NAF Summer Tales
 

November 2004

This is a story of two trike flyers, we will call them Hawkbait and Buzzardbait. 

It all begins on a Tuesday evening in mid-November.  Buzzardbait is a poor working soul so most weekday decisions are up to him. He calls me (Hawkbait) about going flying on Wednesday for the day.  Being what the weather is going to be I jump at it, all day I think does that mean we fly in the morning and the evening. I am sure he said ALL day!

Next morning around 8.45 Buzzardbait flies over from Trinca airport to Jump airport to meet up with Hawkbait. Well who needs the really early morning set up when we have all day?  We get out the charts have a coffee from the thermos and decide to go north to Sussex and land for breakfast.  It’s suit up and off we go for a 25 minute flight to   Sussex.  The air is cold but stable good enough to trim out for hands off flight.  Hawkbait soon finds out his radio does not work.  Now it is Blues Angels formation and hand signals. Buzzardbait has the radio and does a marvelous job of manipulating those electrons.

We land shed the suits and a short walk to the diner for breakfast.  After eating ( I think we also felt sorry for all those not flying) we break out the charts and plan the next leg.  We decided on flying further north, well into NY state to a ultralight strip called Sha-Wanga-Valley.  Hawkbait had last been there about 8 years ago. 

Buzzardbait puts the nearest airstrip into his GPS this will prove a welcome item later. Suits on again and we take off, pick up the heading and its smooth flying, I guess the real term is smooth sailing.  Conditions are improving and it doesn’t get any better than this especially as it is mid morning with the sun shining bright and warm.  There many farms below and Middletown NY is off in the distance to the NE.  We had flown about 28 miles and I begin to look for the field and can not find it.  We were looking at every rectangular farmer’s field and possible tract of land, then ahead of me Buzzardbait begins to circle (as buzzards do) and descend, finally I see it.  Thanks for the GPS and map we knew we were in the area but had an alternate airport 4 miles over the hills.
We land downhill as this landing strip is definitely not flat.  A very rough and neglected runway greets us, the place looks deserted. We walk up to the old hangars see a Jeep and open side door.  Poking our heads inside and shouting (friendly hello’s)  a lady comes out.  We make introductions, her name is Debbie and she is a artist.  The Ex-hangar is very rustic with potential artistic items, not being very artistic it looks like a lot of junk to me.

We hang around a bit get directions where we can find a lunch? Our next stop we decide will be Randolph airport.  We take off up hill as the runway is a mess, very old asphalt breaking up with patches of grass, for obvious reasons we lift off ASAP. We fly east about 12 miles to the east side of Middletown NY and land a Randolph.  This is a very nice airport paved runway, and nice parking areas.  It is used by both GA and Ultralights. 

We met Larry and his son who have an ultralight facility there.  They do flight instruction (three axis), and hang gliding towing.  These guys are great, they offered to take us into Middletown where we all had lunch.  Then to the gas station for fuel, and back to the field to top off our tanks.  We had wanted to see Larry do his hang glider thing so we waited for his tow pilot to arrive (from Manhattan would you believe). Larry has a dolly that he lies on with the hang glider wing.  The whole contraction is ten towed with a Drifter ultralight.  When Larry reaches lift off speed he separates from the dolly which goes on it’s merry way across the ground, retrieved quickly as it stops in the middle of the grass runway to the side of the strip.  Larry is then towed to altitude and releases.  It looks a bit gutsy to me.

We discuss getting on our way as we now have quite a distance to get back and only about 90 minutes of daylight left. Daylight is moving faster than we are.  It’s off and a straight line back to Jump in Newton NJ.  We know that Sussex is two thirds of the way home so only plan to stop if we are tired. The sun is going down and is a brilliant golden color as we are heading SW. I relax and wonder how a sun visor can be fitted to a trike? Flying with one hand at a salute is the only way to see properly. Close to home Buzzardbait peels off, now what?  I land then about 5-10 minutes later BB lands.  He had spotted Bob the weatherman (which he really is) flying his PPchute 2-3 miles over to the East.  BB could not raise Bob on the radio so a couple of 360’s and hi fives. We drink the last of the coffee in the flask (still warm) and he’s back on course to Trinca disappearing in the distance as the sun does down.

       It was a perfect day and our first time adventure, also this is my first story.
                          

Blue is up  Green is down
                                                       Hawkbait

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