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EAA 1211 Blairsville, GA Fly-In report


FastEddieB

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Yesterday had a nice Fly-In and Chili Cook-Off at Blairsville, GA, sponsored by my EAA chapter.

 

Took forever for the fog to burn off at Copperhill... (each photo can be viewed larger by clicking on it)

 

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...but when it did, an absolutely perfect flying day.

 

Karen and I arriving in the Sky Arrow:

 

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And Andy (MrMorden) arriving in his CTSW:

 

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FINALLY we get to meet:

 

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Several of us taking off for a spot landing contest, which I thought I was a shoo-in for:

 

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Looking at this, it looks like I did a helluva job...

 

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But I was instinctively and stubbornly unable to land fast, and floated hundreds of feet past the line.

 

Won by a relatively newly minted pilot, Caleb Gessman, in a 172.

 

There was a moment of quite some consternation (read: PANIC!) when a Cub kinda blew an approach and landing.

 

Not exactly a stabilized approach:

 

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And then things got interesting:

 

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And, after what I think was about 180º of a ground loop, a takeoff from the grass facing the opposite direction:

 

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Barely clearing those trees to hear some tell it. The fellow departed and was not seen again. Probably looking for a laundromat! :?

 

If it was an intentional "drunken Cub" routine, well done! But no one thinks it was.

 

At one point it was headed right towards a group of onlookers (including Andy), and there was the real potential for a tragedy.

 

Whew!

 

Anyway, this is all second hand reporting by me - Andy may be able to provide more details.

 

In spite of that, great weather, great company and great chili!

 

Til next year...

 

Oh, and credit goes to Mark Carr, for some of those action photos - he's our unofficial event photographer.

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Yep, the cub driver screwed the pooch. He got way behind the power curve, plopped it in heading for the left side of the runway and the crowd on one wheel, scraped the left wingtip, then 180 ground looped acros the runway scraping the other wingtip, off into the grass parallel to the runway heading the opposite direction from his landing. Then about 200 feet of roll and back in the air, clearing a stand of trees by about 10-15 feet. He NEVER came off full power the entire time; if he has just chopped the throttle I think the airplane might have just settled and stopped pretty quickly, but he was over-determined to "save" the landing. It was a hot mess.

 

No damage to persons or property, so all good, but damn that boy needs a little more training.

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Thanks!

 

I just had a chance to download the videos I took of the spot landing contest. I'll try to put them together into a little YouTube thing later.

 

edited to add: I did see part of the Cub fiasco from the air, not realizing what I was seeing. I had my GoPro on the whole time - I'll have to see what I got!

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Nope.

 

I was trying to time my float to hit the flour line at about full stall.

 

Pretty sure I could have "let it land" and planted it on the line, but I have an almost religious aversion to doing so.

 

I really did nail the third one with Karen, timing the float just right.

 

Again, something I have to practice. I seem pretty good at planting the wheels on the numbers, but apparently aiming for a certain point on the runway threw me a bit.

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Here we go...

 

That was a blast Eddie!

 

Really fun watching you. I love your camera setup. Being able to see out front and watching what you are doing at the same time is priceless. The sound is good too . . . engine . . . stall warning . . . gear touching down . . . etc.

 

Thanks for sharing.

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