Pilots Just Landed

[Guest Duane]

Hello fellow pilots and all with the dream of flight.

 

My name is Duane Drisko and I fly a X-Air-H with

 

Jabiru 2200 out of S79, a grass strip 25 miles inland

 

from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA.

 

I have some time, 10hrs., in an AirBourne Edge 582 Trike.

 

About 85 hrs. in a Sabre340 16 meter trike which I truely

 

enjoyed. I built my X-Air-H to have more range for the

 

many fly-ins.

 

 

[dazza 38]

Welcome Duane

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Hi Duane,

 

Good Grief man, . . . you fly out of a "BRUSH STRIP" three thousand five hundred feet long, and one hundred feet wide, ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? What absolute LUXURY. . . ! I am sooooooo envious.

 

Our strips at my home base OTHERTON ( www.othertonairfield.co.uk ) has Six strips, but the longest ( Rwy 07/25 ) is a massive 870 feet ! the other four are 16/34 which is 770 feet, and the little one is only 220 metres, ( What's that,. . .about 670 feet !! ) We'd like a runway like yours so that my friend John Travolta could drop in for coffee with his Qantas livery Boeing 707 ! ! ! !

 

( I wonder if he's still got that . . . .? )

 

I "Just a bloody bout" got a PA28 Piper Warrior 151 in there a few years ago, whilst we had a 20 knot wind on 25, but later the wind dropped to zero, ( wouldn't you know. . . ) and on leaving I had to disgorge my three passengers, and only took a Pilot friend (who weighs around fifty pounds in his shorts ) and only got five feet off the ground at the runway end, by yanking on 25 flap, and sinking down the hill until I got enough speed to pull it up over the 11Kv power lines at the edge of the roadway !! ( that really DID make my bum go "Fifty cents - five cents. . . . etc. . . ) Nowadays, we only accept STOL aircraft in the G.A. fleet, and ultralight / microlight airplanes which can handle the short spaces available.

 

I used to fly a lot in Australia myself, and giggle a bit about the length of their "BUSH STRIPS" which are freeway length compared to the back gardens of houses that we fly from in the UK in our toy airplanes. . . !

 

( Please forgive the use of the term "AIRPLANES" but Duane is from the States, . . . . and THEY invented them. )

 

Phil