August 26th ,2007

Hot Dog Float Fly

Our shiny new grill was broken in at the float fly on August 26th. We took it along with us to Curlew Lake.

With the water as low as it is, it is a struggle to get to the water to launch planes. Luckily, Doc had a plank in his trailer that we put down at the water’s edge to walk out on. Without that you sunk to your ankles if you planted your foot anywhere near the water. The only other problem, was the wind out of the south. With our launch site on the north shore, you had to come down the bank on your final approach to land into the wind. After trying that a few times, most people elected to land cross wind. The waves were not high enough to make that a problem for most planes.

We had lots of great flights throughout the morning -- including some formation takeoffs and fly-byes with Doc and Darrell’s Seamasters. There was some scholarly comparison of the Seamasters to Ken Gatzke’s Sea Monster. The consensus is that the Sea Master is a little faster, but the Sea Monster seems to be more acrobatic and has better landing and take off characteristics.

The only casualty of the day was Ken Corrin’s float plane that had control problems on take off and spun into the water. Ken reports the damage is fixable.

About 11 AM, we suspended flying and pulled out the new grill. Ken did a great job in finding us a bargain. The new grill has three burners and lots of surface area compared to the old one. Ken brought some potato salad along and we went to town on the hot dogs. Everyone had their fill and then some. After stuffing down all the hot dogs we could hold, the flying was about over. A few people put in a couple of more flights, but it was obvious it was time to pack up and go home.

The last trick was getting the boat back on the trailer. The water level is now below the end of the boat ramp. Basically, we man handled the boat on to the end of the trailer and winched it the rest of the way into position. If anyone out there has any pull with the rain gods, you need to be killing the pig, sacrificing the virgin or whatever it is going to take to get us a little rain or we are going to be float flying off the weeds next summer.

The float flying may be done for the season, but there are still dogs to fry and planes to fly. Fall is usually our best flying weather and we still have several events on the calendar. Hope to see you there and bring some chips.