5:00 a.m. came terribly early today considering it was Saturday. Quickly making a cup of disgusting instant decaf to get on the road was in order. Today was my last day at Coolidge. There will be more breakfast fly-ins there once the heat abates in the fall but when they do, I will be in the land of the Rising Sun exploring the aviation opportunities on offer in Japan. Today was a going away and I was eager to see what this aviation box of chocolates would present to me this day.
An hour and a quarter passes and I pull up behind the WWII hanger undergoing restoration. Once the north side was nothing more than peeling paint and shattered windows, now it is sheathed in Tyvek and surrounded by the machinery of construction. It's good to see the hanger getting a makeover after so many years, good to see it preparing to stand for another half-century. She has seen many people come and go, been host to a number of hanger flying events and the telling of tall tales, some perhaps even tainted by a drop or two of truth.
I hear the rumbling of a radial engine at idle and as I round the corner I see "Maniak" pulling to a stop, her giant machete-like propeller blades glinting in the harsh morning sun. It will be in the mid-90s before the lunch hour, but it's a dry heat after all. After two summers I don't even start complaining until we're past the century mark. Have I gotten used to the oven called Arizona? Perhaps. Then again, I may just be enjoying the lack of moisture in the air for I know the days of single digit humidity readings will soon be but a memory.
Five minutes after I arrive I get what is, for me, an image that sums up what a fly-in at Coolidge can be. A Cold War-era Soviet designed tail-dragger gleaming in the morning sun; the morning haze, unlikely to be burned off, obscuring the mountains behind her. Friends made in the past eighteen months appear and it feels like any other day standing alongside a runway tracking aircraft from tame to beastly. "Enjoy these men, these aircraft, this field while you can" I tell myself, for it will end in a short time. I will miss you Coolidge.
An hour and a quarter passes and I pull up behind the WWII hanger undergoing restoration. Once the north side was nothing more than peeling paint and shattered windows, now it is sheathed in Tyvek and surrounded by the machinery of construction. It's good to see the hanger getting a makeover after so many years, good to see it preparing to stand for another half-century. She has seen many people come and go, been host to a number of hanger flying events and the telling of tall tales, some perhaps even tainted by a drop or two of truth.
I hear the rumbling of a radial engine at idle and as I round the corner I see "Maniak" pulling to a stop, her giant machete-like propeller blades glinting in the harsh morning sun. It will be in the mid-90s before the lunch hour, but it's a dry heat after all. After two summers I don't even start complaining until we're past the century mark. Have I gotten used to the oven called Arizona? Perhaps. Then again, I may just be enjoying the lack of moisture in the air for I know the days of single digit humidity readings will soon be but a memory.
Five minutes after I arrive I get what is, for me, an image that sums up what a fly-in at Coolidge can be. A Cold War-era Soviet designed tail-dragger gleaming in the morning sun; the morning haze, unlikely to be burned off, obscuring the mountains behind her. Friends made in the past eighteen months appear and it feels like any other day standing alongside a runway tracking aircraft from tame to beastly. "Enjoy these men, these aircraft, this field while you can" I tell myself, for it will end in a short time. I will miss you Coolidge.
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