January 13th, 2010 | 
Author: I’d worked late Tuesday night, so I bailed out a little early today. Yeah, I’d been watching the weather and knew it was going to be nice, so I’d have probably gone out even if I hadn’t worked late Tuesday 
It was nearly 50 when I left the house at 1pm, but the wind was much stiffer than the 13mph they’d been predicting. A last-minute look at The Weather Channel confirmed that they’d updated their forecast to 15-20mph. At least it was still sunny and fairly warm
I got to the field about 1:15 and was the first one there. Luckily, Bergen had asked me about the new gate combination earlier in the day, and I still remembered it. There was still a bit of snow just west of the gate entrance by the swamp where the trees keep it quite shaded, but there wasn’t any snow anywhere else. The road wasn’t very good on the way in, and it was just horrible on the way out: swampy, muddy, and deeply rutted.
I put my Abbra together, and about 1:30pm Bill Bergen, Mark Labadie, Max Freeman, Dave Husher, and Ed Jordan all showed up.
Bergen had his 40-sized Ultra Stick, which he flew once. The wind didn’t bother him! Bill also had his new Gee-Bee foamie. It’s a really nice looking airplane, and Bill said it came almost completely assembled and ready to go. It was too windy for a maiden flight on such a lightweight plane, but we had fun looking it over.
Mark may or may not have had a plane: he didn’t open up the hatch on his car I think he said that he had everything all charged up and ready to go, but the wind forecast was too much, so he didn’t bring anything out. It was a nice day, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Max had his SNJ, but he didn’t pull it out of the truck.
Dave had his electric Edge 540, and he flew once. Dave did a terrific job of getting the plane on the ground with the wild winds at the north end of the runway.
Ed had his Spacewalker and flew once. He, too, did a great job landing. The wind was from the SW, but it was just enough from the west to swirl over the trees and do that weird thing it does at the north end of the runway. Ed’s plane wanted to float down the runway, and he wound up using every inch of the length of the runway to get landed and slowed down.
I wound up with three flights on the Abbra, and the first and last had some pretty exciting landings.
All in all, it was a pretty nice day. It’s always nice to have good flying weather in the middle of winter. This weekend is looking pretty nice, too: low winds, temperatures in the high 40s, and even some sun Sunday and Monday. Get your stuff charged up, and come on out, but wear shoes that can handle some mud
Posted in Flight Logs