Playing Hooky

Article and Pictures by Brian Gilomen
 

One fine day in the middle of the week in March, Mick Pahnke sent me a text message at 8 am wanting to know if I wanted to play hooky and fly. Pretty ironic, I thought, coming from one retired guy to another (mostly) retired guy.  "Hooky is my middle name," I thought, so I called back and said simply:  "sure!"

Gathering up what little I would need (hat; maybe some cigars for whenever; another layer in case the weather changed), I made it through the light traffic to Clow.  Mick's hangar was open, the RV-9A was pulled out, and Mick was on the phone with a briefer.  After he got off the conversation Mick turned to me and commented:  "the Briefer said simply that he had "nothing to report."  Now, how nice is that!  And how often to you hear that?  This was settling-in to be a nice day.
 

Mick harassing the Briefer
 

Not knowing exactly where to head to, Mick selected a greasy-spoon in North Peoria as our biofuel destination.  After radioing the 172 that was performing an endless run-up off the numbers if we could jump in line ahead of him, we vaulted into the air.  It was a lovely, smooth flight to Mt. Hawley Airport.  Average airspeed: about 155 kts.

Beautiful Mount Hawley Airport
 

Borrowing the airport courtesy car (a low mileage Kia with faulty transmission) was interesting.  The FBO now has a $25 ramp charge, but as nobody else was around, the counter guy said that he'd waive the ramp charge if we'd put some gas in the car.  "Deal" we said.

Lurching through North Peoria, relying on Mick's known faulty memory of where our destination should be, we nevertheless managed to find it.  Coordinates:  the "May Flower"  (no, not the "Mayflower).  Objective:  $6.99 steak-and-egg special.  Monstrous and delicious!

Now full of cholesterol, we returned to the airport (after dutifully putting $10 worth of gas in the car -- thus saving $15 compared to the outrageous ramp fee), and contemplated our next destination.  Decision:  we'd head up the river a short piece to Marshall County airport.  That trip took us only a very few minutes.

At Marshall County we obtained courtesy car number 2 of the day.  Mick was concerned that it wasn't as spotless as it should be, so we spent some time tidying it up (as well as donating $10 in gas.  We'd now spent $20 for gas for perhaps 3 miles of driving.  Heck, a cab in Chicago is cheaper!)

We headed into the town of Lacon where we sat by the river, drank the diet A&W root beer that we had snagged at the gas station, smoked a small cigar each, watched the traffic over the bridge, and enjoyed the fantastic day.

Thinking that it was time to move along, we returned to Marshall County airport, fired up the RV, and made our way back to Clow through the now very bumpy skies.

Not having had enough of flying, we then proceeded to try to fly Mick's new radio-controlled (Infra Red controlled, actually) model airplane inside his hangar.  Guess what:  Infra Red requires line-of-sight.  To run that thing in a circle, you had to spin with it.  Was it that, or the beer, that made me feel like my head was spinning?  Hmmmm...

A great day!