Horn Point Revisited 2009

It's late Sunday night. The house is quiet. The two dogs who hang with me are sleeping nearby as I type. It is time for the Horn Point debrief. The weather is always a challenge on Horn Point weekend. This year was no different. A few events compete with Horn Point on the third Saturday in May: Andrews AFB Open House, the Preakness at Pimlico, Hot Rod Weekend in O.C., Md., the Yaks at ESN, the Blues Festival at Annapolis, and lots of other events. The weather Saturday morning here on the shore was not promising. I did a damn thorough pre-flight on the M10 Cadet. We got all buttoned in to go.... but the battery was dead. My friend Eric was with me and he held on the brakes and I propped her and she fired and ran on the first pull. So we head on over to Horn Point. The ceiling was about 1100 feet. So the turnout was pretty small. But we had a nice fly-in. My friend BD was there with his beautiful Stearman. My friend Clark came in with a PA-12. They both had thier girlfriends with, which was nice. My friend Paul flew my Cher OH Kee in and he did a nice job with a fly by. I saw lots of old friends. The sky cleared for mid day. The grand prize went to an ancient Waco that was so nicely restored it would bring tears to your eyes. Another prize winner was a lovely Fleet biplane that made you think you were in a time warp or a Richard Bach novel. There was a rare Great Lakes, and it's J-3 partner, an incredible classic early Bonanza, and a Cessna T-50 which we look forward to every year and who stops the show when he takes off with the twin radials. Two impeccable L-16's. The comradeship was great. This club is a core of great guys who have lost many members simply to old age. They are surviving as a club by passing the torch along, but it's tough because of general aviation's decline. I could write a dozen posts to tell about Horn Point Airfield, and the club that shows up there once a year for their fly-in. The thing that touched me the most was after the awards presentations. There were only twenty or thirty of us left there. The grand prize winner was asked to fly his plane for us. He simply walked out to the Waco and took it out and up. An historic airplane on an historic airfield. He flew it around over our heads and we watched like townies watch a barnstormer. We shot the breeze and they had broken out the beer. The guy lands and taxis the Waco right up to our small group and shuts down. He gets out and walks over to us and we're speechless. Then we all just start clapping. GA Informal.