. Tall tales were flying.<br /><br />A nearby empty seat was an attractive offer. More attractive, however, was the burgeoning moon. It was just rising as the sun sank through the now golden western sky. “That’s an invitation to fly,” I said and I was off.<br /><br />Flying the Searey on a crisp moonlit night is dreamlike. The pale, pure light of the nearly full moon provided just enough fluorescence to soften the landscape. Vaguely indistinct shapes flowed along the ground as the airplane sat motionless above them.<br /><br />The visibility was phenomenal. Lights twinkling along the populated east coast 50 miles away were clearly visible. The only twinkling to the west was from the thousands of stars.<br /><br />With hundreds of lakes within easy striking range, I was sorely tempted. The moonlight shimmering across the waves painted a runway facing into the wind. I knew it could be done. Then I thought about the consequences of a miscalculation spilling me, my camera and the airplane into the water without an audience. Maybe some other time.<br /><br />I could have stayed up for hours. I would have if I had a long range Aussie fuel tank. As it was, the fuel status was inexorably creeping towards that nebulous area. Even though there was adequate light for an emergency landing, I didn’t want to spend the night sleeping in the Searey. Ask Rob about that.<br /><br />The landing was regretful. The airplane did not want to land. Neither of us wanted to be back on the ground after another nice day in the air. Then again, there’s always the hope of next weekend.<br /><br />Copyright 2000 Dan Nickens<br />
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