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Day 3 - Tuesday, 9/11/01 - A day no one will ever forget.
A morning wake up call from my wife (we're on PDT, 3 hours earlier than NY),
"Turn on the TV!" she said. Unbelievable! How remote we were from it all -
That's how it seemed to me sitting in a hotel room in Reno. While 9/11's
impact wouldn't completely sink in and affect my being for several weeks, it
would immediately and directly affect our circumstances here.
After breakfast, Arnie and I drove out to TRK, back to Regent Air, to see if
our package had arrived. Once there, we found out about the order grounding
all flights. That had us wondering if we would see the needed parts. If
anything good happened that day, it was at 11 am when the UPS truck pulled in
carrying the vacuum pump that had been aboard a plane that landed at Reno
just before the grounding.
We busied ourselves for several hours by installing the pump and filters.
The installation ground checked OK, but there would be no flight check since
the taxiways leading to the runways were blocked with horses. No, no. Even
though we were "out West", these were wooden, not live ones.
We drove over to Stead and wandered about. Race planes being wrenched,
people abuzz with the events of the day and much chatter about the future of
the races. Made a quick pass by Greenameyer's Legacy and just generally
poked around. Finally, we got tired of pilots making motor sounds and
strange gestures with their hands, this would not take the place of the chest
thumping sounds generated by a P51 (slightly modified) racing by. We retired
to a U of Nevada at Reno sports bar for an interesting dinner; something made
with cactus and sand (belch), surrounded by 20 TV's, all tuned to a news
channel. We didn't even look at the coed waitresses.
Day 4 - Wednesday, 9/12/01 - A day to forget.
We had breakfast at the sports bar (you knew we would). The morning light
was cruel to the waitresses and the bar. We would not be back.
Friends and relative notified us that their flights were canceled and that
they would try to fly out on Friday. Hah!
Out at Stead, we did a detailed walk around, taking pictures of silent parked
airplanes, jabbering with their overseers and shopping for souvenirs. We
bought some rare mementos - embroidered with 2001 race logos - rare, because
maybe six other people, at most, were also buying such memorabilia. We also
bought personalized dog tags just in case we might be brought down by F-16's
whenever we got to fly home.
Day 5 - Thursday, 9/13/01 - A slow fuzzy day at best.
Friends and relative notified us they would not make it to Reno.
We did more wandering around Stead. Had we got there early enough, we might
have seen the few planes that flew before they were re-grounded. I don't
remember much about this day except that we were beginning to worry about
whether the races would go on at all and just exactly when GA would be
allowed to fly.
Day 6 - Friday, 9/14/01 - A visit with the EAA.
We had decided to not go to Stead for the memorial service and race plane
taxi parade. Instead, we planned for various return flight scenarios and
visited our aircraft at TRK. In the early afternoon, we wandered over to the
EAA Chapter 1073 and spent the afternoon talking with a chapter officer and
race pylon judge. That's when we found out for sure that the Race had been
canceled because, starting Saturday, GA would be limited to IFR only flights.
In other words, the Reno racers could not meet the IFR separation, MEA,
radar coverage nor speed limit standards.
We were invited to move our Lancairs down near the EAA hangar and next to the
Canadian Glasair to provide some visual indication that the fly in was taking
place. If we had parked there in the first place, we would not have had to
pay the weekly tie down fee (Duh!). We attended the Friday night Spagetti
dinner and were asked to the fly in breakfast Saturday morning. It sounded
good to us and even though the plan was to leave the fly in before it was
over, we knew the Glasair would be there since no cross border flights were
going to be allowed anytime soon. The weather looked good for the flight
home so we thanked our EAA hosts and headed back to Reno for a good night's
sleep.
Lesson #11 - Check for local customs and practices, it might save you some
cash.
To Be Continued.
Grayhawk
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