My son and a couple of his kids visited me this week and decided to “check out” the Go Ape site. All did a great job of navigating the course. The safety instruction was awesome. Some photos from the “happening” are below:
First safety lecture
She said the red clip goes where?
More safety lectures close to the ground
First solo “flight at altitude”
Butt first landing on one of the zip-lines
Approach to landing by Pa Pa Bear
Tarzan swing into net
All survived
The airplane featured in this video is made right here in River City, St Louis, folks. Several years ago I flew my little Cessna down to Kentucky Lake via radio navigation. On the way back I decided I had enough of that video game flying (using instruments) so I just followed the Mississippi back home to St Louis. About 75 miles south of St Louis I see a speck in the distance moving towards me and I thought what the heck is it? As it came closer I could see it was an F-18 seemingly intending to intersect my flight path which is usually not a good thing. It passed directly in front of me with its wings perpendicular to the earth. It filled my entire windscreen and I could see both pilots laughing their “A’s” off. I was scared and thrilled all at the same time. Thrilled because I had never “interacted” with a fighter jet ever before in my life. I was scared because I had constantly been preached to in ground school to never get near the wake of a jet aircraft. I quickly ran through the drill in my mind on what to do if ever inverted which was kind of useless because a Cessna 172 is not built to handle inverted flight; the wings simply fail and fold up right before you grab your cheeks and kiss it goodbye. The dreaded turbulence never happened. My guess, since they passed slightly below me, is that by the time my slow-moving (125 MPH) Cessna reached the spot where they crossed my path the turbulence had sunk below my aircraft. Whatever the reason I thanked the Lord profusely as I tried to process what had just happened to me. Again, it was both fun and terrifying and I guess “all is well that ends well”.
The above photograph is one that I took while flying back from a Michigan City, Indiana trip. An F-18 silhouette has been added to the upper right corner with the help of Photoshop to give you and idea of what I saw coming toward me.
Below are some images from this weekend’s Ice Carnival held in the “Loop” neighborhood of St Louis (where Chuck Berry’s Blueberry Hill restaurant lives).
Fitz’s Rootbeer
GoMusicSTL
Phoenix Rising
Three Dog Bakery
HSB Tobacconist
Baked T’s
Blueberry Hill
Chuck Berry Statue
Friday afternoon I received an e-mail from our Model A club president saying the Horseless Carriage Club was looking for more show cars for their exhibit at the Museum of Transportation in St Louis. The cavalry came with a flock of Model A’s and other usual suspects. The star of the show came flying in at 18 MPH on all cylinders (one). The owner said the 1903 automobile built by the St Louis Motor Carriage Co was not designed to be faster than horses but just go further than horses. It is really cool so if you are not familiar with the car check out the below video. Teddy Roosevelt visited the show to see how America’s auto industry was progressing (above image)
Below is a quote from a long time friend of mine about a newsletter from the my Model A club and St Louis. My response follows his quote:
“Good to hear something fun and nice about St Louis. As you know, the national news has not been so good the past week or so”
The international news of late about St. Louis saddens me because I believe St. Louis is a wonderful city with good race relations. During the time I ran my small business and more recently working with Meals-on-Wheels, Room at the Inn and St Patrick Center I encounter all races and not once has there been a negative race incident. Also some of you may not realize out of 203 arrests in Ferguson only six lived in Ferguson. Most of the arrests were for people from other cities as far away as Texas and as near home as the city of St Louis. I pray the truth and all the facts come out about the tragic shooting and we return to living peacefully with all those made in God’s image. Please join me in those prayers. – Ron Jackson
Recently I met a long time friend at the St Louis airport and had a few moments to kill before his plane arrived so I checked out the local USO. At the entrance to the USO they have placed the very “moving” below exhibit:
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