An Early Flight to Porter County
Article and Pictures by Brian Gilomen
The weather sure has been crazy this year. Right now it is 35 degrees in Chicago, and there was a chance of snow last night. A few weeks ago, it was in the high 70's. Even before then, on April 5, it was very flyable, and several of us took advantage of that fine day to make a pilgrimage to the Porter County Airport in Indiana, near Valporaiso, for breakfast.
The assembled miscreants for the adventure included myself (flying the RANS S-12), Barry (flying his "Little Pink Non-ultralight" Phantom), Bruce (flying the "Mean Green Machine" Quicksilver GT-400), Mick and Jude in the RV 9A, and Jim and Vance in the Cherokee 180. The plan was for wheels-up at 8:30, but we "missed it by that much." Ah, we got going in plenty of time.
It was indeed a sweet day to fly around the South end of Lake Michigan. The three slower birds (me, Bruce and Barry) kept tabs on each other, and -- as this was Bruce's first nice long cross country with FVFC-E -- Barry and I paid particularly close attention to Bruce. The two faster planes (hauling Vance, Jim, Jude and Mick) made good time, but didn't get to Porter County so much ahead of the three slower planes so as to annoy them too much. Barry jumped for joy upon arrival; Bruce and I merely took it in stride:
Upon landing, Mick commandeered not one, but two, Courtesy Cars, and we all
piled into them to head out to the Broadway Cafe for Cholesterol and Potato
Pancakes. We were a little disappointed that the Potato Pancakes were not
as good as we had remembered from a prior trip. Maybe we had been flying
even longer that day.
After gassing up in more ways that one, we all took off for the second leg of our trip: a flight to Kankakee (IKK) to pick up Kevin's new Rotax gearbox from Jim Leon at the Ultralight Place. Jim, Vance, Mick and Jude blasted there at high altitude, as usual. But Bruce, Barry and I took our time and flew low and slow, at one time literally herding first a dozen and then upwards of 18 white-tail dear over the bare fields. To me it looked for all the world like one of those Wild Kingdom episodes where the plane carrying Marlin Perkins flies over the herd of Wildebeest. "There are more to the South, Jim! Let's follow them to their watering hole!"
Having overflown the deer, we landed at IKK and visited with Jim Leon for quite a stretch. Vance and Jim didn't even join us, having elected to fly direct back to Clow so as to make a tee-off time. That golf sure gets in the way of flying with the group! Mick lit up a cigar on the porch of Leon's place, and the rest of us enjoyed water, pop and the unseasonably sunny weather. From Leon's field, the three LSAs decided to continue with low and slow flight onward to Cushing, getting fuel and then lifting off once more to take a decidedly circuitous trip back to Clow. In the end we had flown almost 210 miles for over 3 hours and 15 minutes. A great way to get the juices flowing!
Where To Now?