I took Friday Sept 9th off work so I could drive down to Hood River and car camp at the airport for the annual WAAAM fly in. After getting everything packed up in the van, I left the house a few minutes after 11 and stopped to top off gas in Covington. Back on the road, there were a few slowdowns in Tacoma, but once I got thru that, I just held a steady 60 all the way to Hood River via I-5, -205, and -84. Arrived there a few minutes after 4pm. I was surprised how many planes had already arrived, the airport was bustling. Lots of RV’s already there too set up for camping, pushing me to a slightly out of the way alternate camping area. Still had a view, but a longer walk to the portapotties and the museum. But no problem really. I should have left early enough to get there at 8-9am to be one of the first and have my choice of spaces and also see many more planes arrive. If I do this again another year, I’ll know.
-My camping spot at sunset – not bad.
It was warm enough to be comfortable until the sun went down, then it cooled off quickly. Before it got dark I set up my tent deciding that since I’ve never used it I may as well make use of it rather than sleep in the van(I would regret this the 2nd night). Had various munchies to snack on, a cooler with pop and beer, and used my Jetboil to heat up a can of chili for supper. Took only a minute to get it hot enough to eat. Listened to my scanner and watched lots of planes come in and some take off just to fly the pattern and land again. Being an uncontrolled airport, its interesting to hear everyone constantly update their position and intention. With all the planes flying there is no shortage of radio activity. Got dark about 8 and I sat on a lawn chair in the dark until about 9 then crawled in the tent to sleep. Lots of partying going on with campers all over until well after midnight so didn’t get too much sleep. It also cooled off into mid 40’s but I was warm enough in sleeping bag, and slept good from 2 – 7 when activity started up for the day.
Saturday morning I got over to the Lions Club fundraising breakfast in one of the hangars about 8 and got in a long line of other hungry campers. Full meal deal was $7 for 2 pancakes, 2 sausage patties, scrambled eggs, and coffee and juice. Satisfying. Then went out to the field to walk around. The day was basically just meandering thru the planes and down to a viewing area as close to the paved parking and runway as I could get. Spent a lot of time in the sun and the day got warm, mid 80’s but breezy. Used my little go-pro knock off to take video which are posted on my You Tube channel. I’m still getting used to using this little camera so there is a lot of shaking as I move it about, and some of the shots are not placed as well as they should be. I clipped it to my belt for walking around and my shadow looks funny sometimes. Should have clipped or carried it higher. This camera has a 170 degree wide angle lens so it fits lots into the picture but distorts somewhat as well. It seems to do very well when still.
I carried a new selfie-stick with me in my pants cargo pocket and somehow it fell out while I was walking around. After realizing it and unable to locate it after backtracking my steps to look for it, I pretty much gave up. But a few hours later I checked lost and found at the museum front desk and someone had turned it in! That made me feel good. Never did use the thing though.
Lions Club hosted lunch as well, full meal deal of a hamburger for $7, or hot dog $5, incl chips and softdrink. My hamburger about 2pm was good. I had waited until then so I didn’t have to stand in a line. About 5 I went to the beer garden and had an ale and visited with a pilot from Oregon, who came from the coast.
I had my scanner with headphones on the whole time and pretty much knew who was coming and going at every minute. There was constant flying activity all day long, whether planes were arriving from outside the area, taking off just to show off, or even a few departing. There was no real coordinated air show of any kind. It was very crowded with planes. I had heard someone say last year was a record with over 160 and this year was closer to 400! Listening to Gound radio, they were sending arrivals into grass area for those staying the night, or to dirt area for those just there for the day. Lots of dust being blown about.
There was no big excitement over anything in particular, but one of the best things for me on Saturday was hearing a DC3 call in on the scanner 10 miles to the north that they would do two low approaches over the field enroute to The Dalles for landing. It was less than 5 minutes and they were over the field, so I had my camera ready. They did this again on departing The Dalles in the afternoon with one fly over on their way back north.
Saturday evening, with no Lions Club hosted dinner available, I fixed my own supper again and waited for sundown. It was comfortable enough until after dark, but the wind was picking up. I crawled into the tent again about 9pm, but the wind was strong enough to blow the tent around making it too loud to sleep. It was the kind of strong wind that bothers me at home, so windy that the tent wanted to flatten on me a couple times. I had it well staked down, and at this point wished I just slept in the van to begin with. Guess I still could have moved, but also felt like maybe I was helping hold down the tent. So I didn’t get all that much sleep. Oh well, it was an experience!
It remained very windy all of Sunday morning. I’m sure many of the camping pilots didn’t sleep very well either, and the first one started up for departure before 6am. Which probably woke up everybody else who may have been sleeping. I got up at 7 and fixed myself some instant oatmeal, inside the van-the jetboil wouldn’t stay lit outside in the wind. Then walked back to the field to watch the constant departures. About 9am I walked over and bought myself another lions club breakfast. No lines this time. Then back to more meandering around. As I walked by one small aircraft, a lady grabbed me to help push/pull the plane. I don’t know where the ground crew was at that moment, but I was happy to help. In one of the videos you’ll notice me helping but the video is choppy because my sweatshirt kept getting in the way of the camera on my belt so I had to edit it out. The video wasn’t as good as it could have been. Live and learn.
Most planes were leaving earlier than I expected, and the grass parking areas were nearly empty by 1030. It was very orderly, not everyone tried to leave at the same time. I packed up and left at 11am and there were maybe only a dozen planes left. So it was pretty much over at that time. I didn’t see any point in hanging around any longer as there just wasn’t enough activity at that point.
I was so tired out by that time that I just headed home, rather than drive somewhere else for the night. Got a good nights catch-up sleep in my own bed and spent most of Monday writing this and editing and posting video. Oh, and the van got 29mpg for the RT.