Arty's Ultimate Ultralight Adventure

Tues, May 5, 2009

In my blog yesterday I said I wished that the owl would come back into the hangar where Randy and I had set up our tents. I was thinking of the gentle “whooo, whooo, whooo” of the owl that lives on our farm, and how the soft sound lulls me to sleep. I was not prepared for the great horned owl that lives in the hangar here at Wilbarger Municipal Airport, Vernon, TX.

I was having trouble getting to sleep last night, because the old military hangar clatters and clangs and bangs. And due to the size of the hangar, the reverberations are magnified. Then – I heard a HORRENDOUS whooshing of wings and the loudest WHOOO-WHOOO-WHOOO-WHOOO I’ve ever heard. If I didn’t know better, from the sound it made I would have sworn it had 8-foot wings. Then came the astoundingly loud screeches and squeals of its prey – mice or rats, I found out the next morning from the guys at the FBO. Throughout the night the hunt re-occurred. Only the screaming prey sounds differed. I didn’t leave my tent to investigate or try and get pictures. Tonight I’m going to take my sleeping bag into the FBO!

Here are some hangar shots. There are 6 aircraft on each side of the hangar, with plenty of room for our planes and tents in the middle.

The ceiling was at 400’ this morning, and it dropped. Visibility less than 1/2 mile. For most of the day it’s been drizzle-raining; not enough that you need a jacket but enough that you get wet if you’re out in it very long. So what do you do in a small town like Vernon, Texas for the day when you’re weathered in? I sat in the FBO for several hours listening to the ag pilots tell tall stories. I talked with three pilots who are spending 3+ months here to earn their instrument ratings. One is from Nebraska, one from New York, and one from Florida. I expressed surprise that they couldn’t find instruction closer to home, but apparently Mary and Lawrence Latimer are known as top-notch instructors and each student felt it was worth it to come to Vernon and focus without home distractions.

I took the airport’s courtesy car to the Red River Valley Museum and saw 109 exotic (and dead) big game animals that a prominent citizen hunted and had stuffed. I certainly didn’t expect to see a polar bear, a musk ox, a zebra, and other various animals from around the world here in Vernon!

I also saw “the wire that changed the West” – a display of barbed wire, as well as other artifacts of the old West. Some historians have dated the end of the Old West era of American history to the invention of barbed wire.

Randy kept busy doing a variety of small yet significant fixes to his wiring system. Significant in that it will be easier in the air to work his radio, strobes, etc. Not significant in a safety sense.

The weather forecast for tomorrow looks very favorable for us to continue our flight home. We’re both eager to be in the air again. Is this what they mean when they say we’re addicted? How can we not be tired of flying by now?