Zodiac X-C: Niagara Westbound 3

I do not have a sign in the cockpit telling the ground handlers where I wish to park, but I am able to speak with a young lady nearby who then allows me to park at the end of the very first row since I will be leaving shortly to pick up Ron in Green Bay. I register the aircraft, pick up my free 2006 EAA beer mug, and turn down the flight line to see what is new this year.

In short order, I decide that the new Sport Pilot and Light Sport Aircraft rules are this year’s defining element. There are numerous new designs and any number of ventures catering to the Sport Pilot and his aircraft. Many of the designs are copies of the aircraft in which I trained forty years earlier, some with nearly the same engines. Some are new and untested with many features that could have benefited with a little more input from would-be customers. A few are proof-of-concept aircraft as yet untested by well known companies. I find that I tend to prefer the proven experimental designs that have been around a number of years and those old trainer copies with which I grew up.

I ultimately decide the Zodiac in which I arrived compares favorably with everything I see, and the Zenith CH701 STOL I have on floats and skis in Alaska is probably the best on water, snow, and ice when operating out of the smaller lakes up there. Those two designs, having been on the market for twenty years, will probably be around next year also.

I depart the next morning at 7 a.m. for Green Bay to pick up Ron. With no transponder aboard, I request permission to enter the GRB airspace and am handled quickly and courteously by the controllers both ways. By 9 a.m. we are over Ripon again, fly the same arrival, and return to my parking spot.
I give Ron the dollar tour of AirVenture 2006. Although the best pilots in the world are about to perform, we taxi out and depart shortly before the field is closed for the daily airshow. We have seen most of them before and decide we would rather have a nice quiet afternoon elsewhere rather than spend three hours watching fuel and dollars being converted into noise on a 100° day.

The following morning Ron has me out of bed and the CH601 is ready to go by 6 a.m. Our host uses his four-wheeler to move sixty Canada geese off the runway, and Ron quickly departs before they settle back on THEIR grass runway.

A half-hour later we touch down on eighteen-hundred feet of grass belonging to another friend who is in the golf course business. Later we fly with him in his newly restored C-182 and truly love the sensation of arriving on an airfield of “golf-greens” grass with nearby ponds, ducks, geese, and trumpeter swans. The bright red Zodiac looks rather nice in the midst of all that green, and after a quiet dinner with pleasant company at an historic inn nearby, we can only say we have not sacrificed a thing by passing up the airshow.