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Smoketown Airport (S37), just south of Lancaster, PA throws probably the best fly-in I've ever attended besides Oshkosh. They have great food, plenty of parking, are very organized and most importantly give away free t-shirts to pilots that fly in! Free $20 T-shirt? Sure, I'll spend $50 in airplane gas for that! It was a hazy flight over there. I flew loose formation with Alan Billings and his RV-4. Jack Savage (RV-8) flew with Alan on the way there, and with me on the way back. I ran into my friend Steve from Plymouth, Mass. He is building a -7, but couldn't stand not having a flying airplane, so he recently picked up this sweet RV-6 out of Arizona. Steve and I rubbing it in to Captain John who had some terrible excuse why he couldn't make it today. Alan Billing's RV-4 Steve Kozial's RV-9A Bill Cloughley's RV-7. Smoketown really aims to please - They have a sweet ride for future pilots. My cell phone camera decided to bug out and not remember a few pictures I took. This RV-4 belonged to Bob Sabotino out of western Connecticut. Impressive RV's from up in New England were here. Bob had a 180 HP engine in his RV-4, and put the -8 tail on it because of issues he heard of vibration cracks using the original tail feathers with a larger engine on the -4. Lots of planes turned out. The people running the show indicated this was one of the higher turnouts. Neil Dickenson's RV-8 getting ready to leave. The flight home was uneventful, and I ended up going for a second flight today. Kevin Plank's (Under Armour CEO) modest home he uses one weekend a month. Back on the ground I had something to fix. On the way to Oshkosh I noticed my ICOM A-210 radio wasn't transmitting. In fact, it had been acting pretty strange for the last few months. Well one close look at it and it was clear why - it was working itself out of the tray, and the electrical connections weren't making contact. I pulled the ICOM and the Garmin radios to see what was wrong. Seems when I installed this radio a few years ago I never snugged it up properly. Its in there tight now. Back at home I had one more project to work on. I really like my QT Halo headsets A LOT. The only complaint I have about them is the mic cover comes off really easily. I brought this issue up to the QT Halo guys at Oshkosh and they had a simple solution - use dental floss to tie a know and secure it. Duh! Why didn't I think of that! Sure was an easy solution. I re-fell in love with these headsets now. Smoketown Airport put online some photos they took of pilots flying in (http://smoketownairport.com/2014-fly-in/). Here are a handful of the airplanes who I am friends with the owners. Bill Cloughley's RV-7 out of Essex. Neil Dickinson's RV-8 out of Clearview. Steve Koziol's RV-9A out of Westminster. Yours truly. Notice the textbook approach! Allan Billing's RV-4 out of Westminster.
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Last Modified: October 5, 2024 |