Tulsa, OK

Friday, April, 18 was supposed to be the day of the Texas Purple Pilot's fly-in at Llano, TX. Well, Llano was scrubbed due to weather. The flight school owner called to find out if I was interested in ferrying a plane to Tulsa, Oklahoma for an engine overhaul. Sure! I don't see a problem with this. Pro rata share with me getting all the PIC time! Well, the system that hit Llano did an about face and was moving to Tulsa. I wouldn't be able to beat it there, so I decided to stay home and we figured for another day. Well, Monday was dead at work so I decided to take off Tuesday and head out. Another guy at the school volunteered to fly a chase plane for me so I isn't have to deal with the TSA boneheads on a commercial flight home. So, fast forward to Tuesday about 0745. Seth shows up at the airport with his friend, Rick. Seth realized that he wasn't current and goes to get his three landings out of the way while I preflight my bird. I get my flight plan filed and head out for Tulsa. The flight was beautiful with a 7500 foot cruise. Not a single cloud, and unrestricted visibility. Shortly after passing over Hobart, I start to feel the urge for relief. I GOTTA PEE!!! I hold onto it as long as I can. Radio traffic is terrible with all the MOAs in Oklahoma. The urge is getting worse. I'm starting to get a yellow tint, teeth are trying to float away. I look out the window and see a little back country strip. I called center and told them that I was going to descend to land and would report back. When I get cleared to descend, I just pulled the throttle and dove like a mad man. After hitting the runway, I was killing the engine and just coasted off the runway. Great thing about being a man, the world is your urinal. I was in and out in about ten minutes. the only disadvantage was that the place was only at 1000 feet. Now I have to climb 6500 feet to get back to my cruise altitude. I made it back up, and it cost me about twenty minutes on my schedule.

Altus was a real treat. A flight of C5 were departing as I came over and I got a front row swat to that. OF course, you can't find your camera when something like that is happening. I'm amazed at how something that big can fly. But, it proves that you can get a rock to fly if you have enough engine.

After flying over OKC and enjoying the flight I was turned over to Tulsa Riverside approach. You wanna talk about a Hornet's nest? It turns out that there are three flight schools and they seems that they all hit the air at the same time. I was coming in with about fifteen other planes in the pattern doing touch and goes. It just looked like a huge conga line of Cessna 150s. They had to vector me a little for spacing, but got me worked in for a straight in. It was funny, though to hear the controller to tell a couple of 150s to keep their speed up due to the closure rate of a 172. While I was coming in, they told me to expedite an exit as soon as practical for landing traffic behind me. To hell with the VASI, I pulled the throttle, and touched down on the numbers, making the first exit with a ton of room to spare. After I got to the FBO, A cherry King Air 90 pulled up next to me on the ramp. (Man, I want one) While we were waiting on the guys to come out and get the airplane, we got all the free entertainment we could stand watching the crash and dashes from the students. (I know we were all there, once, but it is still good to watch)

We grabbed a courtesy car from one of the FBOs and took the counter girls advise for lunch. It was just a little hole in the wall restaurant called Big Daddy's Barbecue. It was some good chow, and reasonably priced.

After we got back to the airport, we had to figure weight and balance for three of us in the Archer. We could only take on 25 gallons of fuel total and would have to stop for more along the way. I figured Hobart as a fuel stop, as it was about halfway and they were advertising three dollar fuel. Alright, get our fuel, preflight, and get going.

Well, I thought we would get going, until we got over to the runup area that looked more like a carrier deck in full swing. We pulled in and did a quick run up and announced ready. We got cleared number three. After getting in position on the runway, we were told to hold for landing traffic. So, here we sit, waiting. We finally got cleared and took off. Poor plane, she was a max gross, and climbing like a wounded duck at about three hundred feet a minute. We were aiming for an altitude 8,500, but she would not get there and we had to settle for 6,500. We dealt with a little bit of bumps on the way to Hobart and took on more fuel to get home. At Hobart, I let Seth take over and just rode shotgun for the remainder of the ride. After getting home, the tiredness hit me and I couldn't wait to get home for a cold one and a nap. All in all, we put 8.6 on the Hobbs, and had a great day