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RV-Lancair Brotherhood Day

Ok, since you two started it, here is my wind story for the locality. I have flown a number of times out of Asheville AVL when the 7K to 9K winds were 50Kt. Normally not very bumpy on the way up. Interestingly, when going east in the early morning with high winds, the ridge is not bad. HOW..EVER, about 25 miles further east, basically dead north of Rutherfordton FQD is the spot that is commonly downwind of the Mt Mitchell complex. It can be quite choppy for a few minutes.

The worst was last year. With the GPS integration we have now, we get a direct reading of wind. I took off north into a common 15 to 20ish knot headwind and climbed east. The wind indicator started climbing. By 7500 ft it showed 90 kts. :eek: Higher than forcast. Glass smooth. Until I got north of FQD. Have not been scared like that in a long time. Everything was flying in the cockpit and the aircraft was barely in my control. I was rapidly thinking about actions if I went inverted. I'm not trained for aerobatics. Fortunately, it dissipated. Seemed like forever. :(
 
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Scary story, Bill. I've never encountered anything like that. I'm glad you made it without bending your airplane. (RVs are tough!)
 
We were at GMU Saturday

My wife and I fly to GMU Saturday as well! She said if that would have been her first ride in a plane she would have never gotten in another one. It was very rough. Saw your planes on the ramp at the Runway Cafe. Never made it inside. We played with grandkids outside for a while. The cafe was packed so we ate outside in the wind 😜.
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Robert-- We saw you pull up in your beautiful plane. Cool! Yes, it was very bumpy below 5,000'. For my 20 minute flight North back to AVL, I climbed up to 6,500' and it was mostly smooth up there. Hope to see you again!
 
KFQD Lunch

Four of us met at Rutherfordton [KFQD] for lunch at 57A. Owen flew his red RV-12, Mark flew his RV-8, Leo flew his Colby Starlet, and I flew my Lancair 235. While we were eating outside on the picnic tables, a Lear jet pulled up alongside where we were parked. I guess word has gotten around about our fly ins :D The Lear was real careful on departure not to blow us all over. We appreciated that!

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Cool! Thanks for posting that. It seems like the original Lancairs are getting hard to find for some reason.
 
The Brotherhood suffered a setback a couple months ago when Darwin sold his beautiful RV-4. Then Owen's RV-12 was down for a while while he did his condition inspection and installed a Uavionics Sky Beacon. Today, everything came together and three of us flew down to GMU for lunch under a 4,000' ceiling. Steve brought his Subaru-powered RV-8, too:

That Cessna wasn't with our group.
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Owen's new ADS-B out:
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Steve getting ready to depart:
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After the monster storm passed last night, it was actually sunny and (mostly) smooth this morning so Owen and flew down to GMU again for lunch. We were joined by a beautiful 1947 Navion. Darwin couldn't get his C-140 out of the hangar because the (grass) ramp at 0A7 was underwater from all the rain.

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