SUNDAY – July 29, 2007
Alan and I have a plan – Depart Oshkosh, head to Kankakee, Illinois. Next, we will fly to Cornelia, Georgia and then home. Of course, our plan was to depart at 7:00a for the airport but after talking and hanging out with Gary it was nearly 8:30 before we left the house. We had no problem this morning with our normal plan of going to Weeks Hangar and parking the car. It has worked out great as we park, head through the gate and then walk to the airplane. Alan and I have concluded if you just look like you know what you are doing then it is easy to move around.
I am in the airplane writing this after leaving Kankakee. Alan has the left seat and is doing a great job flying the airplane. Right now though, I wish we had a weather GPS. I spent most of the week looking at GPS. Which would be better? A Garmin 396, 496, Anywhere Map, or AvMap. As the week wore on and I went through the multiple sales presentations I concluded that the AvMap was the way to go. The price is $1495 and they had a show special of $1349 at West Cost Avionics for it. But, I am so tight when it comes to spending money on myself I did not buy it. As Alan and I fly between KIKK and KAJR right now though it would be nice to have. We checked weather at KIKK and everything looked clear, there are definitely building showers and we know we are flying into the afternoon convective activity. Just knowing though how it is building up over several hours, in this case, two hours, would be nice.
As I ride along, typing about what we did today and yesterday, I keep thinking about what I just saw happen at Kankakee. Alan and I were stepping into the airplane and I heard another plane start up. Within 1-2 seconds I heard a boom and turned to look; I saw the tail of a bi-plane bouncing up and down. The engine stopped and I realized it had collided with a Cherokee on the ramp. I looked and saw the pilot in a blue shirt and jeans jump, yell, pound his fist on the ground. I decided to run inside and tell the FBO. I wanted to let him know, most of all, no one was hurt. Wow, I am glad that is not me.
We made it into AJR (Cornelia, Georgia) with no problems. We had to fly the GPS approach, due to the weather, which was good practice for both of us. Mr. Tatum greeted me on the ground and we took on more fuel. Our concern, right now is the weather. After looking we decided to head into town and wait to see if it dissipates – all of southern Georgia is covered in storms. Alan wanted to see the cabin so we drove the crew card (an ancient BMW) out there and saw it. We headed to Helen next and had dinner. I think Leeann is really struggling with me not coming home. I miss her with all of my heart, but hope she understands. Fortunately, I had a note from her reminding me to be careful and that she knew I would be home if I could. I needed her to affirm that as it was the only pressure I was feeling to make a decision to go on.
I had a chance to talk to Haley just a little bit ago. She wanted to know if I saw John Travolta last night – no.
Here I sit, at the Hampton Inn updating pictures, worried about things to do tomorrow and a horribly busy week. But, I know we made the right decision regarding weather. Alan spoke to a friend that had to deviate at 45,000 feet to avoid the same storms.
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