Sunny Florida

[Jim C]

Well, Saturday was a great morning to fly - Plenty of Sunshine, no
wind and overall quite smooth. But it was very very chilly, well to
the tune of about the mid 40's by noon.

It sure is nice during this time of the year to have the enclosed
cockpit. No heater, but with the right clothing one stays pretty
warm overall. I think I need some better flying shoes though as the
footsies got a little cold after a while. The ole tennies just don't
cut it in this weather.

Took off from TVI about 0930 and the air was just great. I coasted
on over to 4J5 and then circled the airport and saw it was locked up
tight, then buzzed a friends farm and no one was there either. The
radio was totally silent and I seemed to be the only one in the air.
Not even my buddies from the PC area were up and frollicking around.
Maybe the icecycles hanging from the many rafters, plants and trees
was a strong indicator that no one was coming up to play today. Up
here in N Florida - S Georgia this is generally an unusually rare
sight. From here I played a little more than headed over to MGR,
crossed the field and it didn't seem to have any activity either, so
on to check out a friends airfield that I had never been to before.
It was a nice little patch with a lake in the middle of it. About
850 ft of sod going a little uphill in one direction and 1200 ft
going in the other, but this 1200 ft looked a little rough - I will
need to check it on the ground sometime. I buzzed his place and he
came out to say hi (on the radio). After a few minutes of talking I
also checked out another new field by another friend building a plane
and then back to circle overhead with the guy I was talking to. We
decided to meet over at MGR for coffee, so off I went. Of course I
just had to buzz another friend of both of ours and we got him to
come over to MGR as well. Upon landing met up with a couple of
others in the FBO and talked a few lies. After everybody showed up
we had a pretty nice jaw session, BUT I was the only one flying that
morning. Left around noon to head back to TVI, my homebase for the
plane. Don't know why no one was up since the air was mighty fine.
The cold must have kept several from going up, but they missed a nice
day for flying.

All in all, I traveled about 111 miles, all within 25 miles of my
airport, had 1.4 logged hours of actual flight time and used 3.5 gal
of fuel. Even with the cold (cold that is for us southerners - it
has been getting down in the teens at night around here) it turned
out to be a nice flying day.

I will sure be glad for the warmth to come back though. The local
Fly-in season down here is getting ready to start soon. Gotta be
ready. Ya'll take care now - ya hear.

Jim C

[Ron E]

Jim, I enjoy your flight-tales. I live in
Oregon, where the normal weather is more or
less like what you are experiencing now. I
also am happy to have an enclosed bird (TG-J),
and sometimes have to zip up my sweatshirt when
my buddy in his Hurricane is about ready to freeze.
I've considered installing a heater, but so far I've
managed to survive.

I always envy your relatively high cruise speeds &
low fuel consumption. You always have to rub it in
though, don't you? Someday when I grow up (I'm only 70 now)
perhaps I can also get an HKS.

In the meantime, have fun and enjoy life!!! There's no second chance,

Ron Carroll