Tag Archives: flying

Poplar Grove

After my visit to the WACO reunion as recounted in a previous post here, I had a lot of pictures of a WACO owned by Steve and Tina Thomas. They own Poplar Grove airport northwest of Chicago. I had been there before and my earlier visit is described here. I decided to print a couple of shots from the sortie and take them up to Steve as a thank you.

I dropped in one Sunday and found Steve in his office. He was pleased with the pictures and took me off for a tour of parts of the field. They own a lovely Beech 18 as well as the WACO and their hangar has a great selection of prints and memorabilia on display so we had a look at that. Then we headed up to the hangar of Sean, another WACO owner. We chatted for a while and watched some Cub flying activity on the grass strip in front of Sean’s hangar.

Steve needed to get back to work so I got my car and ended up back at Sean’s place. We chatted about the usual aviation stuff while he cleaned his aircraft and I watched the flying. The Cub was being flown by Rick Kluver and, when he knew there was a camera nearby, he came by to give me something to shoot. He landed after having finished with his two previous passengers and we chatted for a while.

Rick’s Cub is one of the planes that I shot when we went to Oshkosh for the skiplane flyin and I had met him then. You can see a previous post about that here. Anyway, it didn’t take long before he offered me a ride. It would be churlish to refuse so I hopped in for my first ride in a Cub. I took the camera along of course.

Rick says he gets altitude sickness so likes to keep it low. In a plane like a Cub with the side open, this is a great way to fly. Down amongst the scenery, we got to see some cattle in a river and even some deer that we obviously startled a little. It was a fun little trip and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. There was time for a little video to be shot so the results of that are below. As before, Poplar Grove proved to be a friendly and welcoming environment. I will be back!

Time in the T-6

I recently popped up to Waukegan to see the good folks at the Warbird Heritage Foundation. I was up there to take some shots of their A-4 Skyhawk. It was scheduled to fly and the weather was looking particularly good so it seemed like an opportunity not to miss. A post on that will follow soon.

While I was there, the Chief Pilot, Herwig, was getting ready to take up the T-6 to run a check on the adjustments that had been made to the aileron trim. When he asked if I wanted to come along, I think you can guess what my answer was.

This was to be my first trip in a T-6. I minimized what photography equipment I was going to take along in order to keep things simple. Since we weren’t shooting anything else, I really only had two shot options. The ground or myself. Needless to say, I had a go at both. There is something very self centered but fun about shooting yourself in the cockpit while flying. I like shooting the pilot too but in the case of the T-6, the best I can get is the back of Herwig’s head!

The flight was a quick one and the trim checks were carried out before heading back to Waukegan. An overhead break into the pattern and then we were back on terra firma. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. Thanks guys.

Midwest in the mist

Got a call from the guys at Midwest about some upcoming work recently. Asked if I wanted to come out and ride along for the jobs, one of which was in the Chicagoland area and the other was over in Indiana. Let me think about that for, oh, I don’t know, a microsecond. Sure, I will be there.

There is one downside to these jobs and that is that they mean an early start. The night before Jim texts me to say the weather is looking pretty dodgy and do I still want to come along? Predicting weather is not something that I can rely on so I was still in and if the weather screwed things up, then we scrub it and have another go some other time.

I made the early trek down to their base but before I left I checked the weather radar on the computer. There was an evil looking line of storms marching up across the state. Looking out of the window, the tops of the surrounding buildings were shrouded in mist. This wasn’t looking promising. We would see…

When I walked in, Jim had already been talking to the O’Hare controllers since one of the lifts was under their approaches. With the storms coming, it was already clear that we would postpone the first lift until the storms had gone through. As for Indiana, that was looking unrealistic since the south end of the lake is the most unpredictable for weather and it was a long run across even to get to the job. We hung out and waited.

The storms never appeared! They stalled a way off and the mist lifted a bit. In the end, it was good enough to go so Jim, Phil and I loaded up and headed out. Joe was on the site so he had to sit there and wait it out. I suspect he was glad we finally showed up! We ferried out to the site and set down. I hopped out while the long line was attached and Jim make quick work of the two picks.

For the journey back, I climbed up to the second seat. The cockpit in the S-58T is right on top of the airframe so you have a great view of things. Shame the weather meant it was not a great day for sightseeing! The transit back to base was a fun run and then we all headed off for breakfast. Not a bad way to start a day!