Arty's Ultimate Ultralight Adventure

Sunday, April 12

WOW!!! I woke up in the middle of the night listening to the howl of the wind, an absolute downpour of rain and then hail on the metal roof of the hangar. Thank heavens that Mary Jo took pity on us last night and let us set up our camp in a temporarily empty hangar. FBO folks are so great!

This morning a beautiful blue sky greeted us with a distant row of puffy cumulus clouds ? and not a breath of wind. YEAH!! We were so anxious to get in the air that we didn?t take time for breakfast; I forced down a banana since Norm harps on me to get enough food and sleep on these flights. So even though he?s not here, his good influence is.

We were wheels off at 9:00 a.m. and YEAH!! What a difference from the last two days. Smooth air and a GREAT tailwind again. 55 mph air speed indicated and 108 mph over the ground! Still more of West Texas?

But pretty soon the scenery began to change, as small ponds and thin creeks and then a river started showing up.

Sonora and Kimble Co. airports flew by under my wings ? I covered over 100 miles in just about an hour! I was almost to Mason, and punched in the airport after that ? Llano ? as my next waypoint.

What happened next is inexplicable to me, even looking back on it. I must have put in Llano?s coordinates incorrectly, (that's not the inexplicable part,) because my GPS showed Llano 112 miles directly behind me. Now ? I should have just continued on, using my sectional ? since I was following a good road and the waypoints on the sectional were clear and easy to find. Instead, for some unknown reason I decided that I should stop at Mason airport and figure out the correct Llano coordinates from the sectional ? even though there was no need for me to stop there, and it would be super-easy to find from the air as a waypoint.

I radio?d Randy what I was going to do (he was 20+ miles ahead of me,) and he radio?d back that he would continue on to Burnet, our target stop for the day. The humongous tailwind was from the west, and Mason?s runway is north/south. BUT they also have a dirt runway which is east/west, so I of course decided to land on the dirt, so as not to battle such a strong crosswind on the paved strip.

Good decision, I thought ? until I was about 10 feet off the ground. Although the dirt/turf was fairly well maintained, small prickly pear cactus were spotted here and there on the strip. I was able to wiggle my way around them without making contact, but it made me decide that I?d use the paved runway to take off, even though it meant taking off in that humongous crosswind. I put in the coordinates, (which I didn?t need,) and took off.

The first attempt was ignominious and I was glad the airport was totally deserted so no one could see me lose control and ground loop off the runway. Nothing was damaged, so I took off again, and this time wobbled my way into the air. Once that wonderful wind was at my tail instead of trying to push me off the runway, it was great.

I was flying at 3500? MSL and there was a row of widely spaced cumulus clouds with bases at that altitude. No problem dodging between them ? and such a thrill to get close-up shots.

It seemed almost no time at all before I was seeing Lake Buchanan in the distance?in Texas? Hill Country. Two of our dearest friends live in Burnet, in a wonderful home looking out over the lake, and so Burnet was one of our ?absolute must stop? stops.

at Burnet 30 minutes before I did ? he had done 176 miles in 1 hr. 45 minutes! I don?t consider the 2 hr. 15 min. it took me to be so bad either. (That doesn?t count the 20 minutes stop at Mason.)

We got the most amazing welcome at Burnet. Dale and Rita Steitle live a mile from the airport; they and Dale?s brother, who lives in Austin, have been following our flight on this blog. When Randy landed, Dale?s brother called him to let him know, and they immediately drove out to the airport to welcome us. Rita is such a good sport; I told her of my disappointment that due to our erratic schedule I wasn?t able to get girls to the airports along the way, to talk with them about the Penelope Pilot Project and get their picture taken with PP in my Drifter. She was willing to get in the Drifter with Penelope ? after all, we?re all girls at heart, right? Thanks, Rita!

My friend Gerry Hilbert drove out and the 5 of us went out to lunch. During the ?getting to know each other? time, we discovered that Rita?s brother-in-law was Gerry?s next door neighbor when they were in high school! It really is a small world.

Even though we were in Burnet by noon, and there was lots of good daylight left, we?re staying here for the night, so Gerry and I can visit (his wife Anne is out of town, darn it,) and Randy and I can get showers and some laundry done.

Tomorrow morning Randy is going to get some piano-type hinges for his windows; he put them on with duct tape, and the sun heats it up and it comes loose. So tomorrow morning will be a mini-repair time, and then we?ll be on our way again. I can hardly wait.