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Flight Articles from the weekend of 6/24 - 25 (in order of posting time stamp)
[Andy Palmer] [South Side] [Diablo] [Tony De Groot]

Tony De Groot
Weekend of Saturday 6/24/06 & Sunday 6/25
El Mirage Towing

What a great weekend we just had at El Mirage!!  That place is just too fun.  Heck, it's just fun driving through the desert at high speed as Hammer found out.  Anne-Odile thinks they're all just a bunch of outlaws out there.  Aerobatic planes dive bombing camp sites and climbing up in barrel rolls only to come diving back down again.  This Red Barron guy would chase down vehicles screaming across the desert doing all kinds of awesome aerobatics.  Then at times he would land and just cruise the area on wheels putt putting to this camp area or another.  Land yachts were all over the place and that looks like so much fun.  Next time got to try a couple of those.

There were ultra-lites and trikes and motorcycles of all sorts and of course there was us and Hungry Joe's flying circus.  We had four people trying to get their rating, DD, Jim Wixtrom, Bob Anderson and Greg Brown.  They all got their rating and we got some killer footage.  Also, Hammer, Anne-Odile and myself came out to get a few more tows and maybe some good flying.

The flying was really nice and several people got their highest flight.  Jim, and one of a number of Kagel pilots (Chris, Ken and a number of others came out.) got their highest altitudes ever and so did I topping out at 15,250 feet.  There were convergence lines and cummies and a lot of high clouds which were a blessing as it kept the temps cooler in the morning and throughout the day although it was cooking at somewhere around 105 - 112 degrees.  It was much cooler in a t-shirt up high as once you got to 8,000 it started feeling a lot better than on the deck. Yeah, I had a t-shirt on when I got high and it was chilly but felt great to get cooled off.

John Hesch also came out and got a very enjoyable, easy flight going a bit beyond Barstow for a fifty miler.  Many of us were just cruising around getting used to the area.  Pretty sweet if you lost the lift you could just land, have a bite, a drink and then back up you went.  Tony de Leo was out trying to get to us from Black Hawk but it wasn't working as well there as with us.  The last day a bunch of us tried to fly home but we ran into a head wind from the West which sounds like it happens a lot.  I think I have some nice photos of pilots in the air and the scenery of the area and I'll get it to the next club meeting.

Hungary Joe had a great clinic and I would recommend him to anyone wanting to get their aerotow rating.  I think he's going back out in three weeks.