Went fishing on the Bighorn the other day.

Glassy water on Saturday, nice weather reprieve before we get nailed by winter.

(used the small Sony on these)

[quote="BRD"]Glassy water on Saturday, nice weather reprieve before we get nailed by winter.

(used the small Sony on these)



BRD, I'm diggin all these photo's! You should start your own a thread with all your pics.

Dang - after seeing how beautiful other folks pictures were, I was hesitant to post - but I did have a good flight over the weekend. I flew to the first annual Maule homecoming in Moultrie, GA. It didn't make a whole lot of sense. I got stuck with work and bad weather on Friday, so I flew all the way down on Saturday and then turned around and flew home Sunday. I missed all of the flying escapades since the short landing and takeoff contests were over before I arrived Saturday evening. I spent 13 hours getting there and back and only 15 hours on the ground (including 7 for sleep) so it didn't pencil out, but I did get to see some great planes and met some great people. I even managed to survive my no flap departure from the ramp in front of the factory. T hat was BAD! Here are the shots of my trip down and back. Video will come when I get a breather from work.

Before departing, I offered to let this P-51 owner take a picture of his plane next to mine, but he was too busy. I'll send him a shot so he knows what a cool plane looks like


En route to Georgia, I flew over Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia - a cool man-made lake.



After Virginia, I ran into some nasty weather in the Carolinas, but bad weather often means rainbows:



When I arrived, all of the planes were on the ground, and folks were headed to a great BBQ dinner



Here's what they looked like up close




The next morning saw a constant stream of departures, but this Maule arrived with a feather soft landing:\


On the way home I flew over Lake Norman and this sweet residential airpark in North Carolina


Finally this shot of a small farm on the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way home

Hey Flyhound,

Good friends of mine have a place on the lake below the dam (most inefficient dam in the world! ) at Smith Mountain lake. I've been wondering if they let floatplanes on that body of water. Seems like everything out east is closed up res floatplanes.

Brad

Brad - I saw lots of boats on the lake, but not a single plane was observed. I've never paid much attention to the availability of water strips out here since I've always landed on the little round things. There was a Maule on amphibious floats based out of Warrenton Airpark in Northern Virginia and presumably they had places to go. That plane and it's crew was lost in a landing accident (stall/spin on short final into the trees) about 2 years ago, and I haven't seen another float plane since. Probably not a good indication of viable landing spots in the mid-Atlantic region.

Gary

Flyhound, I think I was behind you getting fuel at KEHO in Shelby, NC on Sunday a little after lunch? We were coming back from Tennessee and had just skirted these clouds that were held up on the West side of Mount Mitchell. East of the mountains, the sky was clear. Your Maule looks great by the way.

Yup, that was me at KEHO. They have an impressive setup there even though the field is paved, not grass. That was my 1/2 way point back to northern Virginia at least for my bladder - the plane probably could have made the 6 hour flight without stopping. It was a great day to be flying - hippie you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Flew down to Mercey Hot Springs today for a soak.

Great pictures Flyhound!

I give you much credit in flying down to moultrie and am sorry I did not have much time to get to know you before I had to head back north. Your plane looked awesome in that very unique color.

Hope to see you again if you fly down again next year to Moultrie, or there may be a gathering in Maryland this springer organized by TomKatz.

We took our neighbors up to drop pumpkins on our Halloween window monster (that will make more sense when you watch the video). It was a great time! I love taking kids up for their first flights and letting them fly for a bit and do something fun. It's cool to see the smiles on their faces and hear them tell their parents how cool it was.

Enjoy!

First, what looks like the moon, but was only Utah. The next day, Montana. I spotted a couple of interesting construction sites along the way, I believe this is called a cofferdam? I can understand how it works once in place, getting it into place kind of baffles me Looks like a pump discharging on the right. Then, just North of Rexburg, I just happened to fly directly over this disaster. No real wind the last few days, so the cause was probably totally inept initial bracing, and after they got a few up (all tied into the first braced gable truss, the only thing keeping them all upright) They kept on going thinking they had it whipped. I see this all the time, guys wanting to get the crane outa there ASAP to save a few bucks, and skimping on the bracing. The thing I see is any slight breeze, and every truss up there adds to the wind loading, so more trusses looks more solid and it isn't. Nothing in the news so I guess no one got killed or badly injured, lucky bastards. Every truss will be broken. All the extra work and delay getting the busted ones out, waiting for new ones, and it all could have been prevented. When I see inadequate bracing bad enough, I shut off the crane and tell them "no charge, get her braced better and we'll start up again". It makes for bad publicity to be associated with a clusterf**k like this (NOT one of mine). Back to flying stuff!

They're building a new sanctuary at our church. Same thing, 40 of the 800# trusses and the gazillion pound I-beams came down around 7:00 in the morning while three guys were under it... Fortunately only broken bones and they survived!

Any other aerial pics out there of collapsed truss works?!! Good one BRD, yeah, they were lucky!

I spotted this yesterday, on a breakfast flight to scenic Jackpot NV. It's not a forest service lookout, or a communications site, it appears to be "for the view". A brand new paved road, and a ADA approved bathroom no less, all at 9350'. It's outside of Burley, ID, Harrison Peak. Not near a very large population hub, kind of hard to believe the funds where available to build it, it has got me curious and I will check it out in the future and get the skinny on it. Real well built, shuttered up for the winter, and lots of open areas, just saying

Established as a lookout post in the 1930's, a trailer lookout was added in 1960. The present hip-roof 2-story R-6 cab, built in 1977, is staffed in the summer.

http://www.firelookout.com/id/harrison.html



I hope the information in this article wasn't provided by a FS employee. It's an Osborne Fire Finder, not an enormous compass.

"The lookout still houses fire location equipment, including an enormous compass."
http://magicvalley.com/lifestyles/recre ... 8802f.html

Today a plane landed on the exposed bottom of Pineview Reservior in Huntsville, UT and I was just lucky enough to be walking along the bottom of that same reservior, at that same moment in time, with my camera in my hand, waiting at that same exact spot, to take a photo of a cloud. What a coinsidence in timing!

Also, an update on the Gilder Peak airstrip (Huntsville, UT): It has been cleaned up, the sagebrush has been removed and it has been mowed. Following my lakebed walk, I took a walk up to the top of the mountain and watched a plane do a touch and go on Gilder Peak airstrip. It looked pretty smooth.

Me 'n Reno Chick flew down to Bridgeport, CA (O57) today to meet with Desert185 for breakfast. About as nice a flying day as you can get in the eastern slope of the Sierras.



Gump

GumpAir wrote:Me 'n Reno Chick flew down to Bridgeport, CA (O57) to meet with Desert185 today for breakfast. About as nice a flying day as you can get in the eastern slope of the Sierras.



Gump

Funny Gump, that's not how I pictured Reno Chick.

What happens in Bridgeport stays in Bridgeport!!!

Gump

looks like two A holes to me....