The Search for Bigfoot
A novel by Vance Lorenzana
Saturday,
June 21st 2003 dawned bright and clear with visibility that stretched
for thirty miles. There was just a
hint of a cool breeze in the air and the birds chattered and flitted about on a
glorious early summer morning. In
short, it was a perfect morning to go flying.
This
is what I have been told anyway, as I didn’t drag my lazy ass out of bed until
9:30 am. Hey, I have to get up
early every morning of the week to go to work, by the weekend; I just want to
sleep in late.
Anyway,
as I drove out to the airfield I was certain that it would be deserted, as
everyone else would have been long gone by now. I might be able to raise them on the radio and rendezvous
with them at some airport, or if not, there is certainly nothing wrong with a
relaxing flight by myself in the clear blue heavens to put me at ease.
Alas,
it was not to be. As I drove up to
the hangers, Kevin was literally standing in the middle of the road, hopping
from one foot to the other and flapping his arms.
I couldn’t even get out of the car as Kevin came racing up to the
window “Come on, Come on. We
gotta go!” Go where? I asked
(raising one eyebrow). “We gotta
go to the fly-in breakfast at Big Foot! Come
on! Mick left over an hour ago!”
“What, are you nuts? If Mick left
over an hour ago, knowing Mick, he’s probably eaten breakfast and is already
on his way back!” “ No, No he went to Cushing to pick up Donnie, if we
hurry, we can catch up! You’ve
got to get ready to go fast, I’ll wait for you!”
Suddenly,
my lazy, peaceful Saturday morning turned into a rat race (and I was the pace
rat!) Of course I didn’t have any
gas, so I had to grab my gas cans and race off to the nearest gas station to
fill up. At the first gas station,
there were 4 cars at the pumps, I raced up, screeched to a halt, threw open the
tailgate, hit the button on the pump, jammed the nozzle in and
squeezed…Nothing happened! Just
then I looked up to see all the other patrons standing there staring at me. Apparently the only attendant had just quit and walked off!
The lights were on at the station, all the oil and pop was set out at the
curb but the station door was locked and no one was inside!
They were all waiting for someone to show up and reset the pumps!
Well
I didn’t have time to wait so I closed up the car and raced down the road
another mile to the next station. By
the time I got back to the hanger, it seemed like an eternity and I was sure
Kevin would be mad. I gassed up the
plane, did a quick preflight, (basically, I saw two wings and a tail with a
propeller in front. Looks like it will fly to me), and was actually sweating as
I hauled it out of the hanger. I
didn’t even take the time to close my hanger doors as I saw that Bill had also
flown out and had left his hanger doors open.
I figured that anybody coming to steal something would hit his place
first and their car would probably be full by the time they got to my hanger (or
so the reasoning went in my mind).
Just
as I was getting ready to crank over the engine, I looked down at Kevin’s
hanger and saw… Nothing! Kevin’s
plane wasn’t even out of his hanger yet!
I walked over there and Kevin says to me, “We can’t go yet, I want to
adjust my brakes”. “What!!!
After all I’ve been through to hurry up and get ready to go?” “You’ve
got to help me adjust my brakes, only one works”.
Well, we spent twenty minutes working on his brakes.
I figured we weren’t even going to get any food at this rate, as it was
already 10:30 by now.
We
finally took off about 10:45 and Kevin immediately turned northward to shoot the
Dupage – Aurora Gap. This is the
gap in controlled airspace between the Aurora and Dupage airport control zones.
It’s the fastest way to go northward but it also takes you right over
downtown Naperville, Aurora (the second largest metropolitan area in Illinois
containing over 200,000 people) and Fermilab (which I’m sure by now has had
their stinger missile air defense request approved by the Department of Homeland
Security). I dislike not having a
place to make an emergency landing and being the level headed, conscientious
flyer that I am, I wisely decided to head straight west and traverse the Aurora
control zone before turning north. Meanwhile,
hot headed, brash, Kevin refused to hear my pleas and I’m sure became a target
of opportunity on the Fermi lab radar screens.
I
had not even bothered to look up where we were going because I had figured that
I would just follow Kevin. Obviously,
since we immediately split up that plan was not going to work.
I called in to the Aurora tower with my intentions and after leaving
their airspace I got back on the radio to find Kevin.
Since I didn’t have Bigfoot on my 1995 era GPS, I asked Kevin for the
heading to it. Kevin wouldn’t tell me!
He was afraid that with my faster speed, I would get there ahead of him
and get what remained of the food before him!
All he would tell me was that it was in the same general direction as
Dacy airport. I told him I would
land at Dacy and we could meet up there. Negatory,
he told me. It was all my own fault
for not properly preparing for the flight!
Can you believe that! What a
louse! This is my flying buddy?
Luckily, even though I went farther with my detour around Aurora, with my
faster speed, I soon saw the black, ugly flying shoe that Kevin calls his plane
on the horizon ahead of me. He may
have somehow eluded the missile battery but there was no way he was going to get
away from me now!
The
rest of the flight to Bigfoot went relatively uneventfully and we arrived there
about noon. Unbelievably, Mick and
Donnie were still there and even more unbelievably, they were still serving
breakfast. Kevin and I sat in the
hanger and ate the remains of what had once been a fresh, hot breakfast while
Mick sat next to us and smoked a cigar. Yumm,
eggs and cigar smoke, what an appetizing combination!
By
this time, the majority of the fly-in planes had left so we sat around for
awhile and sunned ourselves before we decided to go to Poplar Grove airport to
refuel. Poplar Grove was a neat
airport and it was the first time I had ever been there. Several runways and lots of beautiful houses right on the
airport. The airport manager even
told me there are several combination hanger/homes mixed in with the regular
hangers! We all got gas and drinks and decided to head back to Cushing as Donnie
said he had to be home by 4:00pm.
On the way back to Cushing, I cruised at my standard operating altitude of 50 feet AGL (there is nothing like flying low in an open cockpit plane) and Kevin and Mick joined me. Donnie was up at what seemed like 3000 ft and when we asked him what was going on, he reported that his engine was missing and that it wouldn’t run at anything less than full throttle. He wanted to stay high in case it quit and was going to try to leave it at full throttle and make it back to Cushing. Mick reported that he would stay with Donnie in case he went down. I heard him call to Scottie to dial his plane up to warp factor 4, and he promptly left Kevin and me behind. Kevin went up to 3000 ft to cross over Dekalb while I toured the city at my usual 50 ft altitude (a lot of friendly looking people there). After that we got separated so I finally got my chance for a relaxing flight by myself. I flew over Rich’s house and he came out and waved as I flew by. We finally all met up at Cushing and after that Mick, Kevin and I had a leisurely flight back to Clow. All in all, a great day.
[Editor's Note: It figures. No credit where credit is due! I was the guy on the scene in Wisconsin who first advised these bums that there was even a Bigfoot Fly-in to go to!
One of the few advantages to being a retiree with a high-powered working spouse is that you occasionally get to be the "trailing spouse" on some nice junket. Friday and Saturday, June 20-21, was just such an occasion. My lovely bride Regina had somehow gotten stuck with voting responsibilities in the Illinois State Bar Association, and they were having some kind of a meeting at The Abbey up at Lake Geneva. Nothing like an all-expenses-paid boondoggle to a lovely resort! It being a lovely day, we dropped the top on the jaguar and motored on up.
As soon as we arrived in town I started seeing little cardboard road-side signs proclaiming that this was the weekend of the world-famous(?) Bigfoot fly-in. "Damn," I said to myself. "It's a fabulous weekend, and here I am without access to my wings." Ever the nice guy, I decided to clue the rest of the FVFC into the opportunity.
After dinner I grabbed my wife's cell phone. Problem number 1: I didn't have my phone, so I didn't have all those FVFC numbers that I had so cleverly programmed in. Problem number 2: except for Kevin, I couldn't remember the towns that anyone lived in so as to be able to get their numbers from information. So, Kevin would have to do. The nice soulless 411 machine disgorged Kevin's number, and I caught him grilling the back yard. After listening to me spill my guts as to the Fabulous Fly-in opportunity, Kev said he would pass the word around. Vance: it looks like he forgot to tell you. Is there a reason for that slight?
Saturday morning arrived, and I decided to ditch the stuffed shirts at The Abbey for the earthier pleasures of a small strip fly-in. I got there by about 8:30. (Side note: I came in a small caravan. Another jaguar XK8 followed me for miles and pulled into the lot right behind me. Small world.) It was festive, with many folks lined up for eats and the flight line buzzing. Several observations:
These guys know how to cook breakfast! They had built their own clever rotating grills, assembled with multiple burners and a heavy, round, large (easily 4 feet in diameter) solid iron grill top. The top was mounted on a spindle that was turned by an electric motor. Cool!
One woman had the best hairdo I had ever seen. She was easily in her sixties; skinny as a rail, and was sporting what I can only describe as poorly put together dirty dishwater blonde white-girl dreadlocks. They were very misshapen and haphazardly piled up. The effect was rather as if she had put a huge cow pie on her head.
There were lots of cool planes. I noted the following: a radial-engined SU-29 unlimited aerobatic plane; several Super Decathlons; Citabiras; a Buccaneer; a nice Piper Cub (with less instruments than are on my Challenger); many nice biplanes; a Taylorcraft; a RANS S-7, a Sonex; your basic Piper Cherokee and a couple of Warriors; two beautiful Thorp T-18s; a Great Lakes; a Pegasus trike; a nicely-detailed Aeronca; an RV-4; an AT-6; a Nanchang CJ6; A Stearman; and a YAK 52 built in Romania in early 2002.
Rides were being offered in a helicopter. Better rides were being offered in an Air-Cam. The Air-Cam was rather like a slick Maxair Drifter, and was powered by TWO (yes TWO) Rotax 912S motors. 200 HP and a take-off roll and climb-out like you wouldn't believe. Yet, that puppy could still land in about 100 feet...
Vance was right: all in all, a great day! My only regret is that I didn't meet up with the FVFC guys who flew in! I guess I left just before they arrived... Brian]
Where To Now?
Bill's Excellent AirVenture, Part 2
Hartenbower: "Can't Get There from Here"