The annual Chili-Fest Fly-In at Massey Airport Maryland MD1 was the best ever today, and attracted ~100 aircraft (my count). The grass-strip limits the type of aircraft and pilots but the turnout today was about double last year.

The weather for our brief flight south in the two-seater Citabria N76ML was ‘iffy’, with low ceilings and threatening showers. But non developed and indeed the grass-strip was dry and just fine. My buddy Harv and I touched down about 11.30.
The choice of chili’s equaled the variety of aircraft. Pots of various strengths, heat-levels and contents were provided by volunteers and aviators, with hot-dogs on-hand for the faint-of-heart. Food lines lengthened at various points as waves of aircraft and hungry pilots descended from the Maryland skies.

‘Hangar flying’ broke-out, with aviators exchanging stories, experiences and the best places for cheap(er) aviation fuel.

The flightline included every variety of tail-dragger, sports and production aircraft, impressively filling every vacant spot on Jim Douglas’s airport. The airport is a ‘grassroots-aviation’ and museum spot, with several projects underway to keep antique aircraft flying.

Harv flew us back to New Garden, but not until he’d experienced some aerobatics courtesy of Roger and his Stearman.

Flew the Cirrus N470CD IFR to Florida to enjoy one of two major aviation events this year – Sun ‘n Fun, at Lakeland Florida, along with my partner Jim, and buddy Captain Ron H. Very enjoyable 6 hour flight, fine weather, and a bladder and fuel stop in Lumberton North Carolina. We also took advantage of a truck ride to the local foodery for a quick breakfast. Then off south again, out over the Atlantic for a while before coming ashore for the Florida portion of the trip.

We put down in Plant City, not too far from the Sun ‘n Fun show site, but far enough to avoid the mess of aircraft trying to land at the show site before the noon show time start! We rented a car and drove into the show. Three days of sun and fun, aviation, aircraft, pilots, aerobatics followed, with each day ending up the same – at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville in the show grounds, enjoying a newly-found beverage (beer) – LandShark – tasty, watching the sun go down. Nice.

I purposefully left all my cameras at home for this trip. It felt great and un-pressured.

We headed back north on Saturday, with good weather depicted for the full 6 hour trip. Jim was at the helm as we put down in Curtis L Brown Jr Field Airport Elizabethtown North Carolina. In the pattern we were asked if we wanted “…a hot-dog or hamburger, or both” for lunch. After three hours flying we opted for ‘both’. The Elizabethtown airport team provides free lunch to visiting aviators during the Sun ‘n Fun week. Great food, nice people, cheap(er) fuel…..we’ll be back!

This was my longest cross-county trip in the Cirrus. It performed flawlessly, and was very comfortable (we took turns napping!). We ‘filed’ IFR despite good conditions and ATC services were very helpful (as usual) and we got the altitudes and routing we requested, without exception.

Jim and I spent Sunday washing the Cirrus removing Florida dust, bugs and trip flotsam from the aircraft.

Great trip, good event, good flying experience, great company!

So Neil is settling into Vegas, has found good friends, good work colleagues, a source of British food and is having a good time doing all of this. His apartment is on the edge of Las Vegas, up against the mountains – one of which he climbed this weekend and claimed for himself (Mount Delaware).

Follow his adventures in his new blog.

Neil and his mountain