At sunrise, Rick Girrard, in his Kolb, left Cherokee Strip (18KS) for Ponca City. Forty minutes later (7:40) I over-flew the field and saw his tire tracks in the dew-laden grass runway verifying his earlier departure. While entering the pattern to land, I spotted Terry and Lawrence Alley inbound from Douglass flying Lawrence's clipped wing Cub.
On the runway at the designated meeting place, our conversation verified that no other pilots from the area would be joining us on this breakfast flight. At 8:00 we took off for Ponca City with the plan to fly close formation on our route. Terry, the PIC, was undergoing a "refresher course" in Cub formation flying from his dad, Lawrence, the former WWII and Korean War fighter pilot. Being slower, I took the lead, keeping my AirBike's IAS at 70 MPH and holding an altitude of 700 feet AGL. The Cub could fly comfortably at this, its slower than normal speed.
Ground temperature at Selby Aerodrome, was 55 degrees when I took off for Cherokee Strip at 7:15, it was rather chilly and I wished I had worn gloves. Fortunately, at altitude, the air warmed to 70 degrees, very comfortable! There was only a slight but steady wind on my nose. "Smooth as glass" as we like to say. It was a beautiful day, sun shone brightly, no clouds and only limited ground fog making the terrain look like a Christmas tree covered with angel hair.
Flying formation, Terry tucked in real close and got some amazing picturess of me during the air-to-air photo shoot. He didn't even use the telephoto lens, at one point I thought he was going to hand me a cup of coffee, he could have! Lawrence later told me that in the military you are supposed to formation fly so close that your wings are just beyond touching! Terry did a great job, we did not trade any paint!
Forty minutes later we landed at PNC and were flagged into separate parking areas. The Cub with the "heavy iron" and me with the very light planes. I parked right behind Rick's Kolb and a few minutes later Dick Giede (also form 18KS) parked his Giede Hawk next to me. Ah, it was fun to join up again. Noted photographer, Tom Auerbach, also greeted me. He is a top notch contributing photographer to many EAA newsletters and winner of Avweb's "Picture of the Week" contest showing the engine start of B-17, "Thunderbird". Check out
http://www.avweb.com/ We got in line for the wonderful Ponca City Aviation Booster's Club's fantastic breakfast: gravy and biscuits, fried potatoes, pancakes, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, three types of melons, strawberries and of course coffee and orange juice. The line moved fast with our group numbering close to the 400 meals mark. The servers worked fast, our wait was only 20 minutes! Good food and it was served quickly, a wonderful combination!
It was a great time to visit those people you only see at fly-ins, admire their planes and make new friends. By 10:30 we fired up and headed home, satisfied having completed another pilot's ritural.
Photos below were taken by Terry Alley and Paul Fiebich. Terry will probably want to add a few comments to these photos.
