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July 25, 2006 Well the summer airshow season is about half over. I am presently on the road with my "real" job in Washington DC, having just come from the NATA clinic in Dubuque, IA. That, with the exception of the weather at times, was great. I left the Atlanta area on Thursday to Alabama and a short wait for Rick Hosking, then up to Memphis to pick up Doc Ray and another TRARON member, Doug Linville. A gas stop at Prattville, IL and then into DBQ. It was about a six plus hour day, mostly at 8500 MSL where it was cooler, except that last leg under the overcast at 2500 feet. Friday we came out to the airport to have ground school and brief, only to learn in the middle of ground school that it was raining, hard. And continued to rain, all day. However, there was a lot of good friendship and the swapping of lies, er stories, the rest of the day. Saturday however, dawned a beautiful Midwest morning and we launched a lot of sorties that day – I haven’t added it up but I think I flew close to another 5 hours. TRARON had a large presence there: myself, Rick, Morris, Doug, Mark Novak, Mark Anderson, Mike Ginter (a brand new Wingman), Steve Peterson (another brand new Wingman), Jim Munn, Julie Smith, and I’m sure I left people out for which I apologize, except to Lumpy (just kidding – Lumpy drove and organized, or attempted to do in the rain, a couple of dawn patrols). You know, one of the great things about this type of event is the people you meet and the friendship you make when there. You run into people you haven’t seen all season and folks you meet that you won’t see until next year, all brought together by warbirds in general and the T6 specifically. I have pictures coming when I’m at my home computer. In the mean time, only a little more than two months to Midland, or more importantly, the pre-AirSho clinic in Odessa. Elsewhere on this website you can sign up and we look forward to seeing you there. Don’t forget the Wednesday night ground school on topics of interest – but you gotta tell me you’ll be there, or I won’t. One last note, I just learned last night that a friend of mine, Wyatt Fuller, died in his F86 doing a high speed abort after engine failure at Hickory, NC. That makes 25, let’s be careful out there. Skipper Hyle TRARON Lead |