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May 24-25 – The Coastal Fly-in in Pensacola is always a fun trip each
Memorial Day weekend. I was basically on my own this weekend so I
modified my plans a little. Got up with the Panama City bunch and we
decided to hook up at Defuniak Springs and then fly together from
there over to Coastal in Pensacola where the Lite Blue Angels hold
their Memorial Day Weekend fly-in.

The morning started out very clear, but as I was driving up to
Thomasville I noticed the fog started to roll in. I knew I had to
get on up there and get out or I would be stuck for a while, so I
managed to hit every red light enroute and a train and, well you know
how it is when your in a hurry. I finally got up to the airport and
got the plane ready. You could see the fog starting to roll in, but
I decided to try and sneak out, so off I went. There was enough
visibility to sneak out and it seemed to be clearer to the west, the
direction I was heading thankfully. I was not able to go directly to
Defuniak and had to angle up to the north a little to go around.
Over close to Bainbridge, I had to go over a thick fog bank for about
2 miles to get to clear air. It was kind of interesting to see the
towers sticking up through the clouds, but finally I was through the
ground stuff and into the clear and on my way, although now it was
kinda hazy, but at least the vis was about 8-10 miles. As I was
heading over Marianna, The PC boys had now arrived at Defuniak and
realized there was no fuel there, so they diverted to Crestview and I
changed my course to meet them there. I ended up arriving about 15
minutes after they had, and it worked out well since the fuel truck
was just finishing up with them when I taxied up and stopped so the
truck was just waiting on me. Now that is service. The Crestview
folks were having a Pancake breakfast so we all also stuffed our
faces with food before moving on. Off we went, five of us (1 Fergy
IIB, 1 CH1, 1 CH2, 1 Rans S-12 and 1 Gull 2K), and we decided to go
north pick up the pipe line and travel along it to the other side of
all of the different Pensacola airspace stuff. As we started south
to Coastal, there were some gorgeous big, did I say BIG, fields along
the way and there was some good crop-duster type low flying
available. We popped over the river about 12 miles from Coastal and
then headed on over there and landed uneventfully around 1030ish.
Had lunch and BS'd with old friends and new, looked at the different
planes on line etal.

This is where I modified my plans a bit. I decided to head up to see
a friend of mine near Meridian, MS (Richie Gray found on the Fly-UL
list), another 156 miles to the NW or thereabouts. I left about
2ish. Now some of the territory around the rivers going through
there were pretty hazardous. You did not want to have an engine
out. The best route might have been to follow the pipeline over and
then turn north, a little longer but much safer. It started to get a
little bit bumpy now, so I went up to nosebleed territory (about 5500-
6500 ft) just above the broken clouds. It was as smooth as could be,
but now I had picked up a 10 mph headwind. Let's see, a 10 mph
headwind versus a trampoline ride. I decided to stay with the smooth
air.

Got to my friends place (Topton airpark) which was just south of
Meridian NAS, an old haunt of mine (it still looked the same as I
remembered it from the air) and landed at his airpark. There was a
lot of stuff going on here today. The Pitts Monster was flying and
doing some mild aerobatics, along with a brand new Quicksilver Mark
III Sport which was also kind of fun, along with a GT400 and a
Beaver, a couple of Cessna's, and my little Gull. We flew around
most of the rest of the day and just had fun. That night I was
treated to one of the best steaks (Filet Mignon) I had in a very long
time. Slept in a brand new air conditioned motor home, now this is
my style of camping out, had a shower available - what more could you
ask for, and oh yeah, a hot-tub was also available. Now this was
really roughing it. Kind of felt sorry for the true campers back at
Coastal, although they weren't suffering any either as they were
having a big gumbo party and beer bash back there. Really couldn't
go wrong either way.

The next morning I left Topton about 740ish and headed to Brewton, AL
where I was to meet back up with the PC boys. The weather looked
like it was moving in from the west and once in the air, the haze
gave me only about 5 miles Vis for a while. It seemed to get a
little better the more easterly I traveled. I went over the river
area a lot further to the north than where I came across the day
before and it was a little better, but I feel that wherever you go
over that river it is going to be a little bit hostile, territory
wise. I arrived Brewton around 930ish, about 7 minutes right after
they did so the timing was pretty close. We all refueled and then
headed to Enterprise, where the rest of the gang refueled again and
then on to Grand Ridge where we ate lunch at a place called
Blondies. From here we all parted company and headed our different
paths back home. I was about 70 miles from TVI at this point, but
actually went a little farther since I went to the north around Lake
Seminole where there were more open fields enroute. All in all a
pretty good weekend of flying – Number wise, I flew 796 miles in 10.1
hours of flight time using 23.3 gal of fuel (that comes out to 34.3
mpg and 2.3 gph used with an ave speed of 79 mph - max spd 107).