| To start with, on Friday
Lorene and I planned to fly the PA-12 to Ocala and meet Bill and Elaine
from Winter Haven (soon to be our new neighbors) who were flying their
Clipper, and have breakfast and then continue on to Thomasville (TVI).
Well the best laid plans were foiled by a thick layer of fog, and we
couldn't get to OCF until about 11. Too late for breakfast we settled for
one of Sam's good lunches. After lunch we checked the radar and decided
the picture wasn't pretty and the few reporting points along the way were
all down to 5-600 ft and poor visibility so it was unanimous to go back to
Loves which we did ok. As I was landing Harris and Ann Bowen were sitting
near end of runway ready to go to TVI until I informed them of what we had
observed so they put the Stearman back in the hanger. After landing Bill and Elaine went up to check on the progress of their new house and I started checking the weather on the computer.After checking many times things started to improve and by 3 it looked good enough to try so I called Bill who was still up at their house and we decided to give it another try. In the meantime Lorene had cancelled our motel reservations so she got on the phone to try and get them back or find another motel. After many tries she couldn't get our original motel but did finally find us rooms at Days Inn. By then Bill and Elaine were back so after adding some fuel we were off with me in the lead as the Clipper is a little faster than the PA-12. We settled into cruise at 2000 ft where naturally we had a headwind of 10-12 kts giving us a ground speed of about 80kts on the GPS, however the ride was smooth and the visibility excellent. After 1:55 of flight time we arrived at TVI at the same time as a Fairchild 24 and another Clipper who also coming in from the South. They were slightly inside of us in relation to the airport so I told them to go in first which the Clipper did and the Fairchild made a high/slow?? speed pass.After landing and taxing to our tiedown spot we passed Al and Bob Nase from Loves standing beside the taxiway and while trying to tie down (the ground was like cement) they came by to add their comments. They along with Dolly had driven up and said they ran into a lot of rain. There appeared to be about 60 or so aircraft already tied down when we got there and the majority were antique, classic or homebuilt. Turned out that the Nase's were staying at the same motel as ours so after looking around some they gave us a ride to the motel to check-in. After we washed up abit they came by the room along with Harris and Ann who after parking the Stearman drove up saying they drove through some rain on way and they were also staying at same motel. By now it was raining so we went to Italian restaurant where we waited almost an hour for dinner and then returned to motel and called it a night. Sat. morning we woke to rain and a very low ceiling, however after breakfast (which is hard to find in Thomasville) we rode back to the airport with Nase's. Nice that they have a van so plenty of room.We spent time looking at radar, which was mostly green with some yellow in spots, then over to hanger where they have a nice collection of antique engines one of which I had never seen before, a 12 cyl. opposed. After that it was over to another large hanger where there were a booths and displays set up. Did I mention that it was raining all this time? They also had a food line set up in this hanger so we had lunch which lasted most of the afternoon.I did say it was raining. We did run into Dick McLean from Hobby Hill another chapter 1236 member, a couple of friends from LaBelle and a couple from S. Lakeland. All drove except for couple from S.Lakeland who came in their Aerostar.We did see about 6 planes come in Sat., some IFR and others scud running. Not much to do except go back to motel and do repeat of night before except a different restaurant. Woke up Sun. to a repeat of Sat.but with hopes that it would get better. Went to breakfast, checked out and Al took us to the airport. For the rest of the morning the weather room was full of people checking to see if the weather was better in the direction they were heading. Went to lunch with Harris and Ann as the Nase's had already left. After lunch the rain had almost stopped and we did get to look at a few of the planes that were on the line in between the weather checks. About 3 pm things were looking better, the rain had stopped and the visibility looked good so decided to give it a try. We were able to reach 1200 ft and still stay clear of overcast deck and with my luck we were running into a headwind on the way back. Seems the weather is always worst about interstate 10 and Sun. was no different as we got down to about 700ft, however the visibility stayed good. After about 15 miles we broke into better conditions and were able to cruise at 1500-2000 ft. Took 1:44 for us to reach Loves Landing and Bill and Elaine continued on to Winter Haven. In spite of the rain we had a good time due to the company of good friends and there is always next year. |
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ABOUT THOMASVILLE '03 -- In one word - WET! by Ollie Washburn |