Eclipse and Flying at Brady

We went to church Sunday and then spent most of the day getting ready for a trip to Brady to fly with Leonard and Audrey on Monday.

We had planned on watching the eclipse at the Brady flying field but when we got to Oakville there were low clouds so we turned around and went back to Rochester where it was clear and parked in the Highway 12 Diner parking lot.

It was a nice spot with only one other car there watching.

I tried a few pictures with the filters out of my welding hood but they were not very clear.

I cut one of our Eclipse viewing glasses in two and taped it to the Nikon lens with black electrical tape and the pictures started looking much better.

I could see sun spots after I got the camera set the way I wanted it.  I used manual focus, exposure and shutter speed.

This is the last picture I got as the camera battery died right after it and the extra battery was dead also.

I had mounted the GoPro camera in my Super Cub and took pictures and video every time I flew it.  This is what the runway looks like.  The brown area under the plane is a pea field that has been harvested, to the left is a corn field with corn that must be about eight feet tall.

Not all my landings turned out perfect, but no damage was done.

Of course Vera got a picture of me turning it over.

I worked hard on the next landing and it turned out great!

I was pretty darn happy after that landing.

The sun shades got lots of use today, there were eight of us there.  The weather really cooperated as the winds were light all day.

Some one had crashed in a tree across the road and left the plane there.  Vera, John, Leonard, Audrey and Ken went over and looked for it in the tree.  John went back later and found this much on the ground.

The corn got one plane when the flap linkage came loose on take off.  It was pretty exciting for a few seconds but no real damage was done.

We went home via Jackson Hwy and kept meeting lots of cars. Normally we will only meet a couple for the whole route.  When we got to Exit 57 we could see why, all the Eclipse traffic headed back North was just crawling along.

We met lots of traffic on Barnes Drive as well and when we got to Exit 52 we could see lots of rigs getting off I-5 and going up Barnes Drive.

This is looking North from Exit 52, a lot of the problem was probably the change down to two lanes up by the rest areas.  We were sure glad we were headed South all afternoon.  It was a long and busy day, but it was sure worth it.