Day 35-36 Runway Refugees

It was always going to be a very special day. I knew it would encompass me turning 100 hour old as pilot in command of a Trike and ironically we would go through the 113th hour of the aircraft. I am always a little superstitious when it comes to flying and hoped it would go unnoticed. Ironically it didn't. After a nice morning flight where we flew as high as 7000ft we touched down in South Carolina for an afternoon break and to refuel. Flying out that high always makes me a little nervous, as the traffic up that high can be very fast and it is a long long way down. What doesn't help is my little navigator in the back wriggling her legs. It gets really cold at height and she starts to wriggle to keep warm .The whole trike riddles as she does that and at 7000ft without a parachute, it's a little scary.

After a break and a trip to town for lunch we took off in the late afternoon to take advantage of the strong tail winds and smooth conditions. Without many open fields to follow, we were stuck tracing roads always keeping an eye on somewhere to land in case of engine failure. As it turned out, the exhaust gas temperature (EGT) were reading slightly higher than normal for no particular reason about 45 minutes into this flight. 15 minutes later we got our first sign the engine was in trouble. A slight drop in revs alerted me to a potential situation. We started scanning the places to land. One minute later the engine lost power momentarily and was clearly becoming fuel starved.

Anna-Klara as the navigator was straight on to the situation, and had found the closest airstrip only 4 nm away. We were at 2000 feet above the ground at this stage. The engine cut out and almost stopped before regaining most of its power. At this stage I was ready for the engine to stop and to land in a field. With not much to lose and suspecting fuel starvation, I used the choke to get more fuel into the engine. It seemed to work as the engine did not stop and kept on going at lower revs.

Anna-Klara at this stage had spotted the tiny private airstrip where we were to make our emergency landing. We were now in glide range and if the engine quit we could make a tail wind landing. To make things safer with limited power I managed to crawl around to land up wind with the engine still running. Phew we thought, it was time to consider just what the truck had happened.

As we parked the trike to the side of the runway of this private airport community the locals began to appear. As most aviation people are, they were extremely friendly. What happened at this point, is why I have grown to love aviation so much.
The local pilots instantly help us out with tool and theories on fuel starvation problems. The airport manager Alan, a really switched on guy, found a loose fuel hose fitting that screws into the fuel tap. He pulled the fuel tap apart, resealed it and refitted it in about 10 minutes flat. I then ran the engine on the ground for several minutes without any issues before taking off and climbing out over the airport. All seemed fine with the EGT's back to normal again. Something to keep a close eye on for the next few hours.

That night the community took us in, providing the "runway rufugees" (as they called us) a really nice place to stay and even took us out for dinner that night at the local Italian restaurant. We had landed in paradise again !!!
With several offers of accommodation we decided to stay with John as he had a huge house to himself which he had built himself. John's house was a labour of love as was his hangar. Anna-Klara and myself instantly hit it off with John and felt really comfortable staying there. John said we could stay as long as we wanted so we opted to stay another night in paradise with home cooked dinner that Anna-Klara and Morgan cooked for their men.

Boys and their toys



John, being a good man, let us keep Mr P in this home made hangar with his Bi-PLANE and stolen Cessna ! Just joking John !! Check the workmanship of the roof. The hangar is situation about 100 ft from the strip and 50 ft from the main house. Lifestyles of a flying neighbourhood !!
John's Porsche Project. (possible stolen) John just joking again !!
Large wheel to the left off a Boeing 737. The front wheel dropped into a local farmer's field local and the FAA came to inspect it. After they confirmed it was from the 737 that reported losing it a couple of month prior they just left it in the field. John took it home for a laugh, after th efarmer called him !

On the right is Johns new version of a golf cart to out-do his neighbours !
Only in America !!







Low wing light aircraft have always been an issue in hangars as you need to be a midget and still duck to get under the wing. Unless you come up with a solution such as Allan's.

Day 34 - Back in the South

From Tampa Bay, with a start date for work pending, we decided to start heading North up the east coast of the USA. The first day, with tail winds, we decided to put many of miles on the board. The night before we slept at Tampa Bay Aerosports hangar in the loft so we could get a really early start, on the big day we planned.
We took off just before first light, and covered the 200nm before touchdown at 9am at Keystone Airpark. The local instructor lent us his hybrid (electric/petrol) Honda civic to go down to the local restaurant for brunch. We filled up on gas and took off at 3pm North, just before a rain storm approached us from the South. Once we were airborne we worked through a little bit of rain but then flew out of the weather and headed for our next destination, Waycross.




The flying, was hard work on the arms, as it was quite thermic and to add to the extra stress, the country below us was quite marshy, full of trees with limited places to land at times. We pushed on, approached Waycross airport, did a circuit which included a downwind leg over the local state prison. The prisoners were all looking up at the strange aircraft, we imagine in hope that we would drop something nice down for them !!





The reception at Waycross airport was fantastic. We were out of Florida and back with the less sophisticated, more open Southerners.


After seeing all the facilities at this airport, including the free popcorn machine we immediately voted this airport, best so far. We were offered the lounge to sleep on that night, hangarage, courtesy car and then to top it all off – ice cold Beers ! We both slept like a log that night after a huge day in the saddle.

Day 26 -33 Time to get a job and reality check

After our arrival in central Florida, it was time to take a break
from flying. I had job interviews lined up in Chicago, Minneapolis and Indiana that week. I took off on Monday, and left Anna-Klara to battle the impending tropical storm Alberto, which hit Tampa on the Tuesday. The trike was safely in hangar so all was fine. It turns out it would not have been a good week to fly, so we got lucky we had other things planned.

Photo: Anna-Klara helping Larry and Abid from Tampa Bays Aerosports getting ready for a flight in Mr P.
They look like they are marvelling at Airborne's engineering !!!

Switching back into work mode after 8 month holiday waS a challenge. I work within the IT sector and things are pretty hot in the market at the moment for my skill. These companies actually paid my airline tickets up to see them, including hire car and accommodation. Being a Runway Refugee I did not say no, and actually went as far as upgrading to a convertible when I was in Minneapolis all at my potential employer’s expense. It was such a crazy feeling being in a strange city in America, in a convertible paid for by someone else, after spending so many weeks bumming around in the US living in all sorts of places. If only they knew, I thought.

One of those bizarre crazy incidence occurred after the formal interview. They took me out to lunch at a local restaurant. The interrogation did not stop once we left the office, I was under pressure and the usual BS-talk was flowing out of my mouth. I chose to drink the same as my potential boss and we were drinking and talking away waiting for our mains to be served. I finish my drink pretty quickly, and it was taken away without me noticing. I then, unknowingly, started to drink my potential bosses drink, thinking it was mine. Nothing was said, but I remember in hindsight, they both looked at me and little strange when I picked up the drink.

A minute or so later during the ongoing conversation, my potential new boss picked up his drink and drank from it. It was a bit of a shock as I thought it was my drink at first but then I triggered what had happened and had to hold back the laughter. Nothing was said, as this was a tight corporate interview, yet the looks gave it away. Ironically, they still offered me the job, yet that company seemed a little too incestuous for me !

During the rest of the week, we hired a car and explored the Tampa/Orlando region.
We were however, not really tempted, to go see any of the fun parks. Abid was really cool, allowing us to stay at his house ad hoc, as I flew in and out for interviews. That kind of support is so appreciated, when you have to do things on the road. Thanks Abid !! I got a job out of it. !

Day 25 - Rather a pest

After a restful nights sleep we started walking the 3 miles to the airstrip. We had not walked far before one of the local retirees picked us up and gave us a ride in his golf cart to the airport. Made us laugh. We packed up Mr P. and headed south, following the road as this was the only place to land. It would have been tricky nonetheless if there was an engine out to land on the narrow road surrounded by trees, but it is better than nothing at all and it gives some level of comfort.

The airports around central Florida became somewhat hostile towards trikes and ultralights. We no longer were a rare commodity, rather a pest of an aircraft. I guess you get this when things get busy and a little more commercial. We landed at Crystal River, had brunch and took off at about 12 o'clock going south. The wind was starting to come up, with some really good thermals. At one stage we had the trike going up 1000ft per minute with the engine on cruise in a nice thermal.

The landing at Brooksville was a real challenge. The wind socks at different areas of the airfield were showing a discrepancy of 90°at 12 knots. Anna-Klara is used to landing procedures and looking for wind socks but was a little more amazed than me. I had seen this before yet not to this degree. We did a few low passes to determine actual wind directions where we were going to land. They again were different from what the closest windsock was saying. Life was getting tough, as we were flying around in the thermic conditions. I eventually made the decision to land right up next to the windsock towards the end of a runway on the grass. This worked well yet the airport manager wasn't happy!! Sorry mate but survival and safety come first!

We ordered in a late lunch, and waited out the weather in the air-conditioned FBO airport terminal. At about 6:30 pm we headed further south and found a beautiful local airport surrounded by houses at North Tampa. With a place to park the trike and a nice place to camp, we spent the night there, after walking down the road for dinner. Where the hell was the courtesy car!!??

Day 24 - In the bush

This day had an early start as we were going to Cedar Key. Cedar Keys was recommended to us by one of the fix winged pilots we had met in Hammond back in Louisiana. Funnily enough we also bumped into him in Destin in the aircraft parking lot. He said to us he forgot to recommend Cedar Key, a great little airstrip that services a great little town. That it was.

We took off from Perry Foley and headed south following I10 freeway. We landed at some nonchalant out of the way municipal airport with overenthusiastic, over friendly staff. We were held at in conversation for 15 minutes and asked many questions about flights before we finally made our escaped. This was the first time we were not able to put in MOGAS as their spare carry tanks were full of diesel. We filled a full tank of AVGAS and kept going. I wanted to keep the pace going as I knew we headed for a smaller airstrip that was out on a peninsular on the coast. With that much exposure I figured a good cross wind would increase the risk upon landing.

As we approached this unique strip, we noticed a crosswind component along with trees lining of the runway possibly causing turbulence. With a little extra speed we made our final approach and was hit by a fair amount of rotor of the trees, the extra speed helped counteract the rotor sink on approach. We landed without incident but happy we did not arrive one hour later.





With no facilities, this was the first time we did not have a hangar to put Mr P in. We pulled him over into the tree cover, tied him down and started to walk into town. Before we had reached the end of the runway, we had already been picked up by the taxi lady of the town who monitors the airport frequencies (unicom). She also worked at the local hotel so we stayed there that night. It was very nice to have a decent shower and relaxed in our own space.


It seemed that the town, being a quaint old fishing village, was full of “those darn Yankees” who had retired to a beautiful warm location. We did not care but the locals did. This town was an island and quite different to what we have seen so far in Florida.