On Thursday night I got a flurry of phone calls. The forecast for the weekend looked great and Brett and Elizabeth Ferrell had decided to invite a few Velocity families to get together at their place for the weekend. The idea was that we would fly into Wright Brothers Airport (KMGY) in Dayton, give some rides, then go over to the home and workshop of Reiff and Melissa Lorenz to see their XL project.
I decided I couldn't pass up an opportunity like that. We hadn't gotten together since last Oshkosh. I went out to the airport at 7:00 on Saturday to fuel, preflight and load up the plane. The weather looked great and the flight from Philadelphia to Dayton planned out at just over 2 hours.
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All gassed up and ready to go. I hop in and program the nav system.
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I take off and turn on course. There is low fog, but above it is clear smooth air and beautiful views.
I head west at 175 knots over the ground.
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| Passing over the ridges of the Appalachian mountains |
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| Fog in the river valley |
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| Check out the smokestacks sticking out above the fog |
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Between all of the screens in the panel and Foreflight on my Ipad, I should be able to find my destination.
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As I pass into Ohio, the terrain becomes a perfectly flat patchwork of fields.
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I land right on time after 2 hours and 10 minutes. A few minutes later, Andy and Theresa Millin arrive in N114MV.
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Shortly after that, Elizabeth arrives in Ferrell's N44VF. Brett drove over in a (huge) borrowed car so that he could taxi us around.
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We parked all the planes together and took some pictures. They looked great all together on the ramp. It was a regular sea of colorful winglets.
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The gang gathered in front of the planes.
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Builder and VOBA president Reiff Lorenz gets ready for a ride in Andy's FG.
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Andy and Reiff taxi back after their flight.
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We got a lot of attention on the ramp with pilots and line guys coming up to check out the planes. Some guy even came up and asked us to get away from the planes so we wouldn't mess up his pictures. Jeez.
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Reiff gets back from his ride with Andy. I took him up too. I think he doubled his stick time in Velocities this weekend.
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Elizabeth brings the Fox in for a nice landing. We had 30 knot winds, but they were right down the runway.
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Jerry Brainerd comes back from his ride with Andy. I ended up giving rides to Reiff, his wife Melissa and the guy in the background above, Noah. He was a great guy who works for the FBO.
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A local photographer, Kyle Vander Ark, snapped some nice shots of my plane and of the Ferrell's Fox.
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I love this video. As I said, there was a strong wind right down the runway. This led to some dramatically short takeoffs and terrific climbs. Check out how my plane lifts off, then crabs almost 45 degrees toward the camera as it cruises down the runway before a nice climbout.
Again, I love this video. Thanks for the great camera work Brett.
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This is my artsy shot of Andy in his plane framed with clouds and his wife, Theresa looking on in the reflection.
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Reiff and Melissa in front of my plane.
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It's getting late in the day, so we decide to go check out Reiff's project. The guys from the FBO kindly moved a twin out of their huge hangar and pulled ours in for the night. How about that?
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So this is where the rich and famous keep their planes. Very luxe. We really appreciated the favor.
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| The amazing Lorenz workshop |
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| We ham it up pretending to find terrible flaws in the plane |
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| Enough with the airplanes already! Theresa is plane done. |
One of the unusual things about the Lorenz plane is that it does not have foam core wings like most of ours. For a time, Velocity was having a contractor in Brazil build hollow wings with ribs. These were called "Brazil wings". Listen to the sound they make when tapped in the video. Sounds strange to those of us with standard wings.
After lunch, we head over to the Lorenz' house to see their project. The workshop is amazing and the workmanship top notch. This doesn't stop us from giving him a hard time.
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Our hostess, Elizabeth, announces that dinner is served.
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Andy and Theresa brought their pets. They're just like dogs, only smaller.
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On Sunday morning I wake up early and find our weather luck has run out. My route back to Philadelphia is forecast for marginal VFR and moderate turbulence. Andy will have to race a line of storms to get home.
We have Elizabeth take us out to the airport early and fuel up. Brett has left for Sebastian, Florida for his Velocity transition training. (He drove!)
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The Millin's load up with their tiny, headset wearing almost dogs and wave goodbye.
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I taxi out to the departure end of the runway right behind Andy. Here goes.
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The first half hour of the flight starts off great. I am making up to 250 mph over the ground with the GPS telling me I will get all the way home in 1:48.
.... then I hit the turbulence. My bags and cameras were banging all around from ceiling to floor. My head was banging on the overhead. I tightened my belt as much as I could, slowed to 120 knots and was still getting 160 knot ground speeds.
This continued for well over an hour. At that point, I had to use an airsickness bag for the first time in my life. It was really uncomfortable.
The turbulence abated about a half hour from home and I eased the speed back up to 200 knots. I was never more happy to get out of my plane.
Poor Andy had an even worse time, sustaining damage to his main gear in a gusty landing.
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Here are the track logs of the flights out and back. You can see that the first almost half hour on the way back starts out great, then becomes erratic.
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We agreed that , even with the tough trips home, the weekend was a great success. At the last minute, we were able to gather from all around the country in our fast airplanes and have a great time. We hope to repeat this weekend at each of our homes.
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