I went to DKX for East Tennessee Wings 201o. It is an annual event which allows pilots to come together and earn credits from the FAA Wings program. There is lots of food, hangar flying, learning, and free flight instruction. The idea is that you can come and fulfill a phase of Wings in one go. I’m really glad I went.
The first seminar I attended was an IFR charts refresher. It served as a really good introduction for me. I got some good information about basically every chart that would be required for an IFR flight. There was also a fair amount of questions that presented me with a ton of information. I sat with the president of the airport authority, who is an instrument rated pilot and he gave me some other tips about things like back course approaches.
After that I milled around for a bit looking at some of the aircraft that were parked around. There were a lot of nice planes parked around. The most noticeable was a DC-3. I took a few photos of it. It basically overshadowed everything on the ramp. The only other plane there on that scale is Remote Area Medical’s DC-3, but it was over in the WWII hangar on the back side of the field. I had noticed the G1000 172 was parked in the hangar on display, so I knew that my instructor was somewhere. I hooked up with him and the manager of the flight school and talked to a bunch of people during the second free meal of the day. There were door prizes, which were pretty good but I didn’t win anything. This one lucky guy got a ride in a T-6. The coolest part of the day, was after the door prizes when I got to watch a banner pick up. The pattern stayed pretty full considering there were a lot of people getting free flight training and there was a fuel discount, but the banner towing guys were easy to spot. I think that I might enjoy banner towing to be honest. After we watched the banner pick up, my flight instructor had to leave to ferry the 172 back to TYS and I had an ATC seminar to attend. I did find out my instructor got a new job, so I’ll probably have to find a new one for my instrument rating.
The ATC seminar was a little more question and answer than it was presentation, but it was exceptionally informative. There was quite a bit that I was used to since I trained and fly out of TYS, but I did learn why things have been different lately: trainee controllers. They also encouraged pilots to call the tower and schedule tours. I talked to the ATC guy and a CFI a little after the presentation about trends between towered and non-towered fields and their pilots’ use of the ATC system. It turns out that I’m like a lot of towered field guys in that talking to ATC is easy, but I get a little worried about the non-towered free for all that happens sometimes. It also turns out that controllers have a sense of humor and are actually real people trying to do the best job they know how. I also took the time to thank him for the service those guys perform.
After that seminar, I went back out to the ramp and got to watch a guy I work with make a perfect wheel landing in his Globe Swift. I’m in love. I walked over through the hangars and tie-downs and looked at planes. There was a Van’s RV-7 for sale, but I didn’t see anything else yelling “buy me!” I talked to the guy that had just landed and I went over and looked over his plane in the hangar. I have to confess, I first encountered Swifts a while back when I found one for sale. I also happen to know the National Swift Museum is right down the road at MMI. So, this is probably a good place to own one. My problem is that until recently I didn’t know that I knew someone who owned a spectacular example of one. I’ll probably talk his ear off now asking questions about every little detail of the ownership experience. The Swift in question is the third picture. As of right now, I think the Cessna 170B is still in the number one slot for potential buys, but the Swift being mildly aerobatic certainly is an attractive option.
I would have flown in the afternoon, but the whole reason my instructor had to take the 172 back to TYS was because the other 172 had a broken oil door. I settled on going to get checked out in the G1000 172 this next week some time. I definitely want to fly it, but I’ll probably stick with the round gauges for my instrument rating. I talked to my instructor about it, and he said that the analog gauges are harder to work with and that it was probably better to get the hard part out of the way and transition to glass later. I think that’s what I’m going to do.
In all I’d say this was an exceptional day, and I hope to do more stuff like this. The Swift fly-in will be at MMI the weekend of my birthday, I might go down there to see the Lopresti Fury in person. I’m also planning to attend Airventure at Oshkosh. Today just confirms that when you combine (free) food, pilots, and an airport fun will be had and stories will be told.