October 2005 - American Bonanza Society

BY ELLIOn SCHIFFMANHINGHAM. MASSACHUSEnS~aCh year brings surprises andrewards. This year we had thelargest formation since ourrecord-breaking year in 1996. Wehad the best parties, the best raffle.the most notable AirVenture experienceand the longest-duration. mostsevere thunderstonn I can remember.Once again, training sessions wereheld in Massachusetts. New York, Texas,Indiana, California and Oregon. NorthCarolina was cancelled because ofweather, but anyone needing trainingthere was handled on an individual basis.Nothing happens without advancepreparation. Early arrivals Thursday atour rendezvous site in Rockford,Illinois, did the early preparation workand shopping. Early Friday the kitchenat Emery Air was a beehive of activitywith more than a dozen of us slicing anddicing what seemed like a ton of tomatoes,cucumbers, onions, basil andcheeses, heating up the baked beans andsetting up serving trays. By early afternoonthe first crew of volunteers hadsorted the B20sh shirts by size andorganized the delivery process.Yes, the day was hot and humid,but not as bad as some. The supportstaff at Emery Air did a great advancejob of emptying out their hangar andhelping out in every way they could.The hangar environment was perfectand the party was a great success.Saturday brought the final arrivals,swelling our ranks to 101 aircraft fortheformation flight. The biggest problemwas weather and winds. Heavy thunder-Thete ate alway~ "good eat~"atound when the B20~h gtoupget~ togethet.storms, especially in the Oshkosh area,led to a preliminary briefing, a delay oftwo hours and a final updated briefingjust prior to departure. Although thethunderstorms had dissipated, itappeared tai lwinds for Runway 36might force a different arrival pattern.The key row leaders and formationtrainers met for an hour prior to thebriefing, going over the changingweather pattern, following its progress,evaluating the potential wind on arrival.By final briefing time, the consensuswas that the tailwind component at OSHwould be manageable and allow ourstandard three-Ship formation.John Wiebener, the lead pilot forthe formation this year, again did thebriefing. Mike Babler, the lead instructorat the Grayson Advanced FormationTraining Session, was introduced as thelead pilot for the 2006 formation flightthat wi ll be held July 22.Taxi out and line up on the rampwas uneventful, and takeoff progresseduneventfully unt il the lead of element13 had his engine sta lled. The groundcrew did a great job getting him off therunway, allowing the remainder of theformation to depart with only a fewminutes delay. The next row leaderassumed lead of the last two thirds ofPage 9286www. bonanza.orgABS October 2005