FATHER

FATHER'S DAY FLY-IN AT GEN-AIR PARK

By Kevin Bertorelli

Photos by Kevin Bertorelli and Mick Pahnke

As some of you know I recently had my Rotax 582 engine rebuilt. The day before Father’s day was the 1^st chance I had to break in the engine. Everything went as planned, but I’ll be quite honest with you, I really had no intentions on making a long flight anywhere before doing some more extensive flight testing. Well, Saturday night I check the Weather Channel just the hell of it and discovered that the winds for Father’s day were predicted to be around 5mph. Despite all of my conservative plans I immediately went out to the field with gas cans and provisions in preparation for an early departure Sunday morning.

At 6:45am Mike and I departed Clow with the intentions of meeting up with Don Wittmyer over at Cushing at 7:30am. Even though we made it there on time Donny was no where to be found so we continued our flight toward Gen-Air. Along the way we ran across Phil Duff who had departed Cushing minutes before and was just a few miles ahead of us. Gordy Gillen and Brad Wolf were much closer to Gen-Air but we were able to clearly pick up their radio transmission and stay in touch. We also heard from Joe Simoski and Neal McCann as they made their way to our destination. With our radios set on 122.875 is was amazing how well all of us communicated. That made the trip just that much more enjoyable.

My logbook notes show that Mick, Phil and I arrived at 8:45am. Not bad considering that the flight from Clow was about 110 miles with no fuel stops. While we were there we met up with a whole bunch of FVFC members. From what I can remember there was Gordy, Bruce Van Deventer, Bruce Riemenschneider, Donny, Brad, Phil, Neal, John O’Neil, Ron, Joe, Mike, Tom, Mick and myself. After breakfast and after checking out the cool car show the majority of us decided to tool over to Jim & Sue’s Flight Park over in Erie for a visit. As Fox Valley Flying Club departed Gen-Air our ultralights dominated the skies. It looked awesome.

Now over at Erie, Jim was thinking about cutting out on a little personal business. Minutes later we swarmed the field and landed which put an immediate end to that idea. Jim was more than happy to see so many of us over for a visit. He and Sue are always great hosts and this time was no exception. Donny and I immediately sucked down the last 20 gallons of gas they had so Jim went off to get more gas. Meanwhile Sue took down lunch orders and went in town with her friend for the pickup. Meanwhile, Donny took a death ride in a bizarre looking Gyrocopter that was there. It looked like something out of the Mad Max movie. Fortunately for him God decided to spare him for another day. After filling our bellies and refueling our planes it was time to depart for home.

Some of us flew straight back but Brad, Mike and I decided to stop at Grandpas Farm Airport in Mendota to refuel and rest. Bruce Riemenschneider, his wife Cathy, and Tom met us there and drove in town to pick up gas for Mike. While we were lying around we met a very interesting young lady who had just returned from Europe. She lived just a few miles from the airport and owned a power parachute. Just recently she purchased a nice trike. Hopefully after talking with us her next purchase will be a fixed wing ultralight. Well, since I had plenty of fuel before we landed I decided to depart and return to Clow solo. The return trip was 50 miles but with the light winds and gentle thermals the flight was a pleasure. I arrived at Clow at 4:30pm after safely traveling a total of 240 miles. Now that’s the kind of Father’s day present I like.

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