200 Miles for No Particular Reason...
Article and Pictures by Brian Gilomen
I, for one, knew it was going to be a good day for flying. I
guess I just assumed that everyone else would have independently reached the
same conclusion. Apparently not. Because, even after sending an
(admittedly late-night) invitation to the "usual suspects" to meet me
at Clow on Saturday morning, June 5, for a flight to nowhere in particular, I
was surprised that only one other FVFC-E member was out at the field. And
that one other member was someone I had neither expected nor seen in quite a
while: Guy Plahetka out for a spin in the pattern in
his Quick MX. See; the weather was that good!
Well, if none of the Clow pilots had yet rousted themselves out of bed, I
figured that I could maybe find some activity at Cushing. Possibly Bill
Mills had flown there, as is his tradition, to load-up on carbs and cholesterol
at the 8am "breakfast club" gathering. I timed things so that I
would arrive at Cushing after the breakfast had broken up, but no Bill. In
fact, not much of anything going on, except for the soon-to-depart (yeah!) hang
glider operation.
After a while I found Brad Wolf and Phil Bolenbaugh kicking around. Brad
allowed as to how he wanted to go up to the "fly-in at Belvidere," but
that he couldn't seem to locate that airport. I responded that (1)
Belvidere was now Poplar Grove, and had been for some time; (2) I didn't think
there was a fly-in there this weekend; and (3) that I'd fly there anyway because
it was a nice day and a perfectly acceptable destination. Phil elected to
come along (although it took him a while to pull out his plane because he got
shanghaied by somebody chatty). Roger Kellogg thought he was going
to come along until he checked with his wife and was informed of the overflowing
nature of his "honey-do" list. On well; next time...
Brad, Phil and I took off on the 57-mile jaunt to Poplar Grove. It was a
beautiful day, with negligible winds and no thermals as yet. We dodged
some sailplanes around Hinckley, skirted DeKalb by tracking West, and made a
half-hearted attempt to find Randall Field, a nice ultralight operation just
South of the Belvidere Chrysler plant. Once we switched over to the Poplar
Grove CTAF/Unicom on 122.8, we found out just how busy the skies were. It
seemed as if everyone was coming to or leaving from Poplar Grove. I entered
the pattern and advised the Navion behind me that my approach speed was
j-u-s-t a little bit slower than his. He surprised me by coming in
right under me and on my left, cutting me off. Then, he (and several other
aircraft) surprised me more by announcing a landing on 120 (the hard strip), but
landing on 90 (the grass strip). "What the heck," I thought,
"if they can do that..."
Phil followed suit.
Once on the ground, we couldn't see what all the hubbub was about. Not much
was going on. Brad took on a whopping 3 gallons of fuel, while Phil and I
(each with 17-plus gallon tanks) just sneered at the gas guy. Then Brad
went in search of additional gas in the form of a couple of dogs with all
the trimmings from the roach coach that constitutes the only Poplar Grove field
eatery. Phil and I followed his lead, and I gotta admit, they were pretty
tasty! We each then allowed as to how we wished we had removed our doors
before starting out on this trip.
The three of us then engaged in a bit of sightseeing. A couple of
interesting
planes were on the tarmac:
After leaving Poplar Grove, we decided to see if we could actually FIND Randall
Field, the ultralight strip that I was unable to locate on the trip up.
Phil B. apparently had the GPS coordinates all along, and he lead the way.
Enroute we chatted with Ned Rolston, who was just leaving Randall. Small
world!
We put down at Randall, but no one was home. We inspected the local planes
for a bit (the hangar was open and inviting), and then got back in the
air. Where to now? We decided to head on over to Ned's place, a
destination that Brad seemed familiar with. On the way we heard Rich Wild
on 122.875, looking to get into some mischief. We told him our intentions
and arrived ourselves with no drama except for the approach to Ned's E/W
strip. We were landing on 90, which has a rather tall stand of trees at
the threshold, followed by a mid-field drop off. I came in hot, because
I've never particularly liked coming right in over trees near stall speed.
Then, I must have floated most of the length of the strip in ground effect. No worries,
but I was glad I had good brakes! Phil executed very much the same maneuver,
and he wasn't happy with it.
So, there we were, at Ned's place, checking out his Challenger, another guy's
Challenger ("free parts!" I thought...) and a nice Ridge Runner.
But Ned was nowhere to be found. We amused ourselves by directing Rich to
Ned's field via Brad's handheld. It was hysterical watching Rich come in from
the South, responding to our directions like an erratic radio-controlled
airplane. We were tempted to send him off on a "Wild" goose
chase, just because we could. On our end, the one-sided conversation
sounded a bit like this:
"Turn North."
"No; that's too far!"
"Turn to your right a little."
"The other right."
"Nope; you over-corrected again!"
"There; you're pointed right at us."
"Can't you see us yet??"
Rich eventually found us and put in. Not
expecting the worse, but in an abundance of caution, I moved my plane out from
under those previously-described tall trees at the threshold. The four of
us visited for a while and then geared-up to leave. Just after Rich was
airborne, Ned and his friend showed up. They had been at a local eatery,
and Ned had left his cell phone in his plane and missed our call, so our being
at his back door took him by surprise. We politely declined his invite to
cease our run-ups and come in for lemonade; we'd been on the ground far too long
already!
Now where to, we wondered. Either Brad or Phil suggested that we buzz Joe Simosky's
place, only about 12.5 miles South of Ned's. Getting there was easy.
Landing looked to be a bit harder. It was now mid-afternoon, and the winds
and thermals had picked up long ago. Brad made one pass and I followed
him, checking out the "interesting approach" to the Southwest.
Brad decided to go in, but I deferred to Phil, who said he didn't need to prove
anything on that particular afternoon. So, good friend that I am, I kept
Phil comfortable in the air and Brad took back off.
Brad had already had his deadline for some family obligation extended once, so
he decided it was now time to get back to Cushing. On the way there, Ted
Tvrdik caught up with us with his Phantom and intercepted us. Now four strong, we
made it to Cushing rather quietly, having exhausted our quotient of air-to-air
chit-chat for the day.
I came straight into 18; it was unusual that the hang glider tow plane was not
in the way. I fueled up, visited for a while, and then decided it was time
to get myself the 27 miles back to Clow.
At Clow I found Kevin, Mick and Jude engaging in a bit of "hangar
flying." I pulled up a folding chair and shared with them my day's itinerary.
All told I had covered a little over 200 miles in a little under 3.5 hours of
flying to seven locations burning about 11 gallons of gas. Even at today's
prices, it was a bargain for fun!
Where To Now?
200 Miles for No Reason in Particular
De Kalb, Illinois: Land of RVs
Father's Day Fly-In to Gen Air Park and Erie
The T2 at the Illinois Aviation Museum at Bolingbrook