The day started with a trip in the dark that seemed to be a little windy for 0515, however, we were flying to Shawnee to meet with friends and have a great time. We took off at 0645 and were greeted with a nice easterly tailwind, unusual for this area. As we flew southwest of Frankfort we were greeted with this view of the city and the Capitol. |
This is a view of our home nestled in the Knobs northwest of the city. This is from 2500' AGL. Looking towards the top of the picture from the lake in the center there is a white building which is our toy shed (hangar). |
This is a closer view of the same image of our home. The runway is bordered on the southern end by our pond. |
This is a picture of the Shelby Knobs on our way to Shawnee Airfield, Bloomfield, Indiana. At this point we were 3000' AGL and had an indicated airspeed of 60 mph with a groundspeed of 85 mph. I sure hope this wind shifts back to its normal behavior of southwest to northeast before our return trip! |
Here is our trike at its old home, Shawnee. We made the 144.1 mile trip in 1:59:53 from takeoff roll to engine shutdown. The trip to Shawnee was wonderfully smooth air with a nice tailwind, our groundspeed average was 72.9 mph with a maximum groundspeed of 95.6 mph! We burned 8 gallons of fuel on this portion of the trip averaging 18 miles per gallon, not bad. However, I was beginning to think the forecasters had missed the mark with forecasts of 7-11 mph winds for the entire day. When we landed at Shawnee the winds were from the east at 25 with gusts over 35, I was sure glad this wonderful turf strip is 150' wide, I utilized all 150 x 2250 feet but made it down without mishap. |
John, Paula, and Dorothy celebrating landing without dismemberment! Joe Crowe introduced us to a new runway at Shawnee this morning 09/27. You will have to ask Joe about this feat I saw nothing! |
Dave Sweeney and Bari Owen enjoying the day. Later in the day Bari enjoyed the front seat of their trike with Brian in the back for a change. Congratulations Bari! |
Here we are in the Shawnee Airport Limo with Rob Rollison at the wheel. We are on our way to Washington, IN, home of the famous Black Buggy Restaurant. It doesn't get much better than this unless you can find a wonderful Amish restaurant with a strip within reasonable walking distance. |
Here we are at the Buggy left side top of the table towards the rear and then up the right side. Dorothy, John, Rob, Joe (Mr. 9/27 himself), Paula, John, Bari, Brian, and Gene. The waitress told us they lost money on this group, we ate enough for 20 normal people. Hey, dare to be different, why be normal fly a trike! |
The last of our happy little group arrived late and missed lunch. The yellow quantum with the red leading edge is Spencer Forman's 912, he battled headwinds all the way from Chicago! You missed a great lunch Spencer! Paula and I realized that we were not going to make it home today so we decided to enjoy ourselves and have a good time with friends Dorothy, Paula, and Bari went to Wal Mart and got the essentials, toothbrushes, toothpaste, etc. And, we daring do trikers decided to fly a little we were not going to allow a little wind to stop us from flying. So Gene, Spencer, Joe, John, and I took off and escorted Joe and John to their home strips. Unfortunately, none of us brought our cameras on this flight how cool to take a picture of 5 trikes flying together! At least that is what the guy that flew by us in the Mooney said! |
We did not take any pictures on the return trip as it was a little cool at 3500-4000' attempting to avoid the turbulence and headwinds. We did avoid most of the turbulence, but not all of the headwinds. It took us an hour and forty-five minutes to fly the first leg to Salem, IN, some 70 miles from Shawnee! Sure a major difference from the day before. We landed at Salem watching an ARCA race on the track adjacent to the airport. Salem is a wonderful little strip that is UL friendly (actually, just plain old friendly) and they have mogas! We topped off our fuel, we burned 5 gallons on the first 70 miles of the trip. And, we noticed that we were the center of attention by the race fans, but there was a King Air entering the pattern and we wanted to get out of the way, so no time to savor the spotlight. The trip home was long, cool at altitude, and oh so slow! The return trip was over 4 hours. Still it was a great trip, and we learned a valuable lesson, always take your toothbrush! The total trip with side ventures was 368.5 miles with an average speed of 50.9 mph. Boy did we have some fun! |
This is an image of our flight tracks, the lower track was the trip to Shawnee, the loop to the northeast the 5 trike flight, and the upper track the return flight to Frankfort. We had a wonderful trip! |