October 6, 2012 - Red Star Form Clinic Easton, MD

The Red Star Pilots Association was having a form clinic this weekend over at Easton Airport.  I took the day off from work and flew over Friday.  The Red Star pilots mostly fly Yak 52s, Nanchang CJ-6s and T-6s.  And you might find a T-34 or IAR 823.  But they welcome RVs also, so myself, Chef and Lawbreaker were attending. 

Lawbreaker's newly painted RV-8 looking good on the ramp. 

 
The CJs have the bent wings. 
 
A CJ on th eleft and T-34 on the right.
 
The form clinic was staged out of the Maryland Jet hangar. 
 
Saturday happened to be  Easton Airport Day.  There were a number of neat static display aircraft out in front of the Terminal building.  I was amazed at how many people were at the airport looking at the airplanes. 
 
 
A guy name Tom Blair has a big hangar at Easton and owns a bunch of warbirds including this P-40 Warhawk. 
 
And this Spitfire.  What kind of guy owns planes like these.  Check out Tom Blair's story. 
 
Not one, but two Spitfires! Spitfire Hangar
 
And of this L-39 Jet painted in Navy trainer colors.
 
I don't know where this F-104 Starfighter came from but it was there. 
 
And of course the ubiquitous yellow Cub.
 
Chef checking out this Harmon Rocket that flew in. 
 
As part of the Easton Airport Day, we did a big 16-ship formation fly-by.  Here we are running up. 
 
Our three RV's were together in a flight with this IAR 823, who was our lead. 
 
And here we are overhead Easton.  Our flight was to the right of the lead flight. 
 
After overflying Easton,  everyone did low-passes down the runway in a rubber-checkin dropping contest.  Of course, RVs can't open their canopies in flight, so we had to be satisifed with just the low pass.  Then the entire formation joined up again and flew 30 miles to the east to overfly Georgetown Airport, which was having its own Wings and Wheels fly-in. 
 
Mugsy was on the ground at Georgetown and took this shot of us.
 
Back on deck. 
 
A close-up of the Romanian IAR 823 which I flew with a couple of flights.
 
 
A Yak-52TD.  The TD stands for taildragger.  There were both Yaks with tricycle landing gear and TD Yaks.
 
 
A close up of a CJ with the bent wing clearly visisble.
 
A Yak RD painted like a WWII Japanese Zero. 
 
Here's a Yak-52 with nose wheel.  Notice the straight wing.
 
Flying with Chef (RV-4) and a Yak.   The Yak's gear don't retract completely.  This was deliberate so if a student pilot had to make a gear-up landing, only the prop would be damaged. 
 
I had one of the Red Star instructor pilots fly with me on this flight.  He was an accomplished form pilot, so I was able to take some in-flight pictures. 
 
 
 
Flying over Denton. 
 
Saturday night Chef and I got to keep our airplanes in the big hangar.  Sweet!
 
The entire group went to this neat bar pub restaurant in downtown Easton and had a great time.   The weather was poor Sunday morning so everyone bugged out early.  I started getting rained on crossing the bay and it rained the rest of the day. 
 
 
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