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Bad Lands Sept 6,7,8

Larry, Kathy, Clint, and company did it again!!! Super Fun Bad Lands Fly-In Fly-In

I just called Larry, he is laying back watching the tube. Everyone has left, and hopfully will start cking in here soon. With trip reports, picture, and safe arrivall reports.
Carol had a bit of scud but managed to avoid it, and had a smooth one stop trip home to Hicks airfield T67, at 9500 ft.

How did I miss Brian Carol????????

Thanks for all your effort

I finally saw you as you were climbing your plane this morning. I don't know how we missed at dinner last night, we stayed until almost the last bus I think.
we finally launched this morning about 11am with 1000' ceilings but a hole over the lake to allow to go NW. got on top, ended up at 16500, then down dodging storms and around the Crazy Mtns. Diverted 2x and finally landed after 2.5hrs with lightening a mile off the Townsend runway. Whew...lotta work for this low time PIC.

Waiting on weather might as well change that tube before you run off the runway somewhere.
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Kris was snapping pics of the brave ones that left to check the ceilings. Caught you Jay
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Conga line heading to TX....They were back in 14 minutes.
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Home safe from the Bad Lands. Brought "Trouble" home with me. Only those who attended will know what I mean.

Larry, Cathy, Clint, & Crystal did a bang up job this year. Hope to do it again.

Russ & Ann Daves
 
As all ways,
Hats off to Miss Cathy, Larry and Clint & Crystal. to hosting a great, high caliber, RV gathering.
Thomas S.
 
More pics

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Not too many were left when we departed. A hole opened over the lake and we popped on top and pointed Aurora NW.
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Not long it was a scattered layer then mostly clear...for a while
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We ended up at 12500 to get over some stuff and clear of the rocks. Glad I bought an O2 system a few weeks ago. By the time we were approaching Billings our path was looking poor. Got vectors from Center to get clear of the ugly stuff. Went to 14500 to hop over the Crazy Mtns....except that wasn't going to work. Went to 16500 still no luck. I tried to go down and skirt the mountains to the north....nope, heavy rain. Turn south and down to 10000 greeted us with a path.

We could see across the small gaps and knew we would be clear over there
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Turned the corner as the rain poured down south of our path.
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We made it. Landed in Townsend after 2.5hrs with lightening a couple miles off the end of the runway. Then the wind whipped up before we could shut the hangar. Whew. Learned a lot and had some fun. Wish we were there for the whole event.
 
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Bad Lands Stats

Bad Lands Stats for....,

RV8 'Borrowed Horse' ECI 0-360-A1A 9/1 pistons, tapered barrel, heads.

Hicks airfield T67 to Hot Springs , Wall, SD, Hot Springs, SD, and return to Hicks. Fort Worth, Texas

7 take offs and 6 landings ,, my 'arrival' at HRS was questionable, can't really call it a landing..:rolleyes:

1590 miles round trip
10.5 hours
95 gallons 100LL
$455 gas

Hope this helps give those pounding rivets some idea of the utility of our airplanes.
 
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If you were at the Fly-in, Kris might have a pic of your plane. She was trying to get everyone as they taxi'd past.

Can a moderator move this thread..or at least the photo part from post #49 of it, to "trip write ups" or some place to save the event pics
 
A few more pics

Below are a few pics I took at the fly-in:

Friday evening at Larry Vetterman's hangar:
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Everyone enjoying some conversation:
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Larry Vetterman giving a speech:
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Ok, feel free to add your own caption here:
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Not an RV but when a beautiful plane like this shows up it is always welcome:
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Parked for the night with a beautiful sunset coloring the sky:
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Mary and me with our VAF hat sighting at Mt. Rushmore:
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If you get a chance to make it to Mt. Rushmore, don't miss it!
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A few more pics for your enjoyment, and thanks again Larry for a GREAT time!

Crazy Horse
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Devils Tower
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Badlands 'T' Shirts!
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Andrew (from TruTrak)
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Great time in Hot Springs SD

Hi, Gloria Emery here, AKA trouble 2, AKA co-pilot.
Just really wanted to say thank you so much to Larry V, his family, his minister and church family for making the fly in in SD such a fun time. Everyone really worked hard to make sure we all had a great time. This was our first fly in and I really only came for my husband, thinking I would be bored to death. So wrong, I might have had more fun than him! Thank you to all the great people who attended. I so enjoyed meeting people from all over the country and everyone was so friendly and fun. I have some new BFF's. We have already made plans for LOE and looking forward to seeing my new BFF's again and making some more. Warning, ya really have to watch out for those ladies from Lubbock and Loveland!

See ya soon,
Gloria Emery

As everyone says, keep pounding those rivets.

Rich Emery
RV-7A
St Peters, MO
 
Great times

Carrie and I had such a wonderful time at the Badlands this year! Thanks Larry, Cathy, Clint, and Crystal for doing so much work on this great event. As always I already can't wait for the next one.

I want to thank Walt for a wonderful job on balancing the prop on "Carrie Ann" she's wonderfully smooth now! If you haven't gotten your prop balanced, do it! :) He was also our fearless leader on the flying tour Saturday...thanks Walt!

So I will be doing a trip writeup on this one, as Carrie took lots and lots of pictures. But I'll post that elsewhere when I get home.

I dropped Carrie off in Portland yesterday afternoon, after a great few days at Johnson Creek...she is now back home in AR. I have a few meetings in this region and then it's off to Reno.

It was great fun seeing everyone again and making new friends too.

See you all at LOE!
 
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Thanks to Larry & team for a great time

The whole trip was lots of fun. Larry and the crew did a great job.

What's even better is that my wife had a great time. She had her doubts before she committed to going, but now she can't wait to go again next year :D

As Andrew said, Walt did a great job as the flight lead on our aerial tour - but Andrew's smoke system helped too !:)
 
I'll second that, Walt always does a great job of leading, its nice to just sit back and enjoy the sites.
Andrew's smoke did make it easier to see the pack from a distance, the 10 falls way behind going from slow flight back to cruise. Trying to maneuver and run with the 4 and 7's turned out to be more work than I expected.
Thanks, Larry for putting on a great Fly-in looking forward to next year.
 
MESSEGE FROM LARRY, CATHY, CLINT, AND CRYSTAL:

Thank you to all that attended the badlands fly in this year. Without your participation there would not be one. This year we had 43 aircraft, down just a little from 49 last year, and fed over100 people at the friday night meal at the hangar. Not bad considering the economy and fuel prices.
Here are some comments that I received from local people: Motel owners commented that the RV is the best group they have all year long. Report from Wall: this RV group were all a great group of people. Report from the Allen ranch: Your group is always fun and we are impressed with how far some of them come for this event. So you all left a very favorable impression here. We have already been asked about next year and would like input from you regarding any special things to do here in the Black Hills, maybe more visits to the mammoth site, wind cave, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands tour etc. We feel this is your fly in and any ideas to make it better will be considered. So thank you again for coming to the Black Hills.

Larry & Cathy Vetterman. Clint & Crystal Busenitz
 
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