EAA 1426 Fly-in Drive-in

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So I’m writing this almost a week later, but I’ll try to capture my experience last Saturday.

I woke up Friday afternoon set on having some contact with airplanes, so with a quick search of the EAA calendar, I had a fly-in-drive-in to attend. One of my buddies who owns a C182 was busy and said he wouldn’t make it, so it looked like I would be driving.

Here's 7am in NC looking around my garage corner. Not too bad, although the fence needs painting. Maybe next year.

A half an hour (and Chik-Fil-A biscuit) later, heading north on 77 toward Pilot Mountain.

Look closely at the vehicle in front of me. Crap, a State Trooper. no speeding today.

Another shot of pilot mountain.

Once in mountains, there are a couple nice vistas looking back toward the south and southeast.

77 looking south on the way up the mountains.

Once I pulled into  the airport (Twin County, HLX), I met a couple people standing on the ramp and up pulls a beige 182 with a 3-bladed prop. Wait a minute, my buddy Jon has a beige C182 with a 3-bladed prop.

That plane looks familiar.

I wonder who is going to get out.

It's Jon!

(Had to get a picture of him standing straight up.)

Anyway, while I’m a member at EAA 1114, their meeting isn’t until next weekend, and the EAA 1426 chapter fly-in promised pancakes. After some talking with Jon, we stumbled across this piece of machinery.

I’m going to try to capture the jokes about it. I take credit for none of them.

UFO (Unidentified Frying Object.)

So the joke goes that there was a retired Air Force officer who, as part of chapter 1426’s winter activity list, designed and constructed this beast to contend with some of the other pancake cookers out there.

Someone made a pretty funny joke about it being a disc-shaped metal object seen near the airport, and that it was a UFO (Unidentified Frying Object.) I actually spilled a little coffee out my nose at this.

Somebody then pointed out that it must be an advanced design project from the Air Force.

The the Air Force guy piped up and said…

"Nope, it's leaking oil. Must be from the Navy."

Much giggling ensued. No offense to the Navy, or any armed services branch.

Anyway, I got a couple action shots. The cooking surface is a 3/8″ aluminum disc (not aviation grade, the health department won’t approve that as a cooking surface because of some anti-corrosion additives or something). I was interested in that, but couldn’t find any more details. Anyway, th disc spins about 1 RPM, which, with 4 burners (note the manifold in the lower part of the next picture) at 90° from eachother, yields <counting>…18…19…20 pancakes every 3 minutes.

Two times around on the first side, then flip and one more time around.

Action shot! (That's a nice spatula, too.)

Look at how perfectly they are cooked.

Anyway,  I had to get a picture in front of it. Here I am, for only the second time in the blog. Sorry I didn’t comb my hair.

Who, other than me, would say, "Hey Jon, take a picture of me with the pancake cooker!"

Then, they showed me a partially completed RV-7 kit. They inherited it from someone, and are thinking about selling it. (I think they are more interested in completing it within the chapter, but they were interested me in at least taking a look.) If anyone reading this wants the contact info for them, let me know, I can put you in touch.

RV-7 horizontal and elevators.

An aquajet (ride for kids).

The wings.

More wing pictures.

Even more.

The vertical, rudder, flaps and ailerons.

These look like the older style wingtips to me.

Oops, forgot to rotate the picture.

Then we walked back to the main hangar, and I grabbed some pictures of the various projects there.

One of two helicopter projects in work.

This is "one of the first non-straight-tal 172s." Even though I used to work for Cessna (I was on the jet side of things), I can't remember what date that would have been early 60s?

I don't remember what I was trying to take a picture of here. Maybe the hangar doors and a 172...and half a ladder. Here are some hangar doors and a 172...and half a ladder!

Ooh, a King Air.

Looking back outside. The pancake cooker is in front of the helicopter being prepped for paint.

Here's the inside of that 172. No priming. No corrosion. Hmm.

A closeup of one of the helicopters.

Inside for breakfast, I got a picture of the sausage and egg chef and the EAA banner they hang up for meetings.

I'm hungry.

One of the very nice ladies there helping with breakfast came to Oshkosh in 2008 and got a picture in front of the Honda Aircraft Company’s HondaJet (HA-420). That’s our proof of concept aircraft.

A picture of a picture of the Model 420 HondaJet.

Then, Jon had to head out, so we grabbed a couple pictures in front of his plane.

We're bad at the whole lighting thing. Maybe we should try the back of the aircraft.

Much better. Jon told me it was okay for you guys to see his tail number. If you say so, Jon.

Then, I snapped some pictures of Jon’s departure.

Vroom.

Vroom.

Vroom.

Vroom.

Vroom.

Quiet vroom.

Then…I left, too. (How anti-climactic.)

On the way home.

That’s all. Now back to work on the airplane!

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