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Elena and Andrey bought me a coupon for a ride on Cap'n
Nick's Gypsy Moth bi-plane, operating out of Cable Airport in Upland, CA.
Here's Nick and I just before our afternoon flight. The weather was
beautiful: a clear sky with virtually no wind. |
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The Gypsy Moth has two cockpits, one for a passenger in
front while Nick flies from the back cockpit. The instruments and flight
controls are duplicated in each cockpit. This particular plane was flown by
Charles Lindbergh at one time. |
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Here's the powerplant that gets this buggy up in the air.
Ain't nothing like good old twentieth century combustion engines to get your
blood racing. |
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A view of Cable Airport's runway after we took off towards
the west and circled around. |
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Cap'n Nick flew over the house where Elena and I live. It's
right in the center of this shot, and if you look carefully, you can just
see Elena pulling her white Honda into the courtyard of our garage. |
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Here's a bit of bi-plane ingenuity. Instead of fancy
instruments to tell you the air speed, the builders put a little flap-type
gage on one of the wing supports, and it simply gets pushed further along
the scale as the plane speeds through the airstream. |
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The good captain pushed it over the side so I could get a
good glimpse of the newly completed 210 freeway extension. Gaaa! |
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We also took a cruise over to the Claremont Wilderness Park.
Elena and I often hike in these foothills, and this is one of the microwave
relay facilities nearby. |
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We're lining up on the runway for our touchdown at the end
of the flight. |
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Elena's waiting for me at the viewing area. You can just
make her out in the middle of the frame. |
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Another surprise gift for me was a coupon for an
introductory flight lesson. While I really don't have any inclination to
take up what is really a rather expensive hobby, I did always fantasize
about flying a real plane (rather than the computer simulators I've played
with over the years). This little Cessna four-seater took Elena, Tyler and
myself for a trip along with a flight instructor. |
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I got to sit in the left (pilot's) seat. The instructor
handled all of the radio communications, which I was able to hear through
the headphones. Elena and Tyler sat in the two seats in the back. After a
short session to familiarize me with the controls and instruments, we took
off. |
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Again, we were blessed with perfect weather. I was a little
surprised that there's so little control over where we went and what we did.
I always figured a control tower had to clear your altitude and course. As
it turns out, when flying under a certain level you pretty much just look
around and try not to fly into anything. |
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Elena snapped this shot of some of the local watercourses... |
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...and after about a forty minute flight we touched down.
Tyler managed to get this one as we finally reached the runway. |
