BlogPPG

I woke up later than I wanted to this morning. I didn’t make it out to the field until well after 8:00. It was already getting hot… It was foggy again and the grass was soaking wet. The air was calmer than Saturday morning. I pulled out the anemometer and it never even registered 1 mph. The tail on my wind sock did move, though.. so I at least had an idea of the easiest launch direction.
I got set up and blew my first attempt. CRAP! I was now sweating and panting (it was really humid already) and having a hell of a time with the motor and getting set up. I was just about to get strapped in again when the PPC guy from Saturday morning showed up. I wasn’t very talkative. I was ready to get into the air! So I said “hi” real quick and put my helmet back on and got ready to launch. My lines kept getting twisted on each other. I would have had to have unclipped and fixed the problem, but luckily the PPC guy helped me out. I said thanks, hit the gas, and I was up. I did some low steep turning and showing off for him, then I yelled down that it was time for me to depart the area and have some fun! I decided to head south down toward Franklin.
I took up the new 100mm f/2.8 macro lens this morning. It’s a very sharp lens.. much higher quality than any of the other lenses I own. Here’s the fog:

And another view:

And a view right before I crossed over the highway:

I flew some new areas this morning. I found some great ditches to follow. I found one country road that didn’t have any power lines next to it, so I flew down and flew right down the road for a few. That was fun!

I had one of those “I can’t believe I am really doing this” moments this morning… one of those surreal moments where I just want to pinch myself to be sure I’m not dreaming. Flying like this truly is “living a dream” for me. I’ve dreamt of flying like this all my life. I had to stop for a moment and give thanks once again. I am truly blessed.

I flew over near the R/C field and watched a couple guys getting jiggy with their R/C planes…. I followed some more ditches and practiced more low flying. It finally started getting a little bumpier and I was low on gas so I headed back toward the field. I saw a lot of air traffic over near the airport. It was much more than usual, and they seemed to be moving much faster and lower than usual. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought there was an air show over there. The airport isn’t far from my LZ, so I was on extra high alert. I wanted to go play over near the water tower, but I kept seeing the same plane buzzing down low near it, so I stayed away. That snapped me out of my dream state this morning… I was enjoying the sheer freedom all morning…. “what’s that over there?”.. well, let’s fly over there and look… I was just exploring and going wherever my heart desired all morning. Then these airplane guys had to be screwing around to the point that one of my favorite stomping grounds suddenly felt off-limits. That sucked. Then when I was about to land, I saw a PPC up high on the other side of the highway. I never fly where he was… it’s too close to the pattern for the airport. That was my first thought…. “I wonder if he knows about the crazy amount of GA traffic this morning.. he’d better keep his eyes open!!”.

Then I saw this:

Those GA pilots think they own the skies. What assholes! The plane obviously turned TOWARD the PPC to get closer. Too bad I didn’t have a long zoom lens. I would have liked to have gotten the license plate number off that plane! Airplanes’ wakes can knock us out of the sky. When airplanes screw around and get close to us like that they might as well just shoot at us… both could be just as deadly.

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