localhops1

Everyday flying...

Local Hops -- the sights of small airfield flying

Here I am flying over Selby Farms around the Derby - Haysville area; just South of Wichita. My Challenger is a light plane that sits up to two adults. It cruises around 75 mph, and carries 10 gallons of pre-mix oil/gas. I can fly for about an hour and forty-five minutes before I begin to think about landing for fuel. Most of my flying however, is done locally. I do not fly much over an hour at a time, so fuel is seldom an issue for me. The weather, however, can be an issue.

Because the Challenger is so sensitive to turbulence and winds, flying early in the morning and/or late in the evening, is what I prefer. The calm evening winds, especially, brings out the back-yard aviation enthusiast. This is when I fly the most. Many people ask, "Mike, you seem to fly a lot. Where do you fly to all the time?" I tell them I just "dink" around... locally. They have a hard time understanding the fun of this type of flying, but for me, and others, it is the only kind of flying!

This was taken at Hamilton Field in Derby, KS.

Larry H. flying is newly acquired MX ultralight. He flies this plane like no one I have seen before! (2005)

I joked around saying to by-standers, "stick around and watch one of Larry's Airshows." He gave his ultralight a workout everytime he flew it.

Doing airport hops is very common for the light plane pilot. There are more grass runway strips out there than what one would think. This can be problematic, though. When you see others out working on their project, as you do a low approach, you are very tempted to stop and talk. You may ask "why" is that a problem? Well, really it is not, in fact, some people love "hangar talking" as much as flying. Hey! The next best thing other than flying -- is talking about flying.

Don F. with his Aerosport ultralight. He is one of the guys that I see flying around frequently. I hangar talk with him a lot.

He flies this plane in weather that would keep me inside! He stuffs his gloves with little bags of Heat that keeps his hands from freezing.

You see some neat things while flying around. Living in Kansas you see a lot of people burning their fields. Below: A field being burned. The smoke shot straight up indicating very little wind. At the time it kind of reminded me of a tornado. I really enjoy taking pictures while flying and sharing them with others. Most of the time, with light surface winds, you will see the smoke go up for a few hundred feet until it hits a breeze -- which then carries it away. As you can see; the visibility was severe clear!

There is a field around the Mulvane, KS area where hot air balloons fly out of. There is also a railroad track that goes through Mulvane. You can count on every small town in Kansas to have two things -- a railroad track and grain elevator. (What did you think I was going to say? That every town has a railroad track & hot air balloon? Geez!)

This picture was taken just outside of Mulvane. The hot air balloon had just lifted, and the train was heading West into town.

One time I was at Hamilton Field in Derby, KS and saw some balloons take off from there...

I am not partial to anything that flies. If it can lift off from old terra firma, then I am interested. I have never jumped aboard a balloon, though; that is on my to-do list.

Speaking of things I have never done before... jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is one of them. Although fun to watch, I have no interest in doing this. OK.. I have wondered what it would be like. Seems like it would be pretty awesome, actually! But I am too chicken; so I probably never will. This was taken at Cook Field -- between Derby and Rosehill, KS. In case anyone is interested in learning more about this, the jumpers are out there on Wed, Sat and Sun.

More to come..... Check back soon!