Warbird Information Exchange

We are having the first of hopefully annual FlyIns at Hondo, Tx (HDO) May 15, 2010. Not wanting to jink it by announcing too early the list of Warbirds committed is growing and becoming somewhat respectable for a first time event. Lil Cuzin Mike and the San Marcos bunch bringing B-25 Yellow Rose, P-39, various Japanese planes and the rare U-11. The ALS bringing various L-Birds. Stearmans, T-6s, T-28s and a few other planes. Oh yeah, I almost foregot as of now 2 of the local planes that aren't going to Chino............P-51's Miss Maryland and HJGB. If you are in this part of the country and not planning on the trip to Chino come by.

We're going to try to bring a good round-up of our aircraft. If I'm not committed to students I intend to bring the L-5 again. Last year's event was fun. We need to talk this one up though to get a better crowd than last year.
Are ya'll going to have the DC-3 running again soon?


From last year...

Ryan

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Dang Ober, can you bump it up a week or back? I can't get a kitchen pass that weekend...

Lynn

Lynn get your kitchen pass changed. We may have 3 Mustangs.........everybody can't go to Chino.Besides the air is easier to breath in Hondo.

Weather guessers are not to promising, but we are continuing ahead on and praying for decent weather. So far so good.................knocking on wood.

What's the latest guys. Should I do a soft field takeoff in the L-5 to get there? If I can get out, are there any other guys committed to be on the ramp?

Ryan

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Friday was the worst flooding in centuries north of Hondo, but we proceeded ahead and Saturday dawned beautiful. Ryan showed up in a J-3 instead of the L-5 with another L-4. We had an L-2 , 4 O1 types, SNB, 2 C-47, one P-51 (Glamorous Glen III),P-39. Yellow Rose, and Devil Dog. Fly bys were four F-16s, B-52, and C-5. Not a bad first try at a fly-in, and the crowd was great. Hope Ryan got some great pics as I still don't have a clue how to post, and I will get my "Why I love my job" picture to him to post in a couple of days.

Have some laptop issues right now, but will hopefully get something up early next week.
Oh, and I absolutely intended to have the L-5 there. Spent 30 minutes preflighting and packing a booth into the back before finding it would need to be jumped - which is a lot more work than it seems. Just couldn't get it to start.
Great day!

Ryan

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Ok, I couldn't resist. Took the time to reinstall one of my programs. This will be the only shot for tonight, though.

I really enjoyed hearing Mr. Lannon talking with the folks and thought he was doing a very nice job.

Ryan

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Ryan you are such a tease. More more! Good to see Grant hanging out with the plane and talking to the kids. Don't see enough of that now days.

Sorry Ober, really needed some sleep and I wasn't going to stay up any later.

First off, I was intending to take the L-5, but I couldn't get it started. I'd spent a bunch of time pre-flighting it, packing in some books, a donation bomb, and a display board, and had pulled it out of the hangar, which is plenty of work. The battery was drained and I couldn't start it and then had to unpack it all and put the plane back in the hangar. At this point I was pretty upset and almost scrubbed the flight altogether. I had an offer to, and thought about flying one of the flight school's Skyhawks (that would've been fun - going in to "enemy" territory and trying to sell discovery flights), but finally decided to go ahead and fly the J-3 Cub NORDO into the fray. Now the Cub is a SLOW bird compared to the L-5, and I was already running later than intended because of the L-5 deal. I was going to fly over with another bird from our squadron, and was circling, but actually returned to land after seeing an inspection cover fly off while I was circling (the plane just came out of annual and it looked like it was on right, but wasn't). Got that fixed and headed out solo. Anyway, from that point things went well.

Here's the first installment:

Flying over...


I had forgotten just how much Cubs are to fly with an open door. South Texas is beautiful right now with enough rain to keep things green. Thank the Lord!


Yeah that's 80 mph in a shallow dive. My ground speed was less...


Old planes and trains!

The ramp... from 1500' AGL above.


There were actually a lot of people there for a small town like Hondo!


The big plane ramp.


And the little plane ramp.


That L-4 (modified J-3) taxiing in is the plane I was supposed to be flying over with.

Ok, that's the first installment. I don't know if anyone else got any overhead shots, so that's probably a WIX exclusive.

Ryan

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Next installment - More shots.

My favorite airshows and fly-ins are the shows where the veterans aren't just talked about, they're present and honored. They're getting harder to find, but I like it when the event organizers make the effort to have them there.

I'm really embarrassed I didn't catch this guy's name, but he flew F-86s in Korea and had some kills as well. I got a little bit of poor quality video of him telling about one kill. Pretty neat.


These guys were having a blast listening to him talk.

Also, Mr. Cole, Doolittle's co-pilot and Hump / 1st ACG veteran was there

Mr. Cole with his daughter. I'm happy to count them as friends, and I hope he's with us for a while yet. I think he's limping a bit right now after the Ohio trip.

Ok, Ok, so I know you want to see some more planes...


For the Yellow Rose fans, she was flying quite a bit, but the runway was pretty far, even for my zoom lens. Don't have many good flying shots.



The good guys from Burnet brought Bluebonnet Belle out for a visit!


A nice shiny Beech also showed up!

More to come!

Ryan

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

One more installment before I retire for the evening.

A mighty B-52 graced the skies for TWO passes!


Hoping I can get some video edited, 'cause I think it'll be pretty neat to view!


The L-2 and more Grasshoppers.


Some guy was out there trying to get run over, but there wasn't a black O-2 present...


Little warbird to big warbird!


Bird Dog's galore!

There were some other things there as well...

Like some Alamo MVPA member vehicles.

Well, I've got more, but that's all for tonight!

Ryan

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

That isn't it is it?

Ryan

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Almost a good picture of the "other" shiny C-47. Did you get a pic of the new nose art? You might have gotten a picture of the beautiful girl I was talking about..Miss Rodeo Texas was visiting with a good friend of mine and is really a pretty young lass.