Reklaw Fly-In, October 2013

The Reklaw Fly-In is hosted every October by David & Marcia Mason at their Flying M ranch located in the piney woods of East Texas. www.reklawflyin.com/

This year was my first trip there. A group of us from Angleton flew & drove up and camped together under the wings of our planes. Dave Turner flew his Taylorcraft, Lee Jordan flew his Piper Cruiser, & I flew the 750 up. It's about a 2.5 to 3 hr flight depending on winds, about 230 miles from Angleton.

"Camp Angleton"

I'll try this. Long night for a wus.

There must have been 400 plus planes there of almost every design short of jet powered. the weather was great on Friday & Saturday, but was predicted to deteriorate  overnight & early Sunday with rain moving in. We all decided the smart thing to do was break camp & book-out Saturday PM.

It's a cool display of what's great about America to go to something like this. Ingenuity and creativity are abundant in Experimental and General Aviation. Think about it,  we can jump in a plane we built, fly it across the country and gather with like-minded people without having to do anything but just go do it. No government clearance, TSA lines, baggage fees, flight plans etc., just go. Pretty cool and precious in my opinion.

Friday night I found that a Gin Martini tastes pretty good out in the country under the stars. They help you sleep on the ground, provide relief from the cold, and they make you really smart. The last discussion I remember dealt with the structure of the Universe.   :-)

Here are a few shots of the Fly-In:

August 2013 update:

I have been flying N75ZX for 1 year now. I had the first annual inspection done on the plane this weekend, everything checked out fine. Compression check on the engine showed 79-79-78-78/80 which is excellent. I've made a couple of weekend trips to the Dallas area this summer and quite a few Texas area fly-ins this spring. As of 8/03/13 I've got 215 hrs. of flight time on the plane. Fuel burn is averaging around 5 - 5 3/4 gal per hour.

The 750 is very easy to fly. I've gotten comfortable with all the different landing configurations such as no-flaps, full flaps, no power, power on, crosswind, downwind, etc. Stall speed is around 36-40 mph, depending on weight and air density. The stall turns into a "mushy wings level sink" with no nose drop like most aircraft, which I assume is due to the slats on the leading edge of the 750's wings. I typically cruise it at around 2200 -2300 rpm & this produces around 78-84 mph. Maximum continuous cruise rpm of 2470 rpm produces 88-90 mph, and redline 2625 rpm gets it right at 100 mph. I like the lower rpm settings. It's not stressing the engine at all, better fuel economy, and at the higher rpms the extra 5-10 mph is just not worth the effort.

One of the trips to Dallas I encountered some bad weather. I took off on Sunday around 12 noon after a pretty serious line of T-storms had moved through the Dallas area that morning. Later that day, I ended up catching up with the squall line from behind just NW of the Houston area. I detoured to Navasota, landed, and took a nap under a covered fueling area while waiting for the line to clear on out. About an hour & a half later I took off and flew her on in to Angleton. Here are a couple of photos of the back-side of the squall line as I approached it from behind.

Here are a few other photos from earlier this spring:

Early February of 2013, nice cool weather.

Mustang Beach Airport at Port Aransas, TX, late April

Ft. Parker Flying Field near Mexia, TX in late March.
The fellow that lives in the house on the hill hosts a few
Fly-ins each year. A lot of older, classic light planes are
 showcased such as Taylorcrafts & Cessna 120 & 140's. 

Next month on the weekend of Sept. 20th & 21st, I plan to take a week off from work and fly to the Zenith Factory in Mexico, MO.  http://www.zenithair.com/   Each year they hold an "Open Hangar Day" event where builders fly their planes in. Looking forward to it!