I spent Valentine's Day weekend falling in love with a little airport in southern California.
I was in California February 13-16 to attend an AeroScholars facilitator training event at Flabob Airport in Riverside.
AeroScholars is a program offering online aviation courses for high school students. Students can earn high school credits as well as college credits from
Utah Valley University (UVU). The flight school I work for,
CAVU Aviation, offers flight training for UVU's online aviation degree programs and that's how I'm connected.
This experience wouldn't have been possible without the Thomas W. Wathen Foundation, which provided food, lodging, and a travel stipend. More info on the foundation and the Flabob Airport is found at
www.flabob.org. Our training was held in the
EAA Chapter 1 hangar.
Despite it being Friday the 13th, my travel to California went fine. Seven hours later I was far away from cold and snowy Wisconsin.
That afternoon I had lunch in the Flabob Airport Cafe -- my kind of place. The walls were plastered with pictures. Model planes hung from the ceiling and perched on the overhang above the counter. I had a great conversation with Dr. Dura Hale, founder and principal of
Tuskegee Aviation Academy in Milwaukee, WI.
It started raining in the afternoon and poured hard until dinnertime. While waiting for everyone else to arrive, I entertained myself with my iPod. As soon as the pouring rain dwindled to sprinkles at sunset, I noticed a rainbow outside. That picture didn't turn out. But the pictures I took of the DC-3 reflecting on the wet ramp in front of the sunset, and the silhouetted Piper Clipper... Well, those
did turn out.
Over pizza at dinner, I talked with people from all over the country. I learned the Piper Clipper sitting outside came from Wisconsin earlier this week with
Steve Sorge, EAA Horizon Award winner aboard. Steve told me about working with southeastern Wisconsin high schoolers in the classroom and at the airport. In the evening we met USAF Col. Blake "Hedley" Lamar Jr., who gave a presentation about the
Predator, the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used for reconnaissance and target acquisition.
Most of us stayed at
March Air Reserve Base for the weekend. Friday night it was hard to fall asleep in my giant suite after way too many cups of coffee. So I didn't sleep as much as I would have liked. The next morning at about 7:29 a.m. and 30 seconds according to my watch, as I hurried out the door to the shuttle, the bugle call
Reveille blasted around the base. It sort of startled me and I ended up forgetting my key in my room!
We spent a good part of Saturday in the Chapter 1 hangar learning more about the AeroScholars program. It became even more obvious that I was surrounded by a group of creative people passionate about aviation education. I learned about the history of Flabob Airport, the Build a Plane organization, resources available to AeroScholars facilitators, and African American aviation history, among other things.
We got to wander around in open hangars as Kevin McKenzie gave us a guided tour of the airport. Flabob is a mecca of homebuilding, antique and replica aircraft, restoration, and aviation education. The Wathen Aviation High School is just one of the many educational opportunites here for young people. We visited a hangar where students were working on restoring a Stinson.
Kevin gathered us around the DC-3, the "Flabob Express." He said the goal is for it to travel to airshows and be a hands-on exhibit where kids can learn about airplanes. Unlike most exhibits that say "do not touch," this one will be quite the opposite.
It was a nice treat to go for airplane rides in the afternoon. I rode in the 1949
Piper Clipper with Steve. It was nice to get up and take some pictures. Next I flew with Kevin in a Marquart MA-5 Charger, a homebuilt open-cockpit biplane built in 1981. What a blast! Not only was I happy to be flying open-cockpit in February, but holy cow, this thing was fun. When you've got four ailerons on a 24-foot wingspan, one flick of the stick and you just about roll upside down. It was quite maneuverable. Kevin took over for a bit and showed me 60-degree steep turns in both directions, pulling 2 G's. Yee haaaahhh! I played around in the hills and enjoyed the fresh air.
I can barely find anything about the Marquart Charger on the Internet, and had never heard of the design prior to the weekend. There's not much online other than some members-only stuff, but here's a
photo gallery.
Our group wrapped up the event with dinner in the airport cafe that evening. There was more hangar talk, too much food, and plenty of cameraderie. Several people had to depart very early the next morning, so we were back in our rooms with plenty of time to rest.
I didn't have to leave Sunday until the afternoon, so I hung around Flabob again in the morning for breakfast with a few other guys.
Later, my flight out of Ontario got cancelled at the last minute due to maintenance. With no other good options available, Delta sent me down to John Wayne Airport in Orange County via a free cab ride. They put me up in a nice hotel right across the street. I could have walked to the airport the next morning if it wouldn't have been pouring rain again. I kept hearing about how a big storm was going to impact the area and was glad to get out ahead of the worst of it. Monday I was back home in time to teach ground school in the evening. Everything worked out fine and I got to spend an extra day wearing my spring jacket.
A special thanks to EAA, the Thomas Wathen Foundation, and everyone at Flabob Airport who helped make this weekend fun and educational.
Here is a slide show of my pictures. Click the play button to begin or
click here to view as an album.
The weather was nice for a wheels & skis chili fly-in / drive-in event at Northport Airport ("Poppy's") today. I drove in because the airport is on my way to Brennand Airport, and I was headed there later. Meanwhile a former student of mine flew in with the 172. Time to practice soft-field technique. Good thing he had a good instructor. ;-)
