June 22, 2024 - Flying Saturday
New Garden, Carroll County, Martin State
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There was quite a bit of flying activities going on this Saturday. We had good weather for it but it was going to be hot: in the 90s.
The day started off with Gadget and I taking off at 7:30 and heading northeast to New Garden Airport (N57) for an EAA pancake breakfast. We met Paul in his Stealth SuperCub there.
Here we are on the ramp at New Garden. The green EAA hangar is on top of that hill.
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We were the first ones in line. Scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, pancakes: not bad for ten bucks.
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| Ten minutes after we sat down to eat breakfast the place was filled. |
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A familar site: RV wings.
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| EAA Chapter 240 ran the show. They had a lot of volunteers. |
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| EAA Chapter 240 has a very nice hangar. |
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| A couple of projects moved outside the hangar including a RV-4. |
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There wasn't much fly-in traffic to the pancake breakfast. Most were drive-ins. There were a bunch of other pancake breakfasts happening today: Smoketown, Gettysburg. Something was happening at Chester County as well; we could hear it on the radio.
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| This crazy vehicle rolled past us. I believe it's a Tesla truck. Check out the Icon Amphibian sticker. I guess the Tesla's owner must have an Icon or be connected to the company in some way. Unfortunately, Icon Aircraft filed for Chapter 11 protection in April. I'd love to have an Icon but they are way out of my price range. |
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New Garden is having an airshow Tuesday afternoon and evening. I noticed a TFR for it when checking weather for today's flying. Why are they having an airshow mid-week? Well, a certain President retires to his house in Wilmington frequently and the resulting Presidential TFR overlies New Garden which shuts down the airport. So much effort and money goes into putting on one of these airshow events that I guess they couldn't take the chance that Uncle Joe would go to Wilmington that weekend.
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| Someone was giving Young Eagle rides this morning. |
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| Paul walking to his Stealth SuperCub. |
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| Mounting up to head to our next destination. Notice all the cars on the hills attending the pancake breakfast. |
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Looking southeast at the Susquehanna River as it flows into the top of the Chesapeake Bay.
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Looking northwest up the Susquehanna.
It's hot and hazy today, that's for sure.
Our destination was Carroll County Airport (KDMW) where they were having the Mid-Atlantic Gathering of RVs.
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Gadget and I did an overhead break and soon were parked on the ramp. Where are all the RVs?
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| Not an RV, but it is our friend Walt's Husky which flew over from Clearview and was givng rides. |
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| Food and cold beverages were to be had in this area. Plus shade-covered tables and chairs on which to enjoy them. |
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| Mark and Brian showed up and we relaxed under the shade eating burgers, hot dogs, and drinking ice cold water. |
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This very nice RV-10 showed up from Frederick. I know the plane. Rich and I drove out to Frederick to see it under construction. Then last year I saw it at Oshkosh.
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This plane has some serious luminescence!
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| I've been spending a lot of time lately working on the RV-10 wheel pants. They don't get much better than this. |
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| Nice job on the intersection fairing. |
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| Great job on the panel and interior. |
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Not a very good shot of the overhead, but you get the idea.
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The check-in booth is left of center. An RV-9A sits all by its lonesome on the grass. Unfortunately, today's fly-in was very lightly attended. There were maybe 12 RVs total. Six of them were from Essex Skypark: 2 RV-7s, 2 RV-8s and 2 RV-12. I don't know why there were so few RVs -- there are a lot of RVs in the Mid-Atlantic area; maybe the heat kept people away.
I was here for the first annual Mid-Atlantic RV Fly-in back in 2013. Link. At that time, this area was the show area, where they had one RV of each type. 40 or so RVs flew in that day -- including some all the way from Ohio -- , and for the second RV fly-in a year later. But since then the attendance has gradually dwindled. EAA Chapter 1384 puts a lot of effort into organizing the event and it's a shame turnout is so low.
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Towards the end of the fly-in. We -- Gadget, Mark, Brian, and I --were waiting around to do a missing man formation over Martin State Airport at 2pm.
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The four of us briefed for our Missing Man Formation pass at Martin State, then took off around 1:30. I was the lead with Brian #2, Mark #3, and Gadget #4. I have never flown one of these as lead at a towered airport so this was a new experience for me. I called the tower on the phone yesterday and gave them a head's up. The missing man was for Dave Conover, who worked for Skytech at Martin State for 30+ years.
Here we are approaching Martin State Airport runway 15 at 1,000 feet. I had #3 pull up and out over the threshold. He headed south to Essex Skypark. We continued out over the bay then made a circling turn to Essex Skypark. The phone call was a good idea; the tower understood what we were doing. We were in and out and didn't disrupt their airspace so they were happy. The whole thing went very smoothly. Dave's friends and co-workers appreciated the flyover.
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