rvmills
Well Known Member
Well, I'm finally back at home after a month-long, multi-faceted flying adventure, which included a bit over 4,000 miles of RV flying, the first Oshkosh for my boys and me, two air races, 5 formation hops, a J-3 Cub flight, a Pitts flight, with two working airline trips and a 5 day block of airline training in Dallas...with a PC!
As Arnold said in Terminator 2, "I need a vacation!" (Austrian accent)
My feet and be-hind are flat, my wallet is quite a bit thinner, and my RV grin is more than a mile wide!!
But enough about me...I want to tell y'all about:
THE GREAT CANADIAN AIR RALLY!
This'll be a 2 part post, as I have a couple more than 10 pics to post.
First let me say that Tom Martin and family, Gary Wilcox and a cast of many put on an absolutely wonderful event in a totally beautiful setting. We all know a ton of work went into this Tom and Gary, and we all want you to know how much fun we had and how much we appreciate your efforts!
The adventure began for various racers in a variety of locations from Canada to Delaware to Texas to Reno, and all over. Many of us met up in Fremont, Ohio (14G) to launch for St. Thomas Ontario. Here's a shot of Mark Frederick (F1Boss on VAF) leading 4 of us across the border and over Lake Erie. Pictured between Mark and I is Mike Thompson, Sport Air Racing League Grand Puba in his RV-6:
After all of our preps and a bit of angst about not dorking up the customs notifications (electronic and telephone), the flight plan filing (we filed as a flight of 4) and the arrival procedures in Canada...it turned out to be just about as easy as it could be. We cleared via phone with an agent, and even though a couple folks forgot to make the pre-departure call, we breezed through Customs...and we didn't have to bail anyone out of an RCMP gulag (they don't have those by the way!)
Here we are milling about the ramp just after clearing Customs:
And here's my son Matt, very excited to be in Canada!!
A few of us then flew the course once for practice, and then recovered a mile north of St. Thomas (CYQS) at Tom's Fairlea Farm grass strip. Its one of the prettiest little grass strips you'll ever see, nestled between his barn and his corn and bean fields. Definitely the nicest grass runway I've ever landed on!
We parked in front of Tom's Barn (left, where the big after race party was held) and his hangar (right, where we had about 10 RVs and Rockets parked each nite). It was just a very cool scene!
The next morning was a mid-overcast kinda day, with very light winds...perfect for racing! We had over 20 racers, in one of the most varied fields I've seen at a SARL race!
Yep, we had a Sonex and a Seaplane...and every RV model was represented...RV-4, RV-6, RV-7, RV-8, RV-9 and RV-10...that may be a first time for that too!
Here's Mark F. sporting his "on-fire" race shirt, and schmoozing with the head timer and our race sign up crew (Tom's sons). Some guys will do anything for a knot (or three, eh!)
The preflight briefing, with Race Host Tom Martin giving the overall brief, flanked by head timer Ed Perl and Co-Race Director Gary Wilcox, who gave the detailed race/turn brief.
The race went off without any major hitches at all. Everyone ran quite well, and Tom Martin smoked the field in his amazing Rocket! Mark and I battled it out as usual, and this time he ran his IO-550 at full RPM for the first time in a race. He started behind me, due to a suspect GPS so he could follow me (just in case). But he pulled out all the stops and passed me! I chased him from then on, even calling him back on course twice (once to make him jink at turn 5, so I could gain a little back, and once to keep him from making a late play at turn 6 and filling my windscreen with an F1 Rocket planform). I did wait till I could close a little though, and the run to the finish was really fun! If anyone from the race committee or specator group has any pics of the finish, I'd really like to see those...I saw a lot of flashes as I went by the barn! Wayne Hadath, who started ahead of us, did a mulligan 360 at the start and turned in behind Mark for a restart...I figured he wanted to pass me too...but I was able to hold him off (whew!) I know there was other fun happening in the other classes, but I'll let others chime in with their experiences. We recovered at St. Thomas, and had the post race BBQ and awards ceremony (can ya pick out the Texans?!):
Here's Mike anouncing the finish results...winners each and every one, all rewarded with a great time, great burgers, and a nice set of 4 engraved beer mugs!
Just a couple more pics to share, so post 2 will be shorter. More to follow...
Cheers,
Bob
As Arnold said in Terminator 2, "I need a vacation!" (Austrian accent)
My feet and be-hind are flat, my wallet is quite a bit thinner, and my RV grin is more than a mile wide!!
But enough about me...I want to tell y'all about:
THE GREAT CANADIAN AIR RALLY!
This'll be a 2 part post, as I have a couple more than 10 pics to post.
First let me say that Tom Martin and family, Gary Wilcox and a cast of many put on an absolutely wonderful event in a totally beautiful setting. We all know a ton of work went into this Tom and Gary, and we all want you to know how much fun we had and how much we appreciate your efforts!
The adventure began for various racers in a variety of locations from Canada to Delaware to Texas to Reno, and all over. Many of us met up in Fremont, Ohio (14G) to launch for St. Thomas Ontario. Here's a shot of Mark Frederick (F1Boss on VAF) leading 4 of us across the border and over Lake Erie. Pictured between Mark and I is Mike Thompson, Sport Air Racing League Grand Puba in his RV-6:
After all of our preps and a bit of angst about not dorking up the customs notifications (electronic and telephone), the flight plan filing (we filed as a flight of 4) and the arrival procedures in Canada...it turned out to be just about as easy as it could be. We cleared via phone with an agent, and even though a couple folks forgot to make the pre-departure call, we breezed through Customs...and we didn't have to bail anyone out of an RCMP gulag (they don't have those by the way!)
Here we are milling about the ramp just after clearing Customs:
And here's my son Matt, very excited to be in Canada!!
A few of us then flew the course once for practice, and then recovered a mile north of St. Thomas (CYQS) at Tom's Fairlea Farm grass strip. Its one of the prettiest little grass strips you'll ever see, nestled between his barn and his corn and bean fields. Definitely the nicest grass runway I've ever landed on!
We parked in front of Tom's Barn (left, where the big after race party was held) and his hangar (right, where we had about 10 RVs and Rockets parked each nite). It was just a very cool scene!
The next morning was a mid-overcast kinda day, with very light winds...perfect for racing! We had over 20 racers, in one of the most varied fields I've seen at a SARL race!
Yep, we had a Sonex and a Seaplane...and every RV model was represented...RV-4, RV-6, RV-7, RV-8, RV-9 and RV-10...that may be a first time for that too!
Here's Mark F. sporting his "on-fire" race shirt, and schmoozing with the head timer and our race sign up crew (Tom's sons). Some guys will do anything for a knot (or three, eh!)
The preflight briefing, with Race Host Tom Martin giving the overall brief, flanked by head timer Ed Perl and Co-Race Director Gary Wilcox, who gave the detailed race/turn brief.
The race went off without any major hitches at all. Everyone ran quite well, and Tom Martin smoked the field in his amazing Rocket! Mark and I battled it out as usual, and this time he ran his IO-550 at full RPM for the first time in a race. He started behind me, due to a suspect GPS so he could follow me (just in case). But he pulled out all the stops and passed me! I chased him from then on, even calling him back on course twice (once to make him jink at turn 5, so I could gain a little back, and once to keep him from making a late play at turn 6 and filling my windscreen with an F1 Rocket planform). I did wait till I could close a little though, and the run to the finish was really fun! If anyone from the race committee or specator group has any pics of the finish, I'd really like to see those...I saw a lot of flashes as I went by the barn! Wayne Hadath, who started ahead of us, did a mulligan 360 at the start and turned in behind Mark for a restart...I figured he wanted to pass me too...but I was able to hold him off (whew!) I know there was other fun happening in the other classes, but I'll let others chime in with their experiences. We recovered at St. Thomas, and had the post race BBQ and awards ceremony (can ya pick out the Texans?!):
Here's Mike anouncing the finish results...winners each and every one, all rewarded with a great time, great burgers, and a nice set of 4 engraved beer mugs!
Just a couple more pics to share, so post 2 will be shorter. More to follow...
Cheers,
Bob
