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Hawk Memories |
| Coast-to-Coast: Trip to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in an antique Fairchild F-24R… | |||||||
| by Clyde & Susan Davis | |||||||
We planned it to be a leisurely journey so we left Willits, California (O28) Saturday afternoon, 24 May 03 and flew to Willows, California. Our friends from Ruth, California (Tom and Carol Oczkewecz) would meet us there Sunday morning and we planned to continue on to Kitty Hawk as a loose flight of two. As luck or the lack of it often happens, the airport at Ruth was socked in most of the day Sunday and they couldn’t leave until late in the afternoon. We flew on to Yerington, Nevada and waited. Susan and I hooked our “airshow chairs” to the tie-downs on the wing and relaxed in the shade of the wings until the 182 caught up with us. Having seen enough of Yerington, we used the daylight that was left to fly on to Ely, Nevada for the night. By the time we got there things were closed up tight. We set up tents under the wings and slept the night away. The next morning fuel was leaking from Tom’s left wing tank. We continued on in the Fairchild while Tom made arrangements to have the fuel leak fixed. Tom and Carol caught up with us in Kinston, North Carolina.
Our next stop was planned for Brice Canyon, Arizona but when we got there the density altitude was above eleven thousand feet so we continued on looking for something lower and cooler. We landed at Page airport near Lake Powell. That is a great place to stop. As we taxied up to the transit ramp, a lineman was waving us into a parking place. This lineman did what they all seem to do, he stood directly centered on the tie-down spot where it is impossible to see him over the long nose of the Fairchild. All I could do was to sit there with the engine ticking over until he got the idea and moved over to one side. Susan was about to dismount and go explain the problem but he moved over first. These folks have a first class operation. The two FBO linemen flipped a coin to see who would sell the fuel (I didn’t have a preference). We got a ride to the lounge in their 4-wheeler and they gave us a ride to a Mexican restaurant for dinner (I call the evening meal supper). From there we flew on to Grants, New Mexico. On the way Susan took many fantastic pictures (by the time we got back to California, she’d taken over two thousand high resolution digital photographs). After spending the night in Grants (the motel owner picked us up and delivered us to the airport), we flew to Tucumcari. There we refueled and topped off the oil and I bought an antique HF aircraft radio transmitter from the lineman. It was in unused condition and still had the 3105-kilocycle crystal in it. I’ll add it to my collection. From Tucumcari we went on to Clinton, Oklahoma where we landed on the grass runway. It was late and the FBO was closed but someone in another hangar arranged for us to use the courtesy car (an old city police car) and we spent the night in a local hotel. We had originally planned our next stop at Lexington, Tennessee but while we were at the Page, Arizona airport we read about Drake Field at Fayetteville, Arkansas. We were told that the restaurant on the field had some of the best barbeque to be found anywhere. So we diverted to Drake Field. Now that’s a nice place to stop! It is a beautiful airport with nicely cut green grass everywhere. The control tower was very accommodating and friendly, the barbeque was as advertised, fuel delivery was efficient, and everything was clean and well supplied. As usual the Fairchild attracted a lot of attention, and as we were leaving, the line crew asked us to make a low pass over the runway for pictures. The tower gave us permission without hesitation and said he’d get out his own camera. Troy Bates, the flight line supervisor, has posted his pictures on his very interesting web site: http://comp.uark.edu/~cbates/Aviation/May2003/page_01.htm From Drake Field we flew on to Lexington, Tennessee, spent the night, and from there to Crossville, Tennessee. The next planned stop was to be in North Carolina but the clouds over the Great Smoky Mountains were too high to fly over and too low to fly under so we turned back and landed at Morristown, Tennessee for the night (courtesy car there too). The next morning the weather had improved so we could fly the rest of the way to North Carolina. The destination was Kinston (ISO) but the tower said that our radio was not working well enough for them to copy. When I switched to the handheld radio I couldn’t hear them due to some interference from a broadcast station. My Icom model IC-A22 handheld radio was in the back seat under all the camping equipment. I then flew on to New Bern and by that time figured out how to call them on the Vertex Standard VXA-700 handheld and receive on the Icom-200 panel mounted radio. As I approached the New Bern airport the tower asked if I was familiar with the area. My reply was that I flew from that airport on a regular basis a little over 45 years ago. He remarked, “Well, the river is still in the same place”. That’s the only thing that is the same! I landed at New Bern, gassed up and went back to Kinston. At Kinston I parked on the North Carolina Forest Service Ramp. They were expecting me and had a tie-down spot all ready. That was on Friday 30 May and the Fairchild rested there until the following Friday morning. Tom and Carol in the Cessna 182 caught up with us on Wednesday evening (28 May) at Kinston. Susan was spending the week at Myrtle Beach South Carolina with my sister while I was working in Kinston. After leaving Kinston the panel mounted worked just fine and it still does. The only place that had a problem with it was the Kinston tower. Friday morning Tom and Carol flew directly to First Flight airport at Kitty Hawk while I went to Myrtle Beach to pick up Susan. After a short visit there we flew on to Kitty Hawk. First flight airport was a great disappointment. The museum was not completed, nor was the AOPA building. Tom learned that we were not allowed to camp overnight in our tents. Weather was closing in on us and if we couldn’t camp overnight we had to get out of there right away. We took some pictures, I did a fly-by of the memorial for pictures and we took off for Chapel Hill. I was not comfortable with the fuel I had on board so I landed at Rocky Mount for gasoline while Tom flew on to Chapel Hill. We ran into a lot of nice folks at Rocky Mount who wanted us to stay for their open house and air show the next two days. They offered to put the Fairchild in the hangar and get us transportation to a hotel. We couldn’t stay because Tom was waiting for us at Chapel Hill, Williams Field. The Chapel Hill airport had changed a lot also. When I used to fly in there over 45 years ago it was a huge circular grass field. Now there is a long paved runway and other facilities. It is a shame that the university wants to close it. After spending the night in Chapel Hill, we flew back to Rocky Mount for the Sunday part of the open house and air show. They parked me next to a WWII A26 so the public could get a look at the Fairchild. The local Civil Air Patrol posted a Cadet with the plane to make sure the non-flying visitors didn’t poke holes in the fabric or climb on the airplane. That was very much appreciated. It was raining on and off most of the day and that put a damper on some of the events. The field stayed barely VFR all day. We left in the late afternoon. I flew under the clouds through the passes into Tennessee and landed at Morristown, Tennessee. Tom and Carol tried to fly over the clouds but couldn’t stay VFR so they turned back and landed at Hickory, North Carolina. We waited for them at Morristown and then we continued West reversing our old tracks. The original plan was to cut north and go through the Dakotas, but the weather in that direction was not cooperating. On the way back to California we stopped back at Drake Field for some more of that good barbeque and this time used their car and spent the night. At Tucumcari we made an overnight stop and in the morning Steve Floeck at the FBO gave us each a freshly laid ostrich egg. After we got back Susan and her mother drained about one and a half quarts from a hole drilled in the end and we enjoyed casseroles and scrambled egg for a while. Another noteworthy stop was at Jean, Nevada. There is nothing there but an airport and two huge high-rise Hotel-Casinos. The Hotel picked us up at the airport and we were surprised to be charged only $8.00 plus tax (total $17.00) for a real nice room. That evening we went down to the Casino and I lost about $75.00 in the quarter slots. Susan broke even. I didn’t mind because I just figured I’d now paid about the right price for the room. On the way out the next morning I gave the slot machine another try. On about the third try I got three sevens and won it all back plus a few dollars. The stay that night was free. I stopped one more time before home at Yerington, Nevada for fuel and oil. The Ranger engine uses about a quart of oil per hour and we had used up the case I brought along for the places that didn’t have oil. Everyone we met along the way was extremely nice except at Yerington. After buying fuel from the self-service tank, I went over to an open hangar where two people were working on a couple of airplanes. I spoke to one of them and asked where I might find some oil. He didn’t even speak, just turned his back and walked away. Finally after a while the other one talked to me just long enough to tell me there was no aviation oil available to me on the field. We walked into town and bought enough oil at an auto parts store to get us home. We arrived back at Willits, California just before dark as the full moon was rising. It was Friday the thirteenth. The overall trip had been great. The engine only quit once during the trip and after switching to the tank with fuel in it things got back to normal quickly. We spent 81 hours in the air, with the side trips and zigzags flew over seven thousand miles, burned about 800 gallons of gasoline, and used 20 gallons of oil. It was worth it. Clyde Davis |
