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From New York With Love
It has been about 10 months since I started my search for an Amphibian airplane. Here is the run down on my quest. In Oct 99 Patty and I took a road trip to Orlando Fla. in search of a Progressive Aerodyne single seat Stingrey. The plane was in nice shape with one exception, the 582 two-stroke motor looked like it had sat in a salt bath. The owner refused to fly it and he refused to guarantee that the motor would run for the 4 hours it would have taken for me to show enough confidence to buy it. Needless to say that deal went south.
Patty and I searched the airplane rags and the internet for a replacement. I made about 20 calls to areas from New York to Fla. and all over. I took a trip to Willmar MN. to look at a Searey 2-place from Progressive Aerodyne. Not up to my standards which I realize is pretty high. This spring I had about 4 planes lined up to look at on my trip to Sun-n-fun. All the planes that were reported to be in pristine shape were not. I did spend some time looking at another Stingrey in Fla. and decided to buy it. On the morning we were to sign the deal I got a call and the seller had backed out. When I got home I started to look at old contacts that I made, and a call to New York started what would end up being " The rest of the story."
I caught a ride to Long Island New York with Jimmy Deltgen in the Aero Commander to look at N13311 which is a 2 seater Searey. After an annual inspection and a test flight it was back home to think things over. I communicated with Diane Novak by e-mail for about a month and we came to an agreement. On June 3rd Patty and I and Jody Herring jumped in the car to go get my plane. We arrived on Long Island by Sunday afternoon and stopped by Diane's game farm for a tour. After a look around it was out to the airport. I worked for several hours on the plane and then a test ride. I fell in love with this plane right from the start. On Monday Patty and Jody dropped me off at the Airport and went sight-seeing. I changed oil and air filters and washed the plane,ect. real fun stuff for us airplane lovers. I taxied the plane a lot to get the ground handling down, I later found out I didn't really know as much as I thought. Monday night it started raining and didn't stop until Wed mid morning. I departed about 11:30 am with Wisconsin in my sights.
I flew against a slight headwind on my first day and the plane flew without any hitches. On my first unassisted landing things went pretty well as I had lots of wind to deal with. I looked for airports with runways right into the wind. "Dean Turners suggestion" and it was a good one! I ended up making 500 miles on my first day with everything going good except the takeoffs and landings.
Day 2 and I expected to get home today. Guess again as I had 40 mph headwinds at every altitude that I tried. I flew 4 hrs and made only 150 miles as the gusts were pretty bad. The decision to park until late afternoon was made and the call to my ground support found them about 50 miles further than I was. Patty and Jody turned around and spent the day waiting for me to make my next move. At 5:30 pm it was wheels up for the next leg. I was surprised to see that the wind had let up and now we had only 15 mph headwind and off to Joliet we went. Another 3 hrs and 160 miles later I was in the Chicago land area. Well a few phone calls later and the gang in Wausau knew tomorrow would mark the arrival of another plane to AUW.
Day 3 turned out to be beautiful and off toward Wausau I went. Dean met me at Juneau at 8:30 and at 9:00 it was homebound. Russ Post met us in the air around Stevens Pts and flew in with us. We landed at around 11 to the cheers of many of the club members. I was real glad to be home after 17 hrs and 1060 miles of flying against headwinds all the way. I now have 40 hrs in the plane with quite a few landings and 19 water landings. The water landings are usually bouncy and scary but practice should prove to increase my proficiency. I hope to get some training from the factory pilot around Oshkosh week. Stop by anytime to see my new baby and I will give you a ride if the weather permits. |