It goes without saying, 2020 has been a crazy year. “Mostly” caught up on things at work I took Wednesday off for I think 5th day off this year. We caught up on some things at the house and headed to the airport to fly somewhere for lunch.
As we pulled through the gate I saw my friend Ken’s truck in front of his hangar and the hangar doors open so I told my wife I was going to hop out and say hi for a minute. Ken asked if we were flying and I told him we were going to either Riverside or Flabob for some lunch. His response was “I’ll chase you over there.”
We talked a little about his plane, a Murphy Moose. The Moose is a high wing tail dragger with a 360 hp supercharged radial engine that “climbs like a homesick angel.” Then he followed it up offering to take us in his plane if we wanted to. I told him I would love to and walked back over to the truck to ask Kathy if she wanted to ride with Ken. She said that sounded great so we drove over to our hangar to grab our headsets. When we got back Ken had it pulled out of the hangar and was finishing up a pre-flight on it.
I told Ken if he was flying we would buy lunch, this was the literal meaning of the “You fly, We’ll buy” saying.
We climbed in and Ken started up that big radial engine. I’ve never been in a tailwheel plane before and having him taxi along not being able to see over the nose of the plane was an odd feeling. We got to the run-up area and Ken worked through the run-up and then we taxied to runway two-four.
When we took the runway and he pushed the throttle in it pushed you back in your seat, I felt like a little kid with a huge smile on my face as the tail came up and then we were climbing out. The flight was awesome! He asked me if I wanted to take the controls for a bit but I told him I was just enjoying the view and the flight. The last time I was just a passenger and not Pilot in Command was almost four years ago and taking a GA flight with a great pilot like Ken at the controls was an opportunity to just sit back and enjoy, and I did.
We transited Riverside’s airspace and joined a left downwind for runway 24 at Flabob, turning base in front of Mt Rubidoux. There was another taildragger on the ground and Ken asked how the sod (grass to the right of the runway) was. The guy answered back that he had used the runway so he didn’t know but Ken decided to give it a try and brought it in for a very nice landing. The grass was a little rough with some gopher holes here and there but the big tires on the Moose handled it beautifully. We taxied up and stopped next to a DC-3 that they had removed the left wing from and were working on it.
Lunch was great, the food excellent, and the company even better. The weather in the shade on the patio was perfect. After lunch we climbed back in and taxied down to the end of 24. There was a yellow Stearman that was flying left closed traffic and doing touch-n-go’s on the grass. Watching him come around, touch down with a little dirt getting kicked up by the wheels and then take off again was a treat.
For a second time I was pushed back in the seat and amazed at how quickly it gets off the ground. Ken was not kidding about the climbing ability of the plane, with three of us in the plane and a decent load of fuel we were climbing out at 2000 feet a minute with the airspeed holding solid at 80 mph.
For the flight back we went east and then south around Riverside’s airspace and over Lake Matthews. I’ve spent a lot of times over Lake Matthews but it was always as the pilot flying maneuvers which didn’t allow much time to just look around and take in the sights. It was like flying over it for the first time taking in everything that I never really noticed before.
Back on the ground at Fullerton we taxied to a stop in front of his hangar and we thanked him again for the flight. I had gone to the airport intending to fly the Mooney, instead I got to go in my first ride in a tailwheel and experience my first grass landing, and it was all great!
