This past weekend we went to the Triple Tree fly-in and had a blast! We headed out in a little bit of rain at our local airport but made it to clearer sky soon after takeoff. Our hangar mates Bill, Keith, and Dan took off ahead of us in the Twin Cessna 421 and we followed them in very loose formation to Triple Tree Aerodome(SC00) in South Carolina. We arrived around noon and this was the first time I had landed on grass. Grass strips dont get much better than this at 7000 feet long and nicely kept grass. The whole area was beautiful.
We ran into the [VAF] infamous Dan Horton and walked around with him for a bit and checked out the huge lawn mower they designed to cut the field in only two passes. We also ran into fellow RV-10 owner Wayne Gillipsie, our local RV buddy Jeff Rhodes, RVNation's Scott Brown, and plenty of other awesome people. The people involved in aviation are always top notch people and its one of the best parts of being a part of this great hobby.
Brandi and I walked around and checked out all the airplanes including this tiny little one called the hummingbird. It sure did look cramped in there!
We also saw the DC-3 that is normally parked at Falcon Field and we got to go inside it and sit in the cockpit. We both thought the plane was really cool. Here is me doing a presidential wave as I deplane :)
The weather was looking pretty iffy and there was a big scare that a hail storm was headed our way. We sweated that for about an hour and then the sky cleared up a bit and it looked like we were in the clear. There was a little rain that came through and cooled things off really nicely. We enjoyed a really delicious dinner that evening and then went over to the 'party parachute' that Dan Horton and his wife brought. We brought our chairs over and a couple beers and enjoyed really great pilot and builder company. It had been a long day and so when the rain started coming back down later that evening we headed back to our tent that we had pitched by the plane and enjoyed listening to the sound of rain on our tent as we drifted off to sleep.
Here is Brandi getting a few things out of the plane. She found that she could crack the door open and get in without taking the cover off.
We woke early the next morning and had some breakfast. They had a catering company in there that made pretty good food. We checked out some powered glider planes, walked around a bit more and then decided to head for home later that morning. Brandi got some more stick time in and did her second in a row day of radio calls to the McCollum tower. She is doing so well! It was a really great experience and we will definitely look forward to going back! We're living the aviation dream for sure!