Central Oregon OPA Chapter

Caldwell February 2002

Early morning calls for weather didn't sound real good but....by the time we met at the Flight Shop things were shaping up okay.

There were eight of us who showed up for the trip Gary Miller, Jack Kohler and Clay Trenz flew in Gary's 210 and of course Kimmy (Gary's co-pilot dog) went along too.

Mike Brownlie and Arnie Vetterick flipped a coin to see if they were going to take Mike's Mooney or Arnie's Bonanza, I don't know who won the toss but they took the Bonanza. Norma and I took Jason Winnett with us in our Skylane. (Jason is a new pilot that came to the last meeting as a guest of Joel)

The weather was no problem, we had a strong tail wind going over and of coarse a headwind on the return trip. There was some turbulence but nothing that was uncomfortable.

We parked right in front of the little restaurant on Caldwell Industrial Airport, where we had a great breakfast. We were met by John McBean with Sky Star (Kitfox) and he hauled us over to their plant and gave us a really interesting tour. We spent a lot of time enjoying the tour and learning about their really exciting aircraft, they have several models.

Click on Images to see image full size

Don, Jason , Mike, Arnie and a fuselage	The crack CO-OPA QA Team inspects a wing
More wing inspecting.	Arnie and Clay check the headroom
Jason and Jack check out the elbow room	Lite Squared 2 place ultralight trainer
Arnie, Gary, Kimmy, Clay and the KitFox

We refueled and headed for Owyhee Reservoir so we could look it over for the upcoming May fly-out and overnight camping trip. It is a really interesting area with lots of scenery. The airport looked great to me, as you can see from the picture, I don't think anyone will have a problem if they don't mind landing on dirt.

Owyhee airport (28U)

Owyhee airport (28U)

The return trip was low and slow. Gary and his party elected to land and taxi at the Burns Airport (Gary had never landed at Burns, another Oregon airport under his belt). From the air rwy 30 looked plowed and rwy 21 appeared to still have snow on the surface. As Gary braved the x-wind on rwy 30 he realized that what had appeared to be snow on the surface of rwy 21 was actually a newly paved, grooved, no x-wind and clear concrete surface. Today we all tested our x-wind skills. Jason wanted us to fly him into the Pilot Butte Airport so we landed here (he wasn't even white knuckled) and I drove him back to Bend to pick up his car.

We missed your smiling faces and you missed a very interesting and fun fly-out. by Don Wilfong