oldbaldguy
Registered User
You know it never fails to amaze me how things turn out. A couple of weeks ago me and the spousal unit loaded up the 12 and ventured over into a neighboring state to attend a fly-in at a nice little grass strip. We arrived without much ado, but when it came to be our turn to land, I got buck fever or something when I saw the fifty or so folks sitting in lawn chairs along the side of the runway. My landing was so abysmal that people I didn't even know were embarrassed for me. When it came time to leave, I announced over unicom that I hoped to depart with more grace than I had displayed when landing and promptly taxied into a hole and had to shut down to get the airplane out of it. Then the other evening, I pulled the 12 out of the hangar and went aviating for no other reason than the pure joy of it. On the way back home, I paid particular attention to unicom and discovered that nobody was around but me, so I announced that I would make a low approach to 19 with a mid-field break, which I executed with notable alacrity at a blistering 100 indicated. I kept the turn coming around until the flare when both wheels scirched at exactly the same instant. Then I held forward pressure on the stick until the tail came down all by itself nanoseconds before the airplane stopped rolling just as the sun slipped below the horizon. The perfection of the moment startled even me. The irony here is that there was not another living soul anywhere on the airport to see it -- I know, because I got on my bicycle and rode around looking for people. I couldn't even find the airport cat!