Saturday, October 31, 2015

Friends Fly-In

file photo thanks to the internet!
I received a private message from Adam B on Pilots of America that he and Jeanine were going to be in the area and they wanted to visit.  GREAT!!  Mary and I invited them to stay with us, we were really looking forward to catching up. We haven't seen our friends since the Wings Fly-B-Q back in May.

The plan was for Saturday, an overnight but the plan changed to a Friday overnight followed by a flight to St. Marys Maryland and then on to North Carolina.  I think Adam and Jeanine love to travel as much as Mary and I do.
I tracked their flight from KLWM, Lawrence Municipal Airport located in Lawrence, MA. to Ocean City, KOXB. Mary and I headed out to meet them when they landed at OXB.  We opened the hangar and turned the lights on then jumped back in the SUV to drive out near the taxiway and wait while keeping warm.

While sitting in the SUV we saw a truck driving around the airfield and lighting up the woods, this nut was spotting and or chasing deer. I'm thinking oh this is great, Adam is entering the pattern and this guy is flushing deer out or trying to and doing God only knows what crossing runways and taxiways. I give Adam a heads up that the guys is near the approach end of Three-Two and to keep an eye out. Adam ends up entering a left down wind for runway two and rolls out to a very dark taxiway with only reflectors. I turned on my emergency flashers to try and help designate the taxiway to the ramp. After shutting down and getting the bags out, I helped tuck Adams Socata TB-21 TC Trinidad in 08Romeos hangar. The plane would be protected and heaters plugged in for the overnight forecast of 35 degree temps.
We quickly loaded up and headed over to the Shark On The Harbor restaurant for a late dinner. Catching up seemed like no time had passed, funny how that is with friends. Dinner was very good with the ladies having crab cakes, Adam I think had tuna and I was the odd ball, go figure, having a burger.
Our zoo loved having new people to mooch attention from..it never gets old with the critters. We all finally called it a night and retired, tomorrow would be busy for our guests.
Breakfast at a local restaurant then off to the airport. Zero Kilo Mike was nice and toasty when Adam disconnected the heaters. The bags were loaded, hugs and handshakes exchanged and our friends were boarding for 2W6, St. Marys. Way to short of a visit. We hung out to watch them take off from runway two and with a wing rock from the plane we waved good bye from our SUV's open windows.
Dad, I hear noises from the other side of the house!  Yes baby girl, Adam and Jeanine are here, did you forget?

4 comments:

Jim and Sandie said...

I would never have thought that your friends would have to dodge deer or a deer hunter on the runway. Good grief. Those crab cakes sound really really good. That picture of your baby girl is priceless. She looks so puzzled.

Gary said...

And now....as Paul Harvey would say..."The rest of the story". I immediately called the police. If this guy was not authorized to be on the airfield and he was hunting deer I didn't want to confront him unarmed, or armed for that matter. So, I used the next best thing, the cell phone, and stayed way clear of them.

queue the banjo music...

The OC police came out and said oh that's most likely so and so....he will come out some nights and make sure no deer are out here on the airfield. He usually monitors Unicom (the radio frequency that the pilots talk on) and keeps clear when he hears them or announces his presence. I let him know he did neither. Rolls eyes....oh brother!

AdamB said...

Thanks again, Gary! Was great to catch up with you and Mary as always!
It was such a fun weekend. Glad you guys were a part of it.
The rest of the weekend was a success!
Sunday was a perfect example of a day where having an instrument rating is very worthwhile.
500 overcast, 5 mile visibility, and light rain (no wind). So the IMC was very smooth.
less than 1000' later we were above all the scud making our way northeast between layers in light precip.

We needed less than an hour to be completely clear of the undercast and have ground contact again. VFR the rest of the way.

Gary said...

Adam, Always good times catching up with you and Jeanine! I hope we can do it again in the spring and summer. General Aviation sure makes it fun.

Best rating ever, the IFR ticket has increased our travel days and the dispatch rate is near perfect. Happy to hear it was a good flight home.