From: phil@eecs.nwu.edu (William LeFebvre)
Subject: umwaufi report
Organization: EECS Department, Northwestern University
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 17:04:02 GMT

Well, no one else has said anything about this yet, so I guess I ought
to get the ball rolling.

Last Saturday a bunch of us in the upper midwest descended (literally)
upon the airport at Ottumwa Iowa and met for the Upper Mid West Air Usenet
Fly In (umwaufi).  There were 10 of is in 5 planes from (I hope I get
this right) Iowa City, Des Moines, Twin Cities (MN), and Chicago areas.

Fellow netter and student pilot Eric Thiele and I took 8228G from Du Page
to head out to the fly in.  I had anticipated headwinds on the way there,
but was quite surprised by the 55 knot ground speed!

En route, we had to skim the top of the Quad Cities ARSA.  The charts
says, basically, "listen to ATIS for approach frequencies".  Fortunately,
I had already looked them up in the A/FD the night before.  Because I
tuned in to ATIS well in advance and there was nothing there.  Even
after about 10 minutes there was nothing there.  I finally just went
with what I thought was the right frequency and I turned out to be
correct (Eric said I had predicted the right frequency because we had
just passed "Prophetstown").  I decided to be kind and tell approach
that there was no ATIS.  He said "oh they're probably changing it."
Yeah right.  Not one minute later, ATIS started braodcasing information
Romeo.  This, of course, prompted me to say "Romeo, Romeo, where for
art thou Romeo?"  (no I didn't broadcast that).

We were welcomed at Ottumwa by an unexpected (and, as far as I'm concerned,
unwanted) visitor.  He tried his best to poison one of the pilots, but
that pilot's excellent stamina, resolve, and sheer determination won out
over the pesky wasp!  Man did that hurt.....

While I was hopping around grabbing on to my finger everyone was
asking me "are you allergic, are you allergic?"  "I dunno, I've never
been stung before."  I think Tim talked to the people at the FBO to
find out where the nearest hospital was "just in case".

Well, after our encouter with Ottumwa's wildlife, we piled in to the
FBO Courtesy Cadillac to head in to town for lunch:  6 in the back seat
and 4 in front.  Absolutely amazing!  I wish I had a camera.  Eric,
our driver (and my passenger from Chicago) was so busy scanning for
traffic that he missed one of those silly little red octagonal signs.
Ahhh....who pays attention to those anyway?

We had a wide selection of restaurants to choose from:  McDonalds,
Pizza Hut, a sirloin steak house (looked like a Ponderosa clone),
some italian place, and a mexican place.  Mexican won the vote.  I
was the first out of the car and as I looked back into the car I
wished *again* that I had a camera!

Good food, great conversation, good service, reasonable prices, etc.

Then it was back to OTM and off to Antique.  We redistributed the 
passengers from that low-wing craft which didn't want to land on
grass and the four Cessnas made the short hop across the river.  My
plane was the last one to arrive, and as I got closer I heard landing
scores being broadcast on CTAF.  Oh great!  Just what I need  :-)

Well, after being talked to the airport by those on the ground ("it's
just off your left wing now".....why can't they paint the turf grey
or something....those all-turf field are hard to find), I finally 
got in a left downwind for 18.  Fortunately for all of us the rather
gusty winds were directly out of the south.  Three small bounces and
I was down, with respectable 7s for my bother (and a disrespectful 4....
hmmmph).

The museum at antique is quite unique.  It has an incredible collection
of aviation stuff, including two old trainers (one a link trainer).
It has one hangar stuffed to the gills with old and/or unique aircraft,
and most if not all of them are still flyable.  Some of them looked a
little daring even for me.

The people at the museum were just superb.  So were the dogs!  But I
think what cost our eye the most was the old IBM System 56 (?) sitting
in a dimly lit corner.  Hasn't been used in decades, and the owner
just doesn't know what to do with it.  When he first told us he had
this old IBM system, I thought he was talking about something like
a PC.  This is.....well.....not quite the same class.

After about an hour or two it was time to go.  We gathered for
group pictures and took off.  The other three planes had to land
at OTM to redistribute passengers and take on fuel.  Eric and I
were going to head straight back to Du Page.  But we all ended up
over OTM at about the same time.  So this time *we* got to judge
*their* landings.....from the air!

Our return trip featured a 160 knot ground speed and one of the
gustiest cross wind landings I've ever had to do.  I'll let Eric
tell you about the landing ('cuz you wouldn't believe it if I told
it).

So, when is the next fly-in?

		William LeFebvre
		Computing Facilities Manager and Analyst
		Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
		Northwestern University
		<phil@eecs.nwu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.aviation