July 22-29, 2023 - AirVenture 2023
Flight Home
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| For our flight home on Satuday, to save a little distance, and also for something different, we decided to cut across Lake Michigan. |
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| By Saturday morning, most of the planes on our side of the runway at Fond du Lac were gone. |
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Getting the planes ready for the flight home.
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They were giving warbird rides at Fond du Lac. You could ride in a P-51 Mustang, T-6 or SBD Dauntless.
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| If I was going to pay for a ride, it would be in the Dauntless. |
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| Classy-looking Cirrus until you get to the wheel pants. They just don't go with the rest of the plane. |
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Looking towards the runway with Brian's RV-8 on the left.
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We took off in side-by-side pairs.
Looking back west at Fond du Lac airport.
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Passing by the southern end of Lake Winnebago and town of Fond du Lac to the east.
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| Going feet wet over big Lake Michigan. |
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| Land ho! Visibility was about 50 miles so we saw the eastern shore early on but it still took us some time to get within gliding distance. |
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| Gadget and I are getting closer. |
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Close-up!
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| Somewhere on the way home, flying across a pretty scattered layer. We were up high at 9,500 and had a decent tailwind at first. |
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Flying wing off Gadget with Brian up ahead.
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| The clouds gradually fused together into a broken layer. |
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| Very pretty. The clouds make the flight more interesting than just clear blue sky, especially hazy sky. |
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| Brian looks pretty small against that big cumulous cloud. |
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The air was cool and smooth on top.
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The wind began to pick up as we passed Cleveland.
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| Over the Appalachians, we climbed to 11,500 and the wind peaked out with us doing 240 mph groundspeed. |
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| Looking up at Gadget. |
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| We could have made it all the way to Essex Skypark and still have had 10 gallons remaining. It was only another 20 minutes with the speed we had. But we decided to stop at Martinsburg Airport (KMRB) to stretch our legs. As soon as we decended below the clouds, it got a little bumpy. |
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But the wind was right down the big runwy -- big Air Force National Guard C-17s are based here - so landing was uneventful.
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| On the ramp at Martinsburg. |
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Mark wore the wrong T-shirt. He should be wearing the Oshkosh Outbound shirt.
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| Taxiing for takeoff. |
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| We continued east and soon were approaching Clearview Airport for a look-see. |
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| And then we were over home base Essex Skypark. The other three RVs are visible in this picture. Can you find them? |
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