Airplanes

[Hey Dad, it's days like this that I wish you here. I love airplanes very much, but when this happens, I feel like you are the one who should be here.]

Our neighbor hosted a helicopter fly-in today and apparently had a great response. I counted 17 aircraft before I left to take my kids here, there and everywhere. Jim had been expecting 6. Word gets around when there is free pizza in the invitation.

It started out as a helicopter meet-up but there were all manner of fixed and rotor wing there.

• Ultralight airplanes (less than 254 lbs.), buzzed in like little technicolor bees.
• Experimental helicopters; seemingly bare metal frames, engine, rotor, gas tank and a seat stuck on the front of all that= not an experiment I'm likely to try.
• A couple of planes on amphibious floats arrived, slipping onto a current of green.
• Larger helicopters came, demanding attention as they dropped in over the trees to join the line of drooping rotors.

Fixed wing aircraft all lined up on their side of the runway-

Helicopters parked on the other side-

This helicopter puts the "mental" in experimental. Waaaay outside my comfort zone.


These helicopters are Robinson R44's: