ETLB Squawk Forums — Archive

Woke up this morning and heard on the news that Huns had been seen sliding up from the south.... so about 10:00 I prepped the plane and took off south to meet them head on.  Flying at about a Thousand feet and scanning for them I came upon them in a little town south of Wichita called South Haven... not to be confused with Haven which is west of wichita... don't ask me I always figured it was a gov. thing.  As I was diving down to get a good shot a yellow plane dove down under me and he got a shot as well... dumping what I thought was smoke to make sure they couldn't shoot us... so I fell in behind the AgWagon and we proceeded to dive and circle and shoot them before they could get their hang glider type planes in the air.... I flew mostly high cover as he went under powerlines to get a better shot.... pulling up and turning on a dime was great to watch a master taking them out.  Not really sure what he was spraying for but to watch a crop duster from above is really wild.  Landed at his strip and made a friend... I have never seen a agwagon up close and he was pretty impressed with my Tcraft.  Then off to Harper to see a firefighter buddy of mine and had a nice cup of tea with him... turning the plane back north flew up to Kingman Ks to see the man who taught me to fly.  As I was radioing in my GPS said it was going on internal power and kept switching from internal to external power.. then all was fine... radioed I was on left downwind to land full stop it did it again.  Upon landing a man sitting in front of the pilots building and I got to talking and went over to investigate.  We found wire hanging loose from my generator so my battery had been going dead for a while... not really a problem with mags but makes it harder to start by hand.. a new clip and I was charging again.  A pretty uneventful trip from there back to Selby where I would be landing in an 11 mph crosswind and from the South a pretty new direction for me as we have been taking off into the south wind all summer... a sudden cold front had given up a rare northwind and reallllly mild temps.  As I was putting the plane away brian and his Quick and Don in his Titan came in to land.... after many stories of the day we broke it up and headed home to reap our rewards in the hands and arms of our ladies.

Great story but how do we know it really happened?    Time to trade in the Brownie for something a bit more modern. I really love the grainy pics you took of that tree trunk over in that old Scottish lake but we need some flying pics to!

Chris

Well a couple things I didn't mention in the story... got to fly for about 3 1/2 hours today... and actually took the digital camera.... now... if the batteries had only had some kind of charge in them... but am getting better stopped by dillions and bought a box of double A's so should be able to take a few.... on a sort of side note Joe was at the hangar and is putting a wood prop on his plane and Brent is cleaning his carb for him.  Soon Joe will be in the air again... or not.  The story is true not a word over spoken.  Is really strange to see a crop duster from above...and staying in a slow circle while you watch him is actually good practice.