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Seymour Air Park
2005
Our current Airport, Seymour Airpark
(TN20)
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February |
February 13th 2005
Houston we've got a Problem! LOL!
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We took a ride out to see our spot at the airpark today
and for the moment it looks like it's pretty much unuseable until the weather drys out and it gets some more stone put on it so even though we finally got our ship going we may still be grounded for awhile.
During the
latter part of 2004 some folks named Winters
purchased
the airpark.
They
have been doing some pretty major renovations to the grounds on west
end and along the north side of the runway.
It's
our understanding the club house the breakfasts were held in will
soon be sporting a 2nd floor in the near future and we witnessed what
looks like a new hangar being built about midfield of the
runway. All the older hangers on the west end of the airpark
have been cleaned up and a large burm that once pretty much hid them
from site has just about been totally removed. From what we
have seen so far it looks like the place is going to be pretty nice
by the time spring gets here.
February 26, 2005
Well today was the day our little spot was supposed to ready and so were we lol.
We had the bus and trailer washed and packed up, full water tanks and all the fixings to go with it for the weekend.
After
busting our keesters all week to get the trailer back in it's former
bristle condition, red lining it to the end we finally got it
finishing it up late friday night.. Just short of hooking the
trailer on the bus this fine Saturday morning Donna had one of them
girlie feelings that said we should take our truck down there to see
the place first to make sure it was ready before we took the trailer down.
Low and
behold as usual she was right!
<grrrr>
I hate it
when she's right lol
The
place was still pretty rough and still needs another load of rock put
down to cover up the red clay before it will be user friendly for us
so it looks like were dead in the water until then.
<sigh>
<kicking pebbles>
Acording to Mr. Winters, the new owner, that's supposed to happen Monday lord willing the weather cooperates.
<pout>
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March |
March 5th
and 6th 2005
We're back
in place,
well sorta lol
Now we know what those little sperms thingies feel like after swiming up the birth canal and trying so hard to get into that egg lol
We still need more gravel before it's really doable but beggers can't be choosers.
Mr. Winters got the main trailer half of it ready about Thursday so we we're able to get the trailer put in place on Friday afternoon and evening. We still have a few things to work out but hey we ain't complaining lol.
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Donna
doesn't have to keep digging that little ditch anymore
so the rain
water can pass us by. Mr Winters installed a new drain line all
the way across the the hangars from one end to the other so that
problem looks to be cured once they finish it. We have a rather
large hole suitable for trapping bears right in front of the bus
where they are going to hook into to and continue the drain
line. I kept an eye on it all weekend but we didn't catch a
nuttin lol, well we almost caught a Chevy Suburban a time or two but
it got away at the last minute lol.
He also
put a different kind of gravel down that, so far, the heli rolls
across like it was on concrete.
It sure makes
it nice when were are loading and unloading the helicopter.
We spent Friday afternoon, evening, and all day Saturday till dark setting up the trailer in its old home place. By evening we had everything unbolted and and ready for action for Sunday morning and our next phase of our adventure ... balancing the main rotor blades.
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Yours truly
Sunday afternoon hovering the ship
after we spent
most of the early day Low and High speed stick tracking the blades.
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We spent a couple of hours before we started the blade tracking installing our wind sock
on top of Mr.
Winters maintenance hangar while he was out flying. The one
they used to have was located midfield and was taken down for the new
excavating, it was too far away from our spot to see very well
anyway. We got lucky though and weather south of us didn't
allow Mr. Winters to reach his destination and sent him back from
flying to help us lol.
Just like
the old days
our day was
full of friends from the past and we got to meet some new ones.
This bunch
came in late in the afternoon to fly their paraplanes.
Those
things looked like they would be a blast to fly, one day when we hit
the lottery I'd sure like to have one.
March 26th 05
Larry and Cathy's Winters <cough, cough> Plane
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Today we
finished up the balancing act on our ship in record time,
we even hit
the bulls eye a few times on not only the hover chart but the forward
flight chart as well.
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This is a shot of Gary and I prior to take off on his first ever ride in a helicopter.
Gary weighs in right on the 210 lb seat limit so the ship had to strain a bit but it did just fine. When we got back I offered to take his better half Louann for a ride but she wouldn't go for it. I did get a maybe next time out of her, I think! lol.
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Cathy Winters |
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A perfect day capped off by a perfect evening.
You know it seems everywhere we go we just keep running into fun people.
The gals, Cathy, Louann, and Donna made us all a wonderful dinner which included some pretty interesting conversation. It's alot of fun meeting new people and getting to know one another and where else could you have a classy candle light dinner lol. We had it all, you'd have thought we were in Oklahoma at one of John Spurling's Fly-Ins, all we were missing was the band and of course the missing members of the infamous Tennessee Taliban gang.
Hummmm, We just may have recruited some new members here tonight lol.
March 27th 05
Today was a bit of a mixed bag.
The weather was kinda suckie so we spent the morning working on the heli. 1st on the list was to go over all the water hoses and make sure they were all tight. It's amazing how much you can tighten up the clamps on the hoses over time. If I had to guess I'd have to say the clamps tightened up at least another 1/4 to 3/8 of and inch since we installed them during our 100 hour service. Anyway, we went over it with a fine tooth comb looking for any anomalies while at the same time doing an extensive pre-flight check on the ship. Luckily we didn't find any so we got to move onto the fun part of job, cleaning up the ship.
When we finished the heli we moved onto the servicing of our ATV.
We changed the oil and filter, gave it a kinda sorta preflight and last but not least Donna gave it a good bath in an effort to make it pretty for Sun "N Fun.
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Right in
the middle of working on our ATV Donna left me holding the bag
and took a
shot at driving a BIG RED International dump truck lol. Larry
and Cathy are in the process of excavating the airpark grounds in
order to make it a more user friendly place. Larry was telling
Donna and Cathy about the truck being such a bugger to drive because
the sychronizers in the transmission were out which made it a real
deal to shift the gears. Somehow it came out that it was mans
work I guess because the next thing I heard was Cathy saying that
sounds kinda like a dare to her, and the next thing I heard was Donna
saying if a man can do it so could she. With a big grin on his
face Larry told Donna to go for it and the two of them climbed up
into the big red truck. Well Larry showed Donna how to shift it
into first gear and off they went "lugging and chugging across
the airpark lol.
Humm I thought, guess she showed him lol. When they got back Cathy and I got the rest of the story. Seems about an 1/8 of a mile out Little Miss Donna gave it up just prior to entering into the quagmire of mud because she chickened out lol. But, according to Larry, she did get an A for effort lol.
No! this
isn't the BIG RED Dump Truck lol.
Seems
for some unknown reason the BIG RED TRUCK didn't last out the day
and the poor
thing has to have a vist from the truck doctor first thing Monday morning.
Rumor has it
that one of
the radiator hoses got a cut in it from the frame being over stressed
which caused the hose to hit the fan blade but we all know better
don't we lol.
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Benny Lay
and myself
standing
there shaking our heads lol
Benny arrived later in the day and missed out on the truck driving lesson but he got to hear all about it lol.
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Late in the
day the weather calmed down a bit and I got to take our Daughter Brandy
for her 2nd
ride in our ship with me at the controls.
She sure is a brave little girl lol.
Again she didn't get much of a ride, just an extended lap around the pattern because it was still pretty bumpy once we got up in the air. The ATIS from McGhee Tyson (12 miles away) said the winds were at 12 knots but I guess being at the foot of the Smoky Mountains we have a different thing going on over the airpark. Anyway since we had precious cargo on board I decided to call it a day and we headed in. Brandy on the other hand was having a ball, it didn't bother her a bit, If it was up to her we would have stayed up there until we ran out of gas lol.
What a great day eh!!
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May |
May 5th and 6th 05
Happy Mama's day to you you Moms out there!
Another super weekend!
Donna and I posing for a picture to send into Experimental Helo Magazine
for receiving the award at Sun 'N Fun 2005. We were supposed to get together with Stu while we were down there but we all got side tracked having fun and didn't get around to it.
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Our new wind sock doing it's thing |
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This time Brandy got a real ride.
She got to see the 411 Race Track from up high plus several beautiful homes, all together I'd say she got wo witness about 100 square miles of this area and as usual she had a ball.
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Saturday nights cookout Cathy n Larry and their daughter and grandson, Terry n Karen along with their frends whos names escape me at the moment, Earl n Mary, David, and a few other folks |
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May 28th n 29th 2005
This weekend started out fun but Sunday we once again picked up a vibration in our heli's main rotor system.
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Douglas Lake |
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Douglas Lake
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Douglas Lake
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Sundays Adventure
This
started out being a trip to see some of our friends that were having
a Radio Controlled fly in just out side of Morristown, TN. The
flight was pretty good but we cut it short because we didn't like the
vibration we had picked up so about half way there we gave it up and
heaaded for home.
Some
how or another, we think by bouncing our ship across the large gravel
at the airpark, our ships main rotors went a touch out of specs and
gained a noticeable vibration. We put our balancer on it when
we first noticed it Sunday morning just to make sure we weren't nuts
lol. In hover the ship does fine but in forward flight it goes
out to around 0.4 to 0.5 or so.
Looks
like we're going to have to spend some time tweaking the rotor system again.
<Grrrrrr>
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Some of the kewl R/C planes we missed out on seeing
Thanx for the pictures Carl
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June - October due to injures we sustained getting run over on our motorcycle on June 16th. If missing out on our entire summer wasn't bad enough, just about the time we felt like we could make an effort to get back into the air again in late October our home got hammered in what they called a straight line wind storm. |
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November |
November 13th 2005
Our new spot at the airpark
This past summer has been a real doozie for our family so we didn't get to much play time. If you ever get bummed out about any of your negative events give us a call and I bet we can make you feel better lol.
The pictures you see here are just some random shots we took this weekend, nothing special just goofing around between our two little cross country adventures to KDX and Kodak.
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These two pictures are actually Panoramic Photographs.
They give you a 360 view of what the airpark looks like if your standing in the middle of the east end of the runway. So far I haven't figured out how exhibit them in their true form. I made them with a program call Panorama Maker 3.5. In their true form you place your mouse on the picture and it will rotate left, right, up and down giving you a feeling as if you were there.
The Airpark itself is really looking good.
Larry and Cathy have really been working their butts off as far as whipping the airpark into shape. There are 4 newly constructed hangers now on the northeast end as well as the one that stands alone in center of the airpark on the north side of the runway. The grading on the runways north side is finished and at this writing the new grass is just about completely grown in. Larry's also been working on grading the south side of it when he can find the time. They have sectioned the airpark off into lots on the south side and I'm not positive but I think they have sold 3 lots in the mid section area so far. At the northwest corner of the air park there's a new home being built by a fellow named Mark and his wife. It has a basement hanger built below it for their plane. The southwest corner has been pretty much graded out with plans for building more hangers. From what we can see Larry and Cathy are going to turn this place into a first class place.
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END
