The View From Above

My NAPA chum Jerry Kirby took me down to Lebanon today in his 1957 Cessna.  Jerry has a late 1940s Swift in which he does aerobatics, but we didn't take that one, sadly.

Anyhoo, Jerry had told me to take my camera and we could get some shots of the land from the Eye in the Sky. And hairrrrr they are:

You can see that Jan's house is almost done, whilst mine has the subfloor on the left (and you can almost make out the little shed to the north).  This is taken to from the southeast.







Again, my little 12x10 rectangle can be seen about 100 feet from Jan's house, now seen from the northwest somewhat.

More work and another post this weekend.  Hopefully, a wall will be up!

Then, Jerry and I flew over towards the Nashville Raceway and landed at a private airstrip that is commonly owned by pilots that live on the edges of the strip.  One of his buddies, a guy named Steve, had us to a great lunch of soup and salad out on his back deck on a gorgeous day.

At the end of lunch, Steve said to me, "How'd you like to go up in the Stearman biplane and do some aerobatics?"  Steve restores and works on planes; his current project is a 1927 Waco, but he has previously restored a 1943 Stearman trainer.  This open cockpit biplane is much heavier than Jerry's Cessna, and much slower, too.  But after strapping in the front seat, putting on the headgear and trying to stay calm, Steve and I took off and flew over the speedway nearby.  Steve did loops and turns and rolls, including an Immelmann, and he did some stalls and dives.  After about 20 breathtaking minutes, we came back to earth.

Jerry and I then headed for home and on the way, he let me take the controls some.  All in all, a great day.