Over the summer the four of us took a very bumpy flight over to Mulino (4S9) for an OPA meeting and potluck, a breakfast flights, and a few fights over to the coast.
We spent 25 hrs on commercial flights for a fantastic family trip to Japan. JAL was a great airline to travel, good food, free drink, all the green tea you can hold between trips to the bathroom, movies, and wonderful cabin crew. All things not found in a typical 172. Anyway, this is a story for another blog...
Some years ago, when I was a child, my dad collected and restored Corvairs. We belonged to the local club, the I&I Oilspots (Illinois & Indiana), and a popular weekend event for an auto club at the time was a road rally. You would follow a specified road course, identify landmarks based on clues along the way, and estimate in-route times, in an attempt to win a prize. The rally would end at a restaurant where rally participants could share stories of missed turns, breakdowns and other adventures from the day as the scores were tallied, and prizes awarded. It was a day of camaraderie, family time, or just father-son time... I really hope these are still popular. 
I received an email notice a few weeks prior of an inaugural Oregon Air Rally, scheduled for the fist day of October. A specified course would be flown and points would be awarded based on accuracy of planned vs. actual flight times, correctly identifying information at each airport based on clues given at the start, and the quality of your landing at the final destination. The small entrance fee would be split between a charity (Angel Flight West)and the overall points winner. This sounded great! I and my spotters, Heatherle and Audrey, signed up.
October weather can be a bit sketchy, and this October 1st would not be an exception based on the forecasted weather in the days leading up to the rally. Fortunately when the day arrived, we had great visibility, mostly calm wind, and ceilings at 3,000 or better.
We arrived at Twin Oaks just as the sky was beginning to lighten, prepared the plane, and were off for Corvallis (CVO), where we would register, receive our rally number and clues, and have our first piece of information to locate.
Soon it was time for the departures to begin based on rally number at three minute intervals (we were #9 out of 12), and we were soon taking off and turning east towards our Lebanon (S30).
We landed at Lebanon, found our key piece of information (what color is the airplane on the Lebonair FBO sign), and were soon ready for departure north for the next destination, Lenhardt (7S9).In route to Lenhardt, we began to overtake a few of the aircraft with earlier departure times, and slower airspeed. About 10nm out the quiet CTAF at Lenhardt got suddenly lively as several inbound aircraft figured out where each other was, and worked into the pattern for 20.
On the ground at Lenhardt, we taxied off the runway into the grass, following a couple aircraft ahead, and followed by a few behind, in search of our next key piece of info. A man working in his hanger stood watching as we all taxied around the equipment shed looking for a number (the information we needed on this leg).
We passed, and were passed by, other participants again during this leg. Looking from one aircraft to another in route to a common destination, seemingly suspended motionless in the air some distance off your wing, is an interesting experience.
We landed at McMinnville, and taxied to the ramp, in search of our next key piece of information. We had to wait several minutes for inbound rally aircraft before we could take the runway for departure, but were soon off and turning southeast towards Salem (SLE), and the finish.
Salem is a class D airport, meaning that it is a towered airport. It's been a while since I last landed at a towered airport, so I had spent a little time studying procedures in advance to freshen up a little. It ended up not being an issue and came naturally, and we were cleared to land on 34.The final piece to this rally was to call your rally number on short final, so your landing could be scored. As luck would have it, it was not my best of the day, and not the greaser that I'd need to score high, but good enough to not embarrass myself.
We cleared the runway, contacted ground for taxi clearance, and with stomachs growling, shut down at the Flight Deck restaurant.
We had lunch and visited while the scores were being tallied and awards given. Half the entrance fee went to a charity (Angel Flight West), with the remaining half going to the pilot with the high points score, who then donated it to the charity.
We didn't have the high score, but my in-route time was less than 4 minutes off my planned time for the entire course, which I was very happy with. I had done all the flight planning using a sectional, plotter, and E6B flight computer (think slide rule), found the info at each destination based on the clues, and had a great time.
With our clearance for a straight out departure to the north, we were headed home.
Later in the afternoon, I got a call from Betty at Twin Oaks, just wanting to know if we enjoyed ourselves. I love that about Twin Oaks...
