A amazing weekend!! A T-6G and Fish

[KirkGrovesRV8]

Hey guys!
Boy I sure hope this does not sound like bragging, but I had a amazing weekend!!!!
I started off Saturday by heading over to New Garden airport to take a PA-20 up for a spin very nice plane, I think it would really work well for us. Then my day became amazing! Just by luck I ran into some real life Barnstormers during the week and set up with them to go for a ride in a T-6G on sat. Well I got to go up with a great pilot and guy and had probably the best time I have had yet in a airplane. I got to sit in the front hole (everyone does) but I was allowed to taxi the plane out, we got to the end of the runway and I hear from Ott (the fella in the back seat) "I got the throttle you fly the plane" OK;-)
And off we go climb at 100mph gear up, and up to 4500' and we go thru some aerobatics:-) Simple rolls, Barrel rolls, and some loops and cuban 8's. Then I hear "OK I would love to keep flying but we are Bingo Fuel" I say OK if we have too;-)
So I fly the plane into the downwind, and from the back seat comes" Do you think you can land this thing?" I respond with a very mild "I think so" Ott says "OK I got the radio, you fly the plane keep 90mph"
So a nice steady single turn from downwind to base to final, I got 90mph, gear down, the vis over the nose is great on final (from the front seat anyway) over the numbers power off, and that big beautiful bird just rolled right on the runway that oleo gear is sweeeeeeetttttt, kept the tail up and kept my feet moving but that sweet airplane rolled straight ahead, pined the tail down and taxied off the runway. Taxied back to the apron shut the airplane down and I was able to walk away with a .5 of dual and 1 landing in my logbook in a AT-6G.(by the way these guys will be at Rostraver on Tuesday)
WOW and that was just Saturday, then today I was invited to go fishing in the Chesapeake bay with some other pilots. So Queenie and I left Smoketown around 11am and flew the 69nm south to 3W3(Kentmorr airpark) and landed had a amazing crab cake sandwich and then got on a boat and headed out for a great time with some great guys and caught quite a bit of fish, mostly rock fish(stripped sea bass) and blue fish. The captain of the boat cleaned the catch we packed the fish in ice and walked the 100yds back to the airplane left around 6pm and by 7:30pm the fresh catch was on the grill:-) Great fish yum yum yum!
All in all one of my best plane weekends! I hope everyone else is well and I can't wait to tell everyone about my trip to Minn to fly the P-51!

[Mark Burns]

Kirk,
If you come back from Minn and say you landed the P-51 I'm going to call bull(cough) on that one

Seriously though, sounds like you had a great weekend!

Mark

[KirkGrovesRV8]

Don't worry I am pretty sure I will be in the back in the Mustang

[1:1 Scale]

Originally Posted by KirkGrovesRV8

Don't worry I am pretty sure I will be in the back in the Mustang

Lived out that dream a coulple of years ago



I'll let you guess the Mustang

That was the first weekend I sat in an RV-7, too. I forget the guy's name, but he and his dad built it, powered it with a Sube, and it was hangared at the N. end of the hangars at 2Q3 (Yolo Co., CA).

Sounds like you had a nearly perfect weekend!

[yakdriver]

Looks like Voodo Chile. Was Bob flying it? I owned a SNJ for 8 years and got to fly several warbirds. I did a Mustang check out with Lou Shaw in 1991 and I got to fly from the front seat for three awsome hours. Much easier to fly than the SNJ. Don

[Jim Lewellyn]

Hey Kirk,

Glad to hear that you enjoyed the fishing so much. Spending the day with my son and friends, fishin' and flyin'........ It was a day that I will never forget!

[Bryan Wood]

Yesterday we were cruising along in a boat doing around 45 mph or so with the roar of the 454 Chevrolet sounding pretty nice. Then this noise from the back like the an engine problem was suddenly coming on when a P51 with a Bearcat on its wing buzzed us at about 50' agl. The radial mixed with the sound of the 454 to make a horrible sound initiatially, but once they were on us the sound was pure magic. The flight came right from our six and left right off our nose. About 5 minutes later they appeared on the horizon and went over again going the other way. Even though we got the poor mans version of your day it was still really cool watching these guys have fun in these beautiful planes.

[1:1 Scale]

Originally Posted by yakdriver

Looks like Voodo Chile. Was Bob flying it?

Yep, and yep! Took me out to the coast and back in a big loop in about 45 minutes. Certainly wasn't free, but I don't think he broke even given the cost of fuel and maintenance. Def. a good guy