LadiesLoveTaildraggers

A beautiful evening for a wedding!

Dave and I made the EAA Facebook wall! In the midst of our seaplane and biplane Honeymoon around Lake Michigan…photos to follow soon!

Ya gotta love it!  This just came across my Facebook wall. Anybody know our lady taildragger Kelly McDonald Lucente and wedding details?  She looks fabulous and soooo happy.  I just don’t have the heart to email her on her honeymoon!!

Sent in by Shannon Gallagher….probably because she flies a Taylorcraft and knows I LOVE my Aeronca!  Thanks, Shannon.

Tuesday, the gals from Ladies Love Taildraggers met up for lunch with the Back Country Pilots group.

The above picture includes Lynn Gardner, Judy Birchler, Bonnie Ritchie, Dianne from Back Country Pilots, Lynn’s tailwheel friend whose name I’ve misplaced!, Jan Johnson, Linda Guthrie, Susan Theodorelos & Heather Gamble.

Shortly after we took the group picture, Kelly Jeffries and her husband arrived and I snapped this quick picture of Kelly & Susan.  What a great turnout of lady taildraggers!!

What a great spot to have a little lunch with a nice view of 27/9 and the North 40!

Not too shabby a turnout of lady taildraggers for a hot, sunny day at Oshkosh. Thanks to everyone that joined us and to the Back Country Pilots group for inviting us to their party!

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Here’s just a couple pictures of the rows and rows and rows and rows… of taildraggers and other aircraft that fought the rain and soggy ground conditions and made it into Oshkosh by Tuesday.

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Alive & thriving at Oshkosh!  Come on up while the weather’s still good!  Here’s a few tidbits from Monday…

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Today’s when the Lady Taildraggers are supposed to get together – hope we have a big turnout!!

Congratulations to  Shannon Gallagher of Hohenwald, TN, 0M3 Baker Field, who’s learning to fly in a 1940 Taylorcraft, BC65.  The big news – she just soloed!! We’re proud of you, Shannon!!

“Just got back from the airport a bit ago and it went great.  The guys took about 200 pics.  My three landings for the solo were just nice as they could be and everything went off without a hitch.  I now have a solo and a tailwheel endorsement!  Attached are just a few of  the photos.”

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I decided to take “Skydancer” (my Cessna 180) on a tour since I was invited to a birthday celebration in Key West, Florida.

On June 20th I left Boulder City, Nevada and I headed East. After picking up a girlfriend in Huntsville, Alabama, we arrived in Key West on June 23rd. My friend, Sarah, who is not a pilot, took a picture of every final approach, including this one at Key West.

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After our visit, and dropping Sarah off in Alabama, I headed westward. I got as far as Shawnee, Okla. The residual weather of Hurricane Alex strung a line of rain and embedded thunderstorms all along Texas and Oklahoma. I sat in Shawnee for four days, including July 4th, until the weather was VFR enough that I could scoot south and behind the line of storms. Sitting in Shawnee, OK while IFR and MVFR passed over wasn’t so bad. The FBO gave me a courtesy car while I was there, the line boy’s full time job was Deputy Sheriff of Potawatomi County, and I rode patrol with him one night. Yep, quite the experience.

Eastern weather is very hazy and thick with humidity, clouds, and fog. Quite a departure from my usual condition of severely clear. Round trip flight was 35 hours in just over 2 weeks. Great trip with hundreds of pictures to remind me of all the adventures. I stuck to small, mostly non-towered  airports for fuel and overnight stays. All those I met were so friendly and welcoming.

I had only one minor on-field repair event and thank goodness, I had the tools and parts I needed.

It’s really too hot to enjoy flying for the next few weeks, but I’m looking forward to flying to Idaho in Sept for the NW Section meeting of the 99s.

Susan Harper

Julie Richardson is based at Vancover, Washington (1W1) and flies a Stearman.

Hmm.  Stearman. Commercial, instrument, used to be a CFII (let it lapse in 2001). None of that counts, though, since I’m just pleasure flying as a fair weather pilot these days.

Airframe mechanic, retired air traffic controller. Live on a grass runway in Vancouver, Washington (about 8 minutes from Portland Oregon PDX).

Restoring a Stearman and flying one that I borrow.  (I do lots of fabric work for it’s owner). I do aircraft fabric work out of my home hangar.

This came through the grapevine last night. Hopefully they won’t get much more rain and the place will have time to dry out before we all get there?! The forecast seems better now than indicated in this message.  Anybody care to comment….

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In preparation for our trip to Oshkosh and the 2010 EAA AirVenture I called a long-time friend and Oshkosh resident for a weather update.  He said that the EAA is quietly worried about flooding from the almost continuous rain that they have – and continue to have at the airport.  There is a 2 acre lake in front of Friar Tuck’s that has been there long enough to have a family of ducks take up residence.  They have discussed moving arrivals to Appleton, but they have also had a lot of rain up there.  They have been turning people away from the vehicle camping area so far and the rain is forecast to continue this week and again the week of the show.  It may be that the North 40 camping area may not be friendly with the soft ground.

For current OSH weather, here’s the 7-day forecast:

Vickie Domke sent in this update on her summer flying in Alaska.  Thank you, Vickie,  for letting us all share a little bit of Alaska with you.  I LOVE getting picture updates from our taildragging gals.  Since we all can’t be everywhere, flying all the great taildraggers, this is the next best thing!

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Attached are a few photos of my summer.  In May I flew the Tern down to Anchorage for the Alaska Airmen’s Convention.  In spite of the weather I was able to get to 3000’ msl where my Cheetos bag plumped out of my lunch sack, so that was the first course for lunch.

Another flight in the Tern was down into the Alaska Range to fix the magneto on a customer’s aircraft.  I had a tailwind both ways!

And this final picture is in the Cub flying a friend out to our cabin.  Heather is sitting in the seat my dog usually occupies.  Della (an Austrialian Shepherd) was not happy and chewed up her mutt muffs.

For more on Vickie.. Pilot Profile; Vickie Domke

Jeannie Batto flies out of Rochester, NH (KDAW) and Lebanon, NH (KLEB).

I fly all sorts of airplanes but I like the fun simple mission of my Aeronca Sedan. It has the cool factor of a tailwheel, the Vintage to be antique, and the unique factor that makes people wonder what it is. I fly gliders, tow gliders, and looking forward to teaching. I’m living my dream of being a certified airport bum while maintaining a full time job of flying jets around the world.