Three of us will be flying ourselves down to Mansfield-Lahm this morning (ain't she a beaut?). I assume the world will go to hell in a handbasket by the time I return, at which point some earnest blogging will be in order.
UPDATE: A wonderful flight to and from the airport. Departure from Burke Lakefront threw us into weather that was the picture of "scuzzy," but temperatures were reasonable; the thirty-minute voyage south uneventful and enjoyable (to be fair, a sullen stratus is good fun to fly through). From the front right seat, I was struck for the first time by a certain organizing perspective one gains when airborne. Ohio, like any other state (excluding New Jersey), is urban only where it isn't farmland - so once we left Cleveland airspace, the rows of suburbia receded. What I noticed was the truly strict delineation of rural property; of course, on the ground, you notice hedges, treelines and other remnants of the landscape used to demarcate ownership. But up in the Cessna, my view unobscured by topography, the patchwork of fields fit together like a city block set to a coarser scale.
When business concluded we took off for the return to Cleveland at one o'clock. Heat had begun to punch updrafts into a broken ceiling; thunderstorms, of course, make for a bumpy ride. Fortunately, the 3,000-foot altitude and bearings ordered by air traffic control kept us away from the rising columns. Following a course that hugged the periphery of Cleveland's airspace, we swung over the lake, around the north end of the city and made final approach to Burke from the northeast.
During our landing we noticed a B-17 parked on the apron. According to the newspaper, explained one of the other two fellows, a B-24 wouldn't be far behind. Sure enough, after we had parked and tied down and were making our way across pavement to the terminal, a three-plane line abreast formation drew from the west: the expected Liberator, a P-51 Mustang and a DC-4 lookalike we couldn't immediately identify. They passed over the airport - quite a rare sight and sound, believe me - then rolled off to the north to circle around and land in turn. We lost the P-51 - it must have immediately taxied over to a hangar out of our view. The DC-4 counterfeit taxied back onto the runway to take off and depart.
The Liberator trolled its way towards the B-17. Having just parked an aircraft, we had good reason to be on the apron - but with a grin, we stretched our privilege just enough to watch the B-24 sashay its hulk into tiedown position from little more than a hundred feet away. Orange sticks crossed, the pilot leaned the mixture and the bomber shook itself dead.
We turned away as the scent of fuel came on a breeze. Passing a small group of old men who stood with their wives just outside the terminal to watch the same spectacle, I didn't need to read logos on their hats or jackets to guess that they'd seen it before under far different circumstances. But I'm certain they enjoyed the sight just as much.