Chicago shoreline transition on the way to mentone for the 60th PRA Convention...
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
- Oshkosh 2022 Adventure (7) - Arriving at Mentone, Indiana
The next stage of my adventure was to make my way to Mentone, Indiana, to participate at the 60th PRA Convention. The event was scheduled officially for the 5 & 6 of August, but early arrivals usually start showing up in Tuesday of that week. My idea was to be there on Wednesday, August 3rd.
Friday morning in Kenosha was perfect - blue skies, very light breeze. I was packed the day before, so all I needed was to top off on fuel and crank the engine.
We departed in formation on Rwy. 33 which was available to us due to the almost calm winds. That also saved us from bumping into the bad surface of runway 25L which is the usual runway given to GA aircraft at Kenosha.
Lake Michigan was as blue as the ocean, its green shoreline dotted by beautiful beaches, expensive estates, famous landmarks. Here and there we flew over a marina.
A Carbon Cub caught up with us and for few moments flew parallel to our course to marvel the two “outlandish” looking machines called gyros… 😊
As we approached the northern suburbs of Chicago, we noticed that there were some clouds entangled with the tall building in Downtown. We were not prepared for the marvelous site presented in front of our eyes as the skyscrapers literally pinned down the clouds in place. I am not sure I will ever see such a phenomenon, but I can take this off my bucket list… 😉
Beyond Downtown we flew over the former Maigs Field airport, now a park. There were controversies involved in the way the airport was closed overnight with some airplanes still stranded there.
Also flew by Soldiers Field… DA BEARS…
As we continued to the south, we were a bit surprised by heavier than expected haze and low clouds. A quick radio conference with Dan came to the conclusion that he and Jill should turn around and head home before their return route from Mentone to Kenosha gets blocked by low visibility. We said goodbye and headed our separate ways.
In order for me to assess the situation ahead of me in a safe environment I decide to land at Gary Airport which was just few miles ahead of me. The airport was in VFR conditions, so there was not danger of getting myself in trouble over unfamiliar terrain.
Gary is a very nice airport with a friendly tower controller and a very large runway. The FBO has a “shade” large enough to accommodate small jets, so I did appreciate being able to park away from the sun. During my stay there, I managed to assess the weather ahead of me, and also give a guided tour of my Kallithea gyro to students from a local aircraft mechanics school. I also entertained couple of FAA representatives from the Chicago FSDO, but they were more interested in doing a ramp check… 😊 I always carry my paperwork with me, so that was just a formality, but it was also an educational moment for one of the agents who saw Special Airworthiness Certificate for the first time in her FAA career.
After sitting on the ground for about an hour and a half, I decided it was time to head to Mentone. Clouds were not all clear, but there were few airports on my route, and I had places to divert to if I encountered low visibility ahead of me.
This part of Indiana is flat and very green, not unlike what I saw in Iowa and Wisconsin on my previous flights. Clouds were fairly low in places, but always providing enough clearance from the ground for me to pass safely… and legally. Here and there I could see precipitation indications on my ADS/B screen, but those were left or right of my route.
For the hour it took me to reach Mentone, I saw dark clouds and blue sky alternating every few miles, so one could say it was not a boring flight.
As luck has it, Mentone was bathing in bright sunshine after two days of rain. There was a crop duster operating over the field next to the airport, so my approach was very careful. That did not stop me from doing a low pass then flying the pattern before landing.
From the air I could see there were no big crowds on the ground, but once I landed and met with old friends, it did not matter how crowded the place was… we were having fun.
I do feel as part of the gyro community…
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Thank you great narration and the scenery is spectacular.
Thank you for watching...
15:50 beautiful fog/cloud layer!
Thank you for your wonderfull videos. beautiful AND informative.
What is your country of origin, I do not recongnize your accent?
Marc from Montreal, Canada. ( 2 years away from retirement and my gyro licence. )
Thank you for watching, I am originally from Bulgaria.
Get that gyro license as soon as you can... Life waits for no one...😉
When you fly with another gyro do you talk on air to air freq and then both switch to ATC nearing controlled airspace or does one gyro announce as a Flight of 2 Gyros and the other stay on the air-to-air freq? I ask as I am about to fly to Bensen Days as a Flight of Two from TX
I would say you can do it either way - fly in formation or report to ATC separately. If you report separately, the controller may ask you to keep some distance between the aircraft so they can distinguish you on the radar screen. Reporting as flight of 2 (or 3,4…) would probably be easier especially if some if the pilots are mot comfortable talking to ATC.
Good luck with your trip, and stop and say hi at Bensen Days.
Contact me offline if you want to chat on the subject.
Wonderful flight. What was the soundtrack starting around the 30-minute mark, if you please? Thanks! ~ John in Ohio
I am using computer generated music from the viseo editing program I utilize... The name of the tune is "Smooth breese", but that is as far as I know when I look at the timeline of the edit itself.
@@lagyro Thank you, Peter. Very impressed with your video productions. Cheers, John
I really enjoyed this video! A couple of questions:
1) what do you have strapped to your right leg? What information?
2) why are you wearing gloves in the first part?
3) what camera is used? And how is the video being made? I don't think you have room for another person and your luggage in the back seat so I don't know.
Thank you for watching. Here are my answers to your questions:
1. The puch on my right leg contains my cheat sheet. When I fly in my home area, the infiormation is about local frequencues, vital checklists. When I travel long distance, I go through the trouble of creating cheat sheets for each leg of my journey, and the infoamtion helps me to feel more relaxed during the leg I am currently flying. Contact me off-lin if you would like to see a copy of some of these sheets.
2, Gloves... I like to keep my soft hands soft... ;) This is a habit of mine, very similar to wearing driving gloves...
3. The main camera I utilize is an Insta 360 OneX, a 360 camera. This camera captures the world around it in reasonable resolution, so in postproduction I use that 360 footage to extract "flat" film and in the process I can decide the pant, tilt and zoom of the shot. The camera manufacturer provides a fantastic editing software so the process is fairly simple.
@@lagyro thank you. I understand about the cheat sheets, I would do the same when got my private pilot license years ago.
Gloves...ok, I didn't know if it was the cold or not.
Camera...that is what I was thinking...but I didn't know if you were controlling it somehow in real time with a tablet / phone. I didn't know about this capability...interesting (I've not worked with these cameras before...I'm old haha) You've done well with the post production!
Thanks for sharing.
@@lagyro Also I am reading about this camera and battery life. How do you handle that?
My number one principle when it comes to filming in the air is to not interfere with safe flying. That is why i turn the cameras on before departure and turn them off when I land. Sometimes they die in mid flight and that is unfortunate… battery life is horrible but auxiliary batteries do the trick. I don’t like using ship power since the Rotax generator is not very powerful and with two electrical fuel pumps on board, one must be sensitive about the availability of electrical power.
@@lagyro great info...you anticipated my next thoughts...thanks!