More than once he has said the new airport management killed it at that airport. At that time there was two FBO's on the field, one on the north end and one on the south end. The guy on the south end was they guy that knew how to bring folks in. It wasn't about selling gas and making money it was about flying. If you bought gas fine if you was there just to talk flying fine. When he died the city closed the FBO on the south end and the other FBO was only interested in one thing and that was making money, not in having a good atmosphere for pilots. He still goes by there when he drives to town, as a couple old buddies still have planes there but he rarely sees those guys there.
He has a passion for flying that I am not sure I will every have. His wife enjoyed flying but has been gone for close to 20 years (cancer took her), pretty much all of his flying buds either gave it up or have passed on as well. So I think he feels like he's pretty much a loaner when it comes to flying in these parts. I have my plane hangered at his place and we go together when I can get the time, but with a job, wife and two young kids that is not as much as he or I would like. He still fly's 3-4 times a week (weather permitting) just because he can. He just said the other day if he didn't really love to fly he would have given it up years ago.
I learned to fly in Conway (CWS) and it seemed that was a hoppin' place 10 years ago with a few hanger doors open each weekend day but not as active as he makes it sound like it was 20 years ago in Harrison.
One day a couple months ago we flew over to bug one of my newly acquired friends (He married one of my wife's cousins, he just start to get interested in flying and is taking lessons) and after we got back home and before I could put the plane away we had another plane heading our way. Well.... we said, that plane is going to land...it ended up being a brother to a local guy that was just out and about and had landed on this strip many moons ago. Well over the next few months he came back several times and his brother would come pick him up for a visit.
I know this is a long story but it's good for me if no one else.
Since you brought it up Richard.......hilltop170 wrote:On the positive side, Cub Crafters is making a plane a week and is back-ordered for around 6 months.
So on a Tuesday a couple weeks ago this guy came back over and brought 4 or 5 Cubs with him. This guy flys a Maule and so does a buddy of his. So 2 Maules and 4 Cubs I think all landed at my Uncles grass strip. I did not get to make it over there even though I was 2 miles away at home, my uncle thought I was out of town (Most every Tuesday I'm on Little Rock) so he didn't call. He called me later that day, after they had departed and said you just missed some fun and went on to explain what had happened. Said I think they will be back Saturday. So come Friday I'm back at home working and my wife comes in, says I think your uncle is flying but it don't look like his plane. I go on working and a bit later I keep hearing lots of strange planes and I go outside to take a look and yepper I can only see one but hear several. Call him up and asked if he was having a airshow over there and he said no but there's a bunch on the ground and more are coming in. Ended up with 13 Cubs on the ground.
I call my boss which is an retired Air Force pilot and explain the situation and he says he jealous but I can take a couple hours for lunch and I head over. Pretty awesome site to say the least. Scot Warren from Warren Aircraft and a bunch of guys were in their Super Cub's and Carbon Cub's just out and about looking for back country strips to land on. See this was the weekend for the Ozark Backcountry Fly-In even at Gastons. So there was guys there from all over the country. My uncle had told them about my strip on Tuesday and had taken one guy over there. It's about 2 miles to south and I was invited to take a ride in a Carbon Cub so 12 of them made the trek to my strip.
Needless to say these guys made mine and my Uncle's day. Never imagined I would have 12 airplanes land on my strip much less all at one time. It even brought the neighbors out to visit. This was the weekend of Memorial day and one of the big Cemetery's is just down the road from my strip and on that Sunday I was confronted by several people asking me about what was going on and how much they enjoyed the planes flying through the area. I guess they get tired of seeing the same two airplanes coming by (A Champ and a 170). One guy said I was up in the field digging up thistles and saw all these planes come off and they turned on that point right there and went out of site. Thought they crashed and had to go check it out. He said I drove up there and they were all over your field. I couldn't help but laugh a little.
My Uncle and I flew down to Gastons on Saturday to watch the CubCrafters short field take off/landings and flower bombing competition. One of the best flying weeks I have had since becoming a pilot.
Those Cub guys were really a nice bunch of folks. Real appreciative that we allowed them access to our strips.
Again real sorry for the very long post but just had a story to tell and thought I'd tell it here.
Here's a link to a few photos I took if interested.
https://goo.gl/photos/2dhzFYM3XPtP383t5
Justin