Chapter 1031 & Mid-Atlantic RV "WAM"
Carroll County, MD (DMW)
November 24, 2002

A few times this year we have joined forces for our fly outs with the Mid-Atlantic RV builder/owner group. These fly outs proove to be the most well attended. So was the case on November 24th for our fly out to Westminster / Carroll County, MD (DMW). The day before we had to cancel our Chapter’s Young Eagle flights due to the high winds. We had gusts up to 30 knots almost all day Saturday. However, Sunday morning the wind was down to less than 10 knots with blue sky and good visibility. The temperature was in the mid 50s promising a jacket free ride in the Glasair. This was especially important since I was going to pick up Jeff Sharp in Leesburg and the cockpit of the Glasair becomes very tight with two guys in there.

I arrived at the airport a little early since I needed to fill up the airplane. Just when I was at the gas pump I noticed Bob Metcalfe and John Ely taxi up to me. They had come to Winchester to fuel up and to pick up Tom Garner who was going to ride along with Bob. So far we had three airplanes and including Jeff five of our Chapter members. John took off first to head over to Leesburg to link up with several other RV's, with Bob and me in trail. The flight took less than 10 minutes with a little tailwind pushing me at around 180 knots ground speed. Jeff was already waiting for me at the ramp when I taxied in; we quickly stowed all his stuff in the airplane and shoehorned ourselves into the airplane.

After take-off I noticed the Glasair was a little right wing heavy with a passenger in the right seat. To escape the light turbulence we quickly climbed to 5,500 feet where it smoothed out. We tried to reach John or Bob on 122.825 MHz, but they had already landed at Carroll County. Just minutes after we leveled off at 5,500 feet we had to start going down. My approach looked really good, but I changed my mind just before touchdown to do a three point landing instead of a wheel landing. I awarded myself with a nine- (9) point landing (touching with all three wheels noticeable three times).

Our fly out-group occupied a whole section of the ramp. A total of 14 RV's of various flavors, 1 Glasair, 1 C-172 (flown by Lisa Sergent & Tim James from FRR), 1 helicopter (an RV-8 builder from PA), and many RV builders drove in. The longest distance flown was Rick Gray from Ohio - RV-6 and his friend Dean - RV-4 from Morgantown.

We waited until all the airplanes were secured and started to walk the two blocks to the restaurant. The folks at the restaurant are quite used to a large crowed walking in. There was no problem to get all of us seated. As a matter of fact, there was a second group of aviators sitting close to us in the same room. Approx. 35 people from our group were at the restaurant.

The food (most of us took the buffet) was good and there was a lot of hangar flying going on. A lot of the subjects were of course about homebuilt aircraft and the RV series of airplanes in particular. A lot of the participants were working (or just talking in the planning stage) on their second or even third homebuilt aircraft. And some of them are thinking about or are building the second RV.

Soon we all taxied to the cash register to pay for our lunch and take off in a tight walking formation back to the airport to look at some more of the airplanes. While I did the pre-flight on the Glasair I was watching some of the RVs and the helicopter taking off. Jeff and I climbed in the airplane and got in line for the take off.

We circled over the airport for just one orbit to give John, Bob and Ralph a chance to take off in formation and chased after them. We caught up to them quickly and joined Bob on his left wing while John and Ralph flew on his right wing. Jeff had never flown in a formation flight before. He enjoyed taking some close up pictures of the three RVs.

Just north of Frederick we said good bye and peeled off to go to Leesburg to drop Jeff off. Ralph of course couldn’t resist chasing after us to find out if his 200 HP constant speed propeller equipped RV-8 could outrun the 160 HP fixed pitch wooden propeller equipped Glasair. At 3,000 feet the Glasair will go all the way to red line of 225 MPH indicated. I kept the indicated airspeed at 220 MPH and was waiting for Ralph to pass. It sounded like the two airplanes were really close in speed with the RV slowly catching up to us.

After this high speed chase I slowed the Glasair down a bit to let Jeff fly the airplane and bank and turn it for a while so he would get some feel for a small airplane with a stick for one of the main control inputs. Jeff owns a Cessna 172 straight tail and is currently performing a substantial restoration of the airplane while his engine is rebuilt. We were joking earlier that we probably wouldn’t see his airplane flying for at least another half year.[But at least he made it on time to the flyin this way !]

After I dropped off Jeff, it took me again only about ten minutes to go back to Winchester. Here I ran into Bob and John and some more RV guys again. It was too much of a beautiful day to keep these RV guys on the ground. I am sure we will meet them again on one of our next fly outs.

Juergen