September 11, 2005 - Pancake Breakfast
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The next day my Dad and I got up early and headed out to the airport.
Today's destination -- Pottstown, Pennsylvania for the Pottstown-Limerick
airport's 51st annual pancake breakfast. We had a nice flight up in
the great weather and landed, followed in by the red Pitts. |
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My dad liked this T-34. He learned to fly in this type airplane
when he underwent Navy flight training back in the 50s.
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This beautiful RV-7A taxiied out. The RV's always get a lot of
looks. |
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Another nice looking RV.
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| This is a grand-master quality
Kitfox with a very unusual paintjob and markings. I had seen a story
on this particular plane in one of the aviation magazines. |
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| A beautiful Starduster II. I
wouldn't mind having one of these. Fully aerobatic. |
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I couldn't believe how many people were at this fly-in breakfast.
The cooking was done under the pavilion in the center of the photo.
The line of people on the left is for the pancakes! I don't think
the line diminished the entire time we were there. Not only were
there lots of planes, but there were hundreds of cars in the parking lot. |
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Another view of the pavililion.
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There were all sorts of planes: aerobatic, RVs, classics, vintage,
warbirds, kitplanes, glass, Cessnas, etc.. |
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A nice looking Champ getting ready to taxi out.
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| I didn't know what type of plane
this was but it was perfect and it looked fast! Looking at the
lettering in the tapered stripe, it occurred to me to Google "GP4".
Sure enough, from the
Aircraft
Spruce website: "Designed by George Pereira,
the GP-4 is a high performance two place side-by-side kit aircraft which is
a fast, efficient cross country performer. Construction is primarily of wood
and steel." |
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| A big glass Rutan-looking ship. |
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A speedy looking RV-3 taxiing in for some pancakes. |
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Pottstown is unusual in that it has two GA airports with a nuclear power
plant in the middle. It's easy to navigate to Pottstown on a day
with good visibility. Can you guess why?
One of the amazing things about this pancake breakfast fly-in is that
they've never had to cancel due to weather in the entire 51 years!
I can hardly believe it, since it seems like 50% of the fly-ins I try
and go to get cancelled for weather. But that's what the announcer
said.
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We left Pottstown-Limerick and headed northeast to the Van Sant airfield
about 20 miles away. Van Sant is one of the few, if not only,
airport where you can rent or take lessons in tailwheel airplanes such as
Cubs, Decathelons, Stearmans, and Tiger Moths. They also have a
fairly active glider operation going. I've been wanting to check
this place out for some time. The airport looks flat here but actually
it is kind of on top of a hill. |
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A Stearman and Tiger Moth in front of the FBO office.
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| Looks like another Stearman in the
hangar on the left. |
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| Citabria on the left, Cub on the
right. |
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A better look at the Stearman. |
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Looking down the runway, you can see the towplane coming in to land and
some gliders on the right. A biker group cruised in and was
checking out the flight operations.
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For the flight home, my Dad sat in the front seat and did most of the
flying. The first part of the flight was bumpy since it was now
afternoon and the thermals were out. |
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So .... we climbed up to 6,000 feet above the clouds where
it was smooth and cool. I love flying low but flying right above
the cumulous clouds does have its moments.
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| We landed at Massey Airfield on the
eastern shore to switch seats. I needed to be in the front seat when
entering the ADIZ to get to Essex. My landing at Massey from the back
seat wasn't the best one I've ever made. This photo begs the question
"is my Dad smiling because he's having a great aviation day, or is because
he's just happy to be safely on the ground?" |
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