Airventure 2024 | Day 2

July 18 | What a difference a day makes. I’m here at Brodhead, having just finished a delicious spaghetti dinner by Shelly and Kevin, some of the Pietenpol clan from Texas.

Shelly makes her secret sauce with brisket, so it is definitely a five-star dinner. Two years ago, Calvin and I helped her prep the dinner, cutting and chopping and grooving to the happy kitchen vibe. Camp is all set up after arriving here just before four in the afternoon.

As uncomfortable as it was flying across Nevada, Utah and Wyoming in the afternoon, with the heat and turbulence, when you get a good day flying across the Midwest, it is pure pleasure. The clouds were fluffy and the air was smooth above them. All the green, yellow and red thunderstorm displays on my iPad were east of Detroit.

I stopped at one of my favorite stops in Yankton, South Dakota for fuel and lunch. EAA Chapter 1029 and the airport crew put on a complimentary lunch of hot dogs, pork and beans and as a special treat this year, cheeseburger casserole. I didn’t leave hungry. Midway between Rawlins and Brodhead, it’s a perfect fuel stop.

After getting the plane tied down and the chair set up, I sat and watched a variety of old airplanes taking off, flying by and over, and coming back to land, interspersed with a steady stream of newer and older aircraft. My tent and chair face the approach end of the grass runway.

As I sat in the shade under the wing with a bottle of cold water, I watched a red dragonfly hovering over the grass just in front of the 182. Three beautiful WACOs taxied our, rocking from side to side over the grass field between the hangars and the runway, radial engines barking and popping with their distinctive sound.

After taking off, they made the same circuit of the pattern as did the Pietenpols and an Aeronca C-3 that were also in the air. The routine is to take off, circle back around, fly over the field to give everyone at Brodhead airport a good show. Coming back to land, a beautiful black and red WACO approached the threshold and floated over the grass for a moment before touching down as delicately as that dragonfly would on a lily pad.

Sunset always involves a patrol, just as dawn does. Piets trundled out with Hatz biplanes, the WACOs and the C-3, to bid farewell to another incredible day of grassroots flying at Brodhead. As the sky darkened and the airplanes returned home, the bonfire was started in the firepit and the glow of the hardwood flamed started attracting people like moths to a flame.

I sat listening to relaxing conversations covering until I became drowsy, then found an unused shower, cleaned up after a long flight that started at Rawlins at 7 am mountain time and finished at Brodhead at 4 pm central time, crawled into my sleeping bag, and dropped off to sleep for my first night at Brodhead and the Pietenpol fly-in.

I was looking forward to the next morning at Brodhead.