Yes, there Is a Tommy George!

        Article and Pictures by Brian Gilomen

       
Tommy George is Alive and Well!

Unlike last year, the weather favored one of the best flying trips of the summer:  our annual pilgrimage to Tommy George's Lake Sandchris Airpark.  Kevin and I (the only departees from Clow!  For shame!!) waited out the clouds on that Saturday and were wheels-up at about 1 pm. Kevin had full fuel, and I probably had about 7-8 gallons. We had a nice tailwind, so I figured "that's more than enough for the flight to Pontiac," right?

Well, we got to Pontiac, announced, and the FBO came on the air and said: "oh, by the way, we don't have any gas." Great. Dwight, 20 miles back the way we came, was a possibility, but that would take Kevin 30 minutes to get to against the headwind. And Dwight is always "iffy" when it comes to gas. So, that detour, with no guarantees, could have put us 1.5 hours behind when you figured in the round trip to/from Dwight from our current position, and unknown ground time. Nothing else was really close to Pontiac: BMI was probably 40 miles SW. So, we elected to land at PNT, got their excellent courtesy car, drove into town, found a Farm and Fleet-kinda place, bought two $6.39 5-gal. gas cans, drove to the gas station, squeezed 5.5 gal. into each can, drove back to the airport, and filled up. Fun adventure! We kept the cans: I was able to get them in the back of the RANS.

After that it was on to Logan Co. They were having the balloon fest that we have enjoyed during past trips to Tommy's. Unfortunately, in honor of said balloon fest, Logan County had CLOSED AND BLOCKED-OFF THEIR FUEL PUMPS! This was getting old. Kevin and I taxied South to the Ag Sprayer ops area, and had a cigar while we contemplated out options. As it happens, the Ag Sprayer ops guy was at the time giving helicopter rides.  He saw us near his hangar during one of his many low passes, landed, and came down our way to sell us 100LL from his private fuel truck at -- get this -- $3.00/gal. Such a deal!!

While at Logan we got a call from Joe Simoski. He had just gotten to Tommy's with Bruce V., and Phil Duff was there also. Joe and Bruce has the same problem at Logan that we did, but they had borrowed a fuel can and did the courtesy car thing at Logan that Kevin and I had done at Pontiac.

Kevin and I took off, leaving the balloons behind, and had a fabulous flight to Tommy's. Visibility was easily 25 miles. I could see the power plant stacks South of Lake Sangchris from more than 1/2 hour out.

We landed, visited, and looked at planes:

Attendance was down compared to past years, but it was still great fun. No P51: Tommy said he heard the FAA might be dropping by, so he told the Mustang guy not to come.

The weather was simply fabulous later that afternoon and early in the evening, so Kevin and I headed back into the sky before dinner for more flying over Lake Sanchris and the cornfields. We had a great time, but one pilot didn't make it back easily.  It seems that someone always breaks his or her gear at Tommy's:

After landing and tying down our planes we enjoyed a great spaghetti dinner . . .

. . . and after that we enjoyed great bullsh*tting, flying videos projected on a big screen, cigars, and LOTS of beer. The cool night made for excellent sleeping in our tents.

Neither Saturday nor Sunday were wet days, but the dew was thick Sunday morning. Everything was soaked! Fortunately, Kevin was smart, and before we left Clow he had outfitted the both of us with Rubbers. (Ewwww! Kevin's used rubbers!!)  Can't complain; they kept my feet dry...

The Red Roach Coach at Tommy's sourced our breakfast Sunday morning.  I gotta tell you that the breakfast sandwich they made was better and cheaper than most of what I get at a fly-in! All of us departed after the morning banquet, going different directions. Kevin and I first were heading to Cushing with Joe and Bruce and Phil, but Kev didn't really want to do that for some reason, and preferred to go back to Pontiac and do the courtesy car thing with the cans that I was still hauling around. It turns out that his plan worked fine, and probably took us less time than we would have spent at some FBOs that we freaquent (Dacy? Rochelle?).

All-in-all the flying was simply fantastic the entire trip. When Kevin and I got back to Clow, Ted Tvrdik and Neal McCann flew in, each apparently separately enjoying the day. We visited with them until they had to leave.

I checked my GPS log and realized that I had flown over 1000 miles in 3 weekends.