October 31, 2010 - Form Practice w/ Team RV

Big flying day today.  Mike R. and I flew down to North Carolina to practice with some Team RV pilots.  We're both going for our FFI Wingman Cards at the  formation clinic in two weeks and this was a great warmup. 

Mike and I were meeting in the air down the bay over Ragged Island.  As I flew down I noticed this Arleigh Burke class Guided Missile Destroyer in the middle of the bay.  The U.S. Naval Academy is in the background. 

 
Mike and I met over the air as planned and proceeded south. 
 
I believe that is Raleigh, North Carolina off the right wing. 
 
We landed at Aussie's home strip which is one of the nicest grass strips I've ever landed on.  It was like landing on a pool table.  Also, there was on-coming traffic in a road alongside the strip! 
 
Wouldn't it be nice to live in a house across the street from the airport? 
 
The airport clubhouse building. 
 
We fueled up then continued on a short ways. 
 
Landing at this airport in the middle of a sea of North Carolina pine trees.  But this airport in the middle of nowhere had an on-field Bar-B-Que restaurant.  Once we landed, I remembered having read about this place in Pilot Getaways magazine. 
 
Aussie's new ride.  I like the paint job on his 8. 
 
 The world famous Pik N Pig restaurant. 
 
We had a great lunch at the Pik 'N Pig. 
 
I kept seeing people walk by the restaurant with golf bags.  Finally I noticed this driving range right next to the restaurant. 
 
Our RV's looking pretty on the grass.
 
Another short hop to XXX where we were meeting the Team RV folks at 1 PM. 
 
Tony Spicer was here with his RV-3. 
 
Tony's building prowess is highly regarded in the RV community.   And Sonex community/ 
 
We flew two hops.  The first hop was a four ship.  The lead was "Legs".  I was #2.  Legs really put us through the paces.  I worked hard and Legs complimented me on a solid flight so I was happy about that.   This is Leg's RV-8A. 
 
The second hop was a six-ship with "Stripes" as lead.  I was again #2.  It was another challenging ride.   I didn't see too much of the other planes, since I was focusing on staying in position on Stripes.  That's Stripes on the wing of his RV-7A. 
 

 

 

After debriefing the flight,  Aussie, Mike and I headed back to Aussie's field where Mike and I gassed up again.  Then Mike and I headed for home, about a 2 hour flight. 

I wonder if this old jet will ever fly again. 

 

 
It was still daylight during the transit but I knew it was going to be a night landing. 
 
I enjoyed watching the sunset from the air.   In the morning, we had flew down the Bay on the east side of the DC airspace.  But going home we flew inland on the west side.
 
Not soon after the sun went down, it got pretty dark.  But by that time I was close to Frederick so there were lots of lights on the ground.  It was very pretty flying over Baltimore on the way to Essex Skypark.  Landing at Essex Skypark is sort of like landing on an aircraft carrier.  The airport is surrounded by trees, which are totally black at night.  So all you can see is this brightly lit rectangle coming in.  
 
 
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