MikeAdminFamily Golf Outing 2018
10 July 2018
Finally I got to do it. I dreamed about it through 11 years of building and I finally got a chance to take the RV on a golf vacation with my Father and Brother. After just a little research the destination was a no brainer Aero Meadows which is a beautiful, well maintained 18 hole course in Brownsville NY, just south of Glenn Falls. The really attraction was the fact the Heber Airpark, K30 bisected the course. While a little short for my taste at 2200’ this little strip should work just fine and my performance numbers and flight tests said it should be no issue.
So we loaded up 3 big guys and three sets of clubs. I went a little light with 15 gallons aside to save on weight. With K30 was only a quick 40 minute flight south we should have plenty of gas to make it down and back. We headed out early to beat the heat and make a 0930 t-time. The flight down was Matt’s first flight in a small aircraft and while he was a bit squished he is 6-10, he gamily did most of the flying on the way down. Clearly one of us got the flying gene and it wasn’t me, he was a natural.
As you might tell from the above photos my father was not that excited about being stuck in the back with the gear, but he powered through fine and commented that getting in to the back is actually easier than getting into the front seat and working your way around the stick.
Heber was as advertised a pretty narrow and short uphill runway. You land uphill on 06 and takeoff downhill on 24 no matter what the wind. This was a first for me but the RV10 is such an easy aircraft to fly and has such good performance I felt confident this would be a non event. I did one lap around to get the lay of the land and assess just how far down you had to go to make the downhill approach end of 06 it was well below the rest of the land at the middle of the valley with a stream crossing just before it. I should have gotten my co-pilot to run a camera during the approach but I never think of that until after. It ended up being uneventful.
I touched down about as close to the end as I dared and didn’t have to touch the brakes as we rolled up hill and pulled off into what I hopped was the proper parking area. As promised there were two golf carts waiting for us so we unloaded and headed out for a great round of golf.
The course was great! A real gem at a reasonable price. Many of the holes had a theme that is the London Bridge behind me. We had a great day even though none of us played very well. On the positive side no one hooked one into the plane. Though I do think I lost a ball on to the runway and ended up having a great view of the planes parked on the runway from this fairway bunker. Too many years building an airplane and not enough time playing golf – at least that is my excuse.
Lunch was a great burger served by a very nice young lady. The bar had a great mix of aviation, farming and golf paintings photos and memorabilia. What I haven’t mentioned before was that the course is intermixed with a beef cow pastures. These cows had seen quite a few golfers through the years and probably could have given me some swing tips, but I didn’t feel bad at all about ordering up and enjoying the Cattleman’s Black Angus Burger. Wow that was a huge well-cooked burger! Jaimie and I are going to have to fly down just for a meal sometime.
But now was time to head back to the plane. We drove our golf carts right up the plane and started to unload. All day long I had been stressing about getting out of this little downwind, downhill runway. Truly I didn’t have the performance numbers for this in my POH. It was 100F, 10 knots of tailwind, we had 750 pound of sweaty golfers, 60 pounds of golf clubs and the survival gear I keep in the plan, plus about 20 gallons of fuel. I figured I could get her stopped in 500ft from 60 knots if I had to, but the end of the runway was downhill into a stream so I wanted a little safety. As the guys put the golf carts away and looked around the airport and walked the runway. I paced off 1000’ which conveniently lined up with the corner of the hanger. If figured I would take it right down to the overrun, almost into the neighbor’s driveway, run it up with the brakes held, using 20 degree flaps and if I wasn’t at 60kt by my midpoint I would abort and wait till things cooled off. Well things went as planned and while I could tell my preparations and brief had made my passengers a bit concerned, but we lifting off by the midpoint and were safely climbing away. I love the RV10, it makes even dumb things easy. I wouldn’t have even dreamed of that in a Cessna.
Once again I messed up and didn’t have my co-pilot film the takeoff so you will have to take my word for it that it was beautiful and a fine piece of aviating. The trip home was fun with Matt doing most of the work flying us home and everyone relaxing and talking about what a great adventure we had just enjoyed. Despite being a little out of my comfort zone with the shortish (2000’) ski jump runway and warm conditions the RV10 handled it all even with quite a load. What a great Plane and a Great Day.