Starting Thursday afternoon, the weather was good: sunny and warm but not too hot. Wednesday was a different story and even Thursday morning was low overcast. A lot of us bugged out Saturday morning in advance of thunderstorm buildups that did not materialize.
The usual suspects were there (Tom Staggs, Dale Martin, Tim Sullivan, Bob and Linda Evans, Joe Person, Joe Hull, Joe Dubner, Dave Viglierchio, Bruce Hughes, Brian Amadala, Mike Sabourin, Rich Martin) and some new blood (Jim Price, Tom Smith, Chris from Colorado, and a gent flying a Speed Canard). Please excuse my spelling and any omissions -- I did not take notes and I didn't meet everyone as I slept in an RV (motorhome type) this year.
We had 7-9 airplanes fly out to Bremerton for dinner Thursday night and it seemed like there were 20 of us at the seafood restaurant on the field.
I'd like to publicly thank the "locals" that made the fly-in such an outstanding experience for us "out of towners". Rich Martin did a lot of set up work with a shade tent, chairs, and drinking water. I don't know who's responsible but two large BBQ grills and other equipment appeared. Thanks, guys.
And a special thanks to Tom Staggs for his organizational work, making the Friday BBQ happen, and the outstanding aerial tour of the Puget Sound and Seattle that he led us on. We saw submarines and aircraft carriers, Boeing 787s parked on the ramp at Paine Field, and downtown Seattle with the Space Needle, all close up and personal. There were times it sounded like we knew what we were doing ("EZ flight check - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6") and times it didn't ("Who's number 4?", "OK guys, lets try it again." :-)
You can see the APRS track of our tour at this
link.
