Chickasha Wings
Newsletter
Harold Leatherman
is learning to fly with
us, and mentioned he
would like to go and
would like to take his
airplane. After considering it, we decided to
go in two airplanes,
both Cherokee 140’s.
Harold was able to take
the whole week off and
so was I. We were concerned about getting a
camping spot, so we
decided to fly up in
Sunday, and back on
the next Saturday.
We decided to camp
with our airplanes, I
had a 7'x9' dome tent,
two cots, sleeping bags,
clothes and other gear.
We took the back seats
out to make more room
and useful load. With
all our stuff we were
real close to gross
weight with fuel at the
tabs. Brad and Jonah
were lighter and started
out completely full.
We left about 9 AM
Sunday morning and
headed for our first fuel
stop, Mosby, MO
(KGPH). Each of use
only had one radio in
Volume 1, Issue 3
Sept 2014
Completed Checkrides
Oshkosh 2014 by Mitch Williams
Throughout this last
year both of our mechanics Jonah Karoki
and Brad Richert
commented that they
would like to go to
Oshkosh – I guess I
probably talked
about it too much
with comments like
“Yea we saw that at
Oshkosh”. So we
started planning and
figured we would
take one of our
planes this year. We
haven't got all the
bugs out of our Skymaster yet – still
need to go through
left fuel selector
valve and some other
squawks. We were
thinking about taking
our Apache, then
Todd Bolgin asked to
take it to his dad’s
place (at Osh) that
week, so I was thinking of our C172 as it
will carry more
weight than our
Cherokee, and I have
not been successful
at losing weight.
Chickasha Wings, Inc
our planes and we were
flying as a group of
two. Brad and Jonah in
the lead and we were
half a mile behind. We
did not hear them
switch frequencies with
Kansas City center, and
called up the Kansas
City Class B when we
were close. Kansas
City said Mosby was
closed for resurfacing
and our partners were
headed to Roosterville
(0N0) which was
nearby. So we followed them to Roosterville which is known as
the narrowest runway
in the Sho-Me state,
asphalt 2780 x 20 feet.
Wind was more than 20
mph from the west and
Harold let me land it.
Pumps were cash or
check, so we paid cash,
took a short break and
headed out. There was
another Cherokee leaving just after we
landed. The old man
running the place said
that was the largest
flock of Cherokees
Roosterville had seen
in a long time.
See page 2
Mason Bivens
Private Pilot
Bill Fehmer
Private Pilot
Scott Lee
Multi-Engine Add-on
First Solos
Jessica Kahnk
Upcoming Fly-ins
Sept 6, Breakfast at
Ponca City
Sept 13, BBQ lunch
at Thompson Field
11:00AM
Page 2
Chickasha Wings Newsletter
We had discussed landing at Portage, WI (C47) so we would have
plenty of fuel and not buy any at
KOSH. As we flew, Jonah and
Brad kept moving further to our
left, and on the radio I thought
they said they were just avoiding
clouds which had taken us down
to about 4000 MSL. Then later,
they said they were 10 miles from
Lancaster, WI, (73C) and fixing
to land there. So we put Lancaster in our GPS headed about
straight west to Lancaster. This
was a 45 feet wide asphalt strip
next to corn fields and wind here
was cross at 26 knots. We got
fuel from the self-service and
headed on to Oshkosh.
were cleared to land on the orange dot about half way down
the runway. We put the GAC
sign in the window and taxied
all the way to the North 40 and
were parked just across the
fence from the Super 8 motel
near Fryer Tuck’s sandwich
shop.
We had a Garmin Aera with XM
weather and Brad and Jonah had
borrowed a Stratus ADS-B providing weather. We could see a
large storm to our left and another
apparently over OSH. We flew
within about 20 miles of the first
storm and diverted just a few
miles to the right of course. Ceiling stayed up over 4000 MSL.
The storm at OSH moved away
before we got there. As we
neared RIPON, we looked for
other traffic and really didn’t see
any. We could hear FISK giving
instructions and got in the conga
line over the railroad tracks. We
followed Brad and Jonah over the
tracks and could see others in
front and behind us with at least a
half mile spacing. Wind was out
of north at about 10 mph and they
sent us down Fisk Road to land
on 35L. There were about 5 airplanes in front of us on Fisk Road
and we kept track of the planes in
front of us as we followed. We
We had not eaten much all day
(except for Jonah and Brad who
brought food from Haiget’sJonah’s Restaurant), and were
ready to find some food. We
rode the North40 bus over to the
gate to redeem our tickets and
pay for camping and they were
already closed for the day. The
gate attendants let us in but
since the show had not started
none of the eating establishments were open. We rode
back to our camping area and
walked about 4 blocks over to
Hardee’s, got a hamburger and
charged our phones, and turned
in for the night. There was
Karaoke or something going on
nearby that kept us awake until
about midnight, but I otherwise
slept very good.
It was about 5 PM, and we commenced tying down Harold’s
airplane and setting up our tent.
Harold had manufactured his
own type downs using some
Uni-strut angle and large lag
bolts to screw in the ground,
real similar or the Storm Force
Tie-downs sold in the internet.
Monday: The Pre-dawn light
woke us up about 5:30, and we
started the morning program:
hike to showers, hike back to
tent, then over to Hardee’s
for Breakfast. Pickup an
Oshkosh Daily and watch
speakers talk about lots of
aviation subjects such as
Mike Busch on Engine Operation, Leaning, maintenance, Buying and Selling
aircraft Forum, Intro to Formation Flying. At 2 pm is
the airshow, and we walked
along the flight line looking
at airplanes from experimentals to race airplanes. The
first day airshow had Aerobatic performers, lots of warbirds with maybe 28 T-28s in
the air at one time along with
many others P-38s, P-51s, all
kinds of warbird flying everywhere, and wall of fire, big
bombs, etc. After the airshow was the Monday night
concert where Kenny Loggins started and ended with
the TopGun theme song
“Danger Zone”. After this
we walked to the Fly-in
movie. Two retired Space
Shuttle astronauts (Charlie
Precourt) introduced the
movie and took questions
from young kids. We
watched the first 30 minutes
or so then headed back to the
campsite. Raymond Rust
had tried to call me and we
missed each other.
Tuesday: We decided to eat
breakfast at the EAA breakfast tent in the North 40 and
rode over there in the
North40 Bus. The tent didn’t
open until 8 AM so we had
to wait a little while. It wasn’t all that good and they did
Volume 1, Issue 3
not sell coffee refills. Brad texted about the program on Electronic Ignitions so we met at that
forum. We watched a Cessna
Pilot Assn forum and discussed
putting an EI on a Cessna 150
with John Frank. All were very
supportive of using EI on any
Cessna’s. I talked with some
C150 owners who were concerned about burning car gas and
stuck valves in the little O200
Continentals.
I listened to Richard Graham talk
about flying the SR-71. I ate
lunch with Sarah Patten who is
an air traffic controller in Washington DC and rented our C150’s
when she was training at the
FAA Academy. She had just
bought a hangar to store her
C140 and C172. She had not
flown the C140 for a long time
and needs some more time with
Jerry Witt to get more comfortable in it. Next I listened to
NAFI Robert Meder discuss the
future of flight instruction; discussion of using flight sim programs and Redbirds before actually flying. I told him that we do
not have any problem completing most private pilots real close
to 40 hours. He said it takes
much longer due to flying at a
tower and complex airspaces.
Not an issue for us. I do want to
get a Microsoft flight sim program going again at the airport.
A Presentation about the Institute
of Aero Education was raising
money for high school aviation
programs and holding competitions between high schools in
their state of Kentucky. Lots of
corporate sponsors. Next was a
NAFI presentation on CFI professional development – really an advertisement to join NAFI and earn
NAFI Master CFI Accreditation.
This is not hard to do, so I should
do it. It started raining and we had
Hardees for supper.
Page 3
traffic controller talking to
about 10 of us on simulators
and he was center, approach,
tower, ground and everything
else – so the radio work was
disjointed. The sim started me
at 5000 feet and I had power
trouble right off lost a bunch of
altitude and was working to get
Wednesday: I spent a good part of back to 5000 when ATC said I
the day listening to presentations
had previously been cleared
sponsored by NAFI and SAFE. I
down to 4000 – which I am
listened to Dick Van Grunsman
sure he told me maintain 5000.
discuss what is new at Van’s AirWith all this focus on altitude I
craft. After lunch I checked on the blew through the localizer and
EAA Chapter president’s luncheon the rest of that instrument work
and found out it was Tuesday night was not pretty. The last Sceinstead of Wednesday, which
nario was to takeoff from John
makes sense now that they have a
Wayne and fly an approach to
Wednesday night air show. We
Santa Ana. I know I put the
watched the night Airshow and
correct ILS frequency in the
called it a night.
radio for the approach, but I
blew through that LOC again,
and the radio changed freq on
Thursday: I was supposed to atme and I had to look up the
tend the National Association of
frequency and re-enter it in the
Flight Instructors Breakfast, but I
driving rain. Found the airport
went to the wrong place, as the
but it was not pretty. The
breakfast was held at the Nature
Thunderbirds flew in and flew
Center instead of at their forum’s
a summary of their program
area. I did see an advertisement
making lots of noise and havfor breakfast with AOPA Mark
ing lots of fun. It was fairly
Baker, so I walked over to
low clouds but they made the
AOPA’s tent and enjoyed unlimited coffee and cinnamon rolls and best of it. Harold and I went to
talked with Baker and Tom Hanes the Kodiak Steak House with
about 25 people from Oklaand our Flight School.
homa Pilot’s Assn. We rode
I ran into Colton Crowder at the
the City Bus to the College and
IMC Club area and we flew the
IMC simulator contests: three sce- rode with Herb Driskill; I got
the big steak. DickVan
narios. The first was pretty easy,
at 4000 MSL, Fly an ILS approach Grunsman ate at the table next
to us. It rained and hailed
with a scattered layer about 1000
some pea size hail. Herb
agl then home free. The second
dropped us by our airplane
was in solid muck, at 5000 feet,
follow a VOR to an ILS then fly to camp and checked out our
minimums. They had one air traf- digs.
Page 4
Friday: I spent some time at
the FAA Flight Safety forums.
They talked about accidents,
investigations, and special emphasis topics. They had a taxi/
runway incursion presentation
where they showed a picture out
the front of an airplane and a
taxi clearance then everyone
voted on what the pilot should
do with interactive audience
voting buttons. We attended an
AOPA Flight Training Business
luncheon with pulled pork sandwiches. They had seven flight
school owners talk about what
they did to make their schools
successful. Helen from Chesapeake Sport Pilot said their
school was Fun Fun Fun! Fun
Location on an island in the
Chesapeake Bay, fun airplanes
(Sport planes, a Seaplane), good
support from city government,
and a fun staff with lots of activities like BBQs etc. Another
school taught primarily in Piper
Cubs and Super Cubs. He did
this part-time and did not claim
to make any money. One
school in California hired college marketing students to help
with events all summer long –
cookouts, Fly-ins, some activity
going on all the time. My takea-way was to have lots of events
and get people involved. We
walked to the mall and to a
small pizza place for supper.
Saturday: Pack up and go
home. We had breakfast at Hardees then took our time packing. It had rained in the night
and our tent would not have
time to dry. We got in the taxi
line with probably 20 other air-
Chickasha Wings Newsletter
planes. We were off RW 27
and stayed at about 500 agl for
10 miles then on course for our
first fuel stop Vinton, IA. We
chose one fairly close since
Jonah and Brad avoided the
higher priced fuel at KOSH.
At Vinton, skydivers were
jumping from a Cessna Caravan, and a Piper Meridian was
refueling enroute to Santa Fe
from OSH, and an RV-7 refueled. Next stop was Iola, KS.
We had some head winds and
the XM said wind were more
favorable above the scattered
layer at about 9000 MSL, so
we climbed to about 10,500 to
take advantage of the wind.
Harold and I lead on the way
home, and Brad and Jonah did
all the radio work, and were
always right off our right wing.
The pilot lounge at Iola was
nice and cold and we all rested
for a while with some cold water. Todd Bolgrin texted that
our Apache was home and the
weather was nearly clear in
Oklahoma. We set off and
climbed to about 8500 again
above a scattered layer that
gave way to clear. And were in
Chickasha by about 6 pm.
Take-a-ways from Osh-2014:
What can we do to
make our flight school
more fun fun fun?
Let’s have lots of
events? Get some
younger people to help.
Let’s host an AOPA
Rusty Pilot Seminar –
scheduled for Oct 18.
I plan to go again next year, so
if anyone is interested in another convoy to OSH let me
know and we can start some
planning.
Chickasha Wings Inc.
2376 Beechcraft Road
Chickasha Airport Hanger 4
Chickasha, OK 73018
405-2248359
www.chickashawings.com
[email protected]
Chickasha Wings is a full service part 61 flight school,
maintenance, and management company. We train
approximately 35 certificates per year. We are also
renewing our 141 certificate and have applied for a
135 certificate as well.