A lot happened this month I went to Arizona for the Copperstate EAA Fly In.

The flight each way on United was uneventful and being the last of the season glad its over, it’s like a commute to work.

Copperstate went off well, quite a lot of planes in the Ultralight area, the Sport Planes were separated and with the GA, not that there were a lot of them there or anything new The Zenith 701 I saw Fly but not anything else, I wasn’t watching most of the time. No Powered Parachute vendors turned up at all, all companies it seems are having a tough time staying afloat. To go all that way out West is expensive.

 I am not a fan of the Wild West anyway, red dirt, Cactus and scrubby little trees, the cowboys and horses can have my share Never did see Roy Rodgers or Gene Autry, perhaps they have passed on. Haven’t been to the cinema since I saw Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times a while ago, and never could stand the smell of popcorn. For all you youngsters, read on, this ole fool is reminiscing, but we do have a few ole fellows too.

So on to our October Fly In, yeah it was a goodun, everyone seemed to have a ball, we had a Bomb drop, Spot Landing, and Dead Stick contest the crowd seemed to enjoy, followed by a Candy Drop, and Model airplane display.

Buddy Babcock was The Grand Champion. Winning two events outright.

Pilots taking part were.

Buddy Babcock Aquilla Trike, and two other trike pilots  Felix Perez and Rob Pittinger, Aquila and Airbourne. Scott Garrett, and Howie Webb flew Buccaneer XA’s. Jay Curtis an Aronca Champ. Steve Bensinger from South Lakeland CGS Hawk Arrow. Steve Hathaway Kolb Firestar, Russ Hauser Quad City Challenger. All took part in the Fun and games.

Jay Curtis in the Champ was amazing on the dead stick, which he won using his pilot skills, he really impressed me.

As Usual our “Cantina” produced first glass food, Charles Almond and Billy Owens produced some great hamburgers, best I’ve tasted this year and “THE GIRLS” Fran Pam Linda fed and watered everybody’s to great satisfaction.

Kristine produced Candy and the kids loved the candy drop done by Jay in the Champ.

Planes flew in from all over, the furthest being Thomasville Georgia, a really nice Thundergull with an HKS 700E engine, flown by Jim Cunningham. We had two Searays a Cessna 182, two CGS Hawks.

One VIP drove eight hours to be with us. Scott Perkins came from Atlanta, he is famous for his Web Site VULA.Org. And owns Rowland’s Original Buccaneer XA, that flew to the Bahamas and around the Statue of Liberty, thank goodness that is in very good hands. You want the “Ultralights of the Past” his site has 30,000 photographs. Scott also owns a Lazair, Weedhopper, and BI - RD.

Fred Griffith single handed, mowed the airfield and it looked the best I have ever seen it. Thanks Fred GREAT JOB!

The President, Charles, and Bob Touchette did a great job marshalling and scoring, lots of people came to watch including Charles’s boss RAY with Haley who I haven’t seen in two years, my do the kids grow fast and wonderful, she made my day, pretty as a picture.