Lawn Dart
Registered User
Las Vegas, Nv
It was so nice out today that I called the boss and said I’ll be back in a couple of hours, I gotta go flyin’.
I pushed the Cub out of the hangar and onto the ramp. It’s about 30 degrees out and not a breath of wind.
I jump behind the hangar to deflate the bladder and then climbed in the Cub and ‘put her on’.
Mags on, fuel on, master on, 3 pumps of primer, “CLEAR PROP” and hit the starter.
Oh boy, she’s cranking slowly today, I gotta change that 50wt.
A few blades go by and no fire yet. I pump the throttle once and she barks to life.
With the first sputters of the exhaust note, I get a whiff of avgas exhaust (I love that smell) and she rocks a little to let me know that she’s trying to wake up on this chilly morning.
Off to the run-up area where I sit for about 15 minutes while the oil and head temps come up.
Time to go.
I throttle up as I transition from the tarmac to the runway and she responds with a particularly aggressive acceleration in this thick air. “Wow…she’s really bookin’ today”, and just like that, she’s off quicker than a prom dress and has her nose pointed uphill.
She’s really showing me what she can do today. Whata gas!!
Then I see it. About two miles in front of me is a super dense layer of fog laying about 75 feet thick on top of the lake.
She’s climbing like a lineman with new spikes, but I can’t resist. I dive back down, head out over the lake and start dragging the wheels through the top of the fog.
I can see straight down to the glass like surface of the lake, and in fact, I can see my reflection but there is absolutely no slant range visibility through this kind of soup.
I’m having so much fun skimming across the top of the fog that I sorta lost track of where I was and ended up over the shoreline. That’s when I spotted the pine tree branches poking up in one of the bubbles.
SHITE!!! I pop up a few feet and scare the birds out of the top of the tree and remind myself that this isn’t Flight Sim, I can’t just hit “reset flight” if I screw up.
The top is so well defined that I can bank up and dip the low wing in the fog while the wind screen is out of it.
I do a few lazy figure 8s that must be a mile wide by three miles long and look out to see my vortex swirling up in the fog and leaving a distinct path of where I’ve been. This is toooo bitchin’
Alone the way, I look down at an early morning fishermen in his boat and we wave to each other.
He must be wondering what this nut job is up to?, doing steep turns in the fog?
Little does he know, I’m on top in a crystal blue frozen sky.
There’s more to the story, but that’s all for now.
I pushed the Cub out of the hangar and onto the ramp. It’s about 30 degrees out and not a breath of wind.
I jump behind the hangar to deflate the bladder and then climbed in the Cub and ‘put her on’.
Mags on, fuel on, master on, 3 pumps of primer, “CLEAR PROP” and hit the starter.
Oh boy, she’s cranking slowly today, I gotta change that 50wt.
A few blades go by and no fire yet. I pump the throttle once and she barks to life.
With the first sputters of the exhaust note, I get a whiff of avgas exhaust (I love that smell) and she rocks a little to let me know that she’s trying to wake up on this chilly morning.
Off to the run-up area where I sit for about 15 minutes while the oil and head temps come up.
Time to go.
I throttle up as I transition from the tarmac to the runway and she responds with a particularly aggressive acceleration in this thick air. “Wow…she’s really bookin’ today”, and just like that, she’s off quicker than a prom dress and has her nose pointed uphill.
She’s really showing me what she can do today. Whata gas!!
Then I see it. About two miles in front of me is a super dense layer of fog laying about 75 feet thick on top of the lake.
She’s climbing like a lineman with new spikes, but I can’t resist. I dive back down, head out over the lake and start dragging the wheels through the top of the fog.
I can see straight down to the glass like surface of the lake, and in fact, I can see my reflection but there is absolutely no slant range visibility through this kind of soup.
I’m having so much fun skimming across the top of the fog that I sorta lost track of where I was and ended up over the shoreline. That’s when I spotted the pine tree branches poking up in one of the bubbles.
SHITE!!! I pop up a few feet and scare the birds out of the top of the tree and remind myself that this isn’t Flight Sim, I can’t just hit “reset flight” if I screw up.
The top is so well defined that I can bank up and dip the low wing in the fog while the wind screen is out of it.
I do a few lazy figure 8s that must be a mile wide by three miles long and look out to see my vortex swirling up in the fog and leaving a distinct path of where I’ve been. This is toooo bitchin’
Alone the way, I look down at an early morning fishermen in his boat and we wave to each other.
He must be wondering what this nut job is up to?, doing steep turns in the fog?
Little does he know, I’m on top in a crystal blue frozen sky.
There’s more to the story, but that’s all for now.