Great weekend for you. Congratulations on the OVSS win.
That's a pretty amazing acro ride. Mancuso obviously had confidence
in your ability to fly, no small task to set that plane down smoothly
with no tail dragger experience. Amazing that you kept the contents
of your stomach in place. I've had a couple of acro rides, and done
some myself in a Citabria, so I know what you mean about the 5 to 6
hours of feeling more than slightly queezy.
Thanks for sharing the story with the exchange.
Barry
On Sep 14, 2006, at 11:10 PM, Marc Gellart wrote:
For the purests that are discussing the LSF right now, sorry, I
have to write about this. For the rest of us that are bored stiff,
something to read.
I work for a company that sells a lot of Klein Tools, like we are
the second/third largest distributors in the U.S. Well, if you
have not seen it, KT sponsors a gentleman by the name of Michael
Mancuso, who lives on Long Island and flies an Extra 300 at events
and many of the IRL races the KT's also has a large vested interest
in. You can find info on Mike at www.mmairshow.com and you can see
the ship there.
Well last fall, my two direct bosses got to take about 15 minute
rides each in the ship in SC and had a great time, they new I was
very jealous. There time frame was short so there was no way I
could get there. Well, our KT rep said that if I was going to be
where Mike was this summer sometime, to let him know and he would
see what he could do to get me a ride. Well, the SOAR guys Fred
contest was the same weekend as the IRL race in Joliet IL and I
checked to see if I could go. Well, after about a month of
waiting, the Tuesday before the Fred, the call came to meet Mike at
Joliet Airport on Friday at 1:00. I was there at 11:00 to make sure.
About 12:15 he overflew the field and then made the approach and
landed, I met them on the ramp at shutdown, his first words were,
"You're not ready or anything are you ?" Well, duh! Well, we shot
the stuff for a while talking about my flying background, RC
soaring, and my father. A young man was with him and he asked Mike
if he wanted the stick out of the front seat, he said no and I knew
this was shaping up real well. We took off to the east, and he
said, do you know where your field is that you are flying at, I
said sure and he said take it and take us there. The contest was
to be held west of Plainfield IL so we moved to PLF and then west
and in nothing flat were over the field. Well, there were a few
cars down there and I could see a winch and a ship or two on the
ground, nothing in the air. I said this was the place and he said
are you ready for some stuff, of course I said. There is no formal
aerobatic box in the area and Mike said this was as good a place as
any.
Well, off we went, four point roll, immelemens, loops, full roll
rate rolls, eight points, tail slides, snaps, 6G pulls all with the
smoke on. My guts were going everywhere, but holding together.
After what seemed like a lot of stuff, he told me to take it back
and catch my breath, then he let me do a roll, and full rudder
turn. Compared to the pitch and roll axis, the yaw axis took a lot
of umph, the other two, you could breath that way and it was going
there. The ship flies very nice and is not twitchy per se, but it
definately has major authority in power and pitch and roll. After
about 30 minutes of flying, he told to head back to Joliet and I
figured he would take the ship somewhere along the way. We kept on
going, I asked if he wanted a me to set up on a left down wind, it
was an afirmative and to get to 1700' indicated pattern altitude.
So I kept on trucking and when we had passed the end of the active
and nothing was said, I went ahead and started a turn to base and
final. About 2/3 of the way around Mike comes on a says to start
feeding in some right rudder, for a slip ( a pretty major one by my
experiences) and he told to me maintain 90 indicated on final
approach. At this point I am still thinking he is going to take
the ship finally, I have never even been close to landing a tail
dragger in my life, much less land anything in years. We keep on
going and at about 50' he tells to let off the rudder and start a
flair and we preoceeded to make a full stall landing touching down
on the tail whell first. Mike took it back when he applied the
brakes an that was the end of my ride.
We pulled up to the ops building and shut down, standing up and
stepping off the ship was the only time I felt like I could have
blown the load, but I just took my time and we all proceeded to the
building. It took about 5-6 hours to feel somewhat normal again,
when you are not in shape for it, aero hurts a bit. We talked for
a while more and then they took off for University Airport in
Boling Brook where they were hangered for the weekend.
After they left, I went out to the field to see if the guys were
still there, you get a recording of the flight on DVD, but
something like this is way better if your buds see it. Rich and
Pat were there and I asked if anything cool had happened, "Oh
nothing much" and said really, and then Rich saw me smile and he
said that was you wasn't and I said yes. He said there was no way
that someone that did not know about them would have done that
right over their heads, and I said I wanted to let them in on my fun.
Mike asked me if I had always wanted a ride in a 300 and I said
honestly, NO. But I said the ride in the F-16 was probably not
going to happen, and this was way more than that could have been.
I doubt that I could have flown the pattern in a 16. So, I am back
to my normal life and I am waiting for my DVD of the ride to
arrive, who knows, I may post some on YouTube or something sometime
in the future. I will be able to relive that day for a long time.
I hope you enjoyed the read,
Marc
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