Up before dawn, ready to go flying at first light to take advantage of the calmer, and cooler, air. Unfortunately Mother Nature must have forgotten that morning hours are supposed to have gentle winds. I rolled the Waco out of the main hangar to do the preflight inspection. One of the line boys helped me roll it out, and for whatever reason, I thought he chocked the wheels. He didn't. A minute later I turned around to see my plane being blown across the ramp, gaining speed with each second. We finally did catch up to it and got it stopped before it did any damage to itself or another plane/hangar/etc. This was my first clue that the winds were a bit stronger than I figured.
The second clue was my call to Flight Service. The were calling the winds at my first stop (Dalhart Texas) at 25 knots, gusting to 31, and it was forecast to get worse. I'm not really falling in love with Liberal Kansas, so I'm really looking forward to flying again sometime soon, but the weather is not cooperating.
So looking on the bright side, there is a B-17 and a B-24 (WWII bombers) scheduled to come in later in the day and I figure that I can hang out with these great old planes for a while and the day won't be a complete loss.
A little while later, a Mooney lands. I questioned the pilot about the winds, and he says he was fighting a headwind of 55 knots, and he was going in the same direction I have to go. No fun there at all. Better to be on the ground.
In the early afternoon the B-24 lands and taxis over to the Mid America Air Museum and I drive the courtesy car over to fully inspect it. I'm standing on the ground with my head stuck up inside the bomb bay and I notice that the wind is rocking the plane back and forth in its wheel chocks. This has got to be a 30,000 pound airplane! I am making a mental note that I am sure glad I'm not up there flying.
Then I meet Jim Reeves who just flew up from Tucumcari New Mexico in his Great Lakes biplane which he built himself. Took him 7 years. This is the cleanest, most perfect Great Lakes I have ever seen. He built it to be the lightest Great Lakes in the world. No starter, no generator, etc. He starts it by hand propping it. This little biplane weighs just over 1000 pounds. In the middle of this raging gale, Jim pack his passenger in the front seat, starts the plane, jumps in the back while it's rolling and takes off toward home. I'm standing there scratching my head and wondering how long it's going to take him. It's only about 100 miles, but his speed over the ground will be about 30 miles per hour, and he's going to have to stop for gas once.
Right after Jim disappears ever so slowly over the horizon, a yellow Stearman biplane taxis up. The pilot is Dutch Schultz out of Novato, California. Dutch is following the B-17 and B-24 around the country, selling rides in his Stearman. Doing a good business, too. These old bombers attract quite a crowd, and he sells his rides pretty cheap, so he get lots of takers. He started flying with the bombers just a couple of months ago. After he had been on the road selling rides for about a week, his wife asked him: "When will you be home?". After he sent her his earnings for the week, she now asks: "Where are you going next?". I love stories like that!
Dutch said that on his way in to Liberal today, the headwinds were so severe that the big trucks were passing him. In addition, the winds blew him 40 miles off course. He has none of the new-fangled equipment like GPS in his old Stearman, so he just uses "dead reckoning". He says that's why they paint the name of the town on top of those big water tanks. Says lots of times he'll just fly low enough to read the road signs to double check his position. He don't need no stinking GPS, man.
I'm having a lot more fun on the ground meeting people like Dutch and Jim and the duster pilots than I ever would have had in the air today. Maybe the winds will be better tomorrow, or maybe I'll meet Neil Armstrong and Chuck Yeager.