I give Gellart credit,,,,, The airshow he gave us was as good as anything
Ive seen at regular airshows. I cant believe he didnt leave some stomach
contents behind!
He mentioned he was flying about 2500 ft . That was exactly what i
guessed. Ive done some piloting too! Living on an airport and watching
full sized patterns helps approxiamate altitudes. Thanks for the full
sized and model show last weekend. Somebody, take that Insanity from
him!!!! Richard
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Gellart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <soaring@airage.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 14, 2006 10:10 PM
Subject: [RCSE] Oh What A Ride, Extra 300 That Is
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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