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The economy and price of fuel took it's toll on our fly-over requests this year, but we still had two on the books to do today. Salado, TX, at 0945, and Bastrop, TX, at 1030. Low, broken ceiling, but not too low. We had 1900 when we launched, with winds only 10 degrees off runway heading, but blowing 20 knots, gusting to 25.
Heading for Salado were Joe Enzminger in his CJ-6A, Grant Lannon and Rich Ferguson in Rich's SNJ-4, Terry Adams in his SNJ-6, and Mike Renck in the U-11A. We made our usual skirting of the Austin Class C airspace to the west, where we tightened up as we flew north on Loop 1 (MoPac) on the way to Salado. Two passes there, a Diamond, then a 90/270 with a switch to a strong right fingertip for the Missing Man. Then a turn toward Bastrop and #3 rejoining.
Once we were together again, lead called for a split into elements, then element lead changes, and a formation lead change as we got back together. It sounds like a cluster, but it went really well. The reason is Bastrop is my "hometown", and I know the landmarks and target very well. We made better time than we planned, so we made a couple of orbits over and around the federal prison to the north of the ceremony, then started the run to target, passing overhead exactly at 1030. (Oh, don't worry about the orbits at the prison, they were expecting us. I work there!) Bastrop was three passes. First pass was a diamond, then a switch to trail for the second pass, and then over to a strong right fingertip for the Missing Man.
The weather and visibliity were great....except for the wind! It's sure fun to fly tight formation with gusty wind bouncing you all over the sky. Good thing we all have good seatbelts!
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Mike
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