Well yesterday evening I was wrestling with putting together the sawhorses when my friend, Tom Webster, called and offered his right seat for a trip to Carrolton, OH. Of course I jumped at the opportunity, so we met at the airport around 11:00am and departed maybe a half hour later. After about an hour of flying, we had the airport in sight.

Carrolton looks like a nice, sleepy little town.

Tom flew a left traffic pattern and eased us in for a nice landing. Here's a view out the front on final.

After landing and chatting with Damon, an RV-4 driver, Bill and Gary did a formation flyby followed by some nice breaking turns.

Bill (Popeye) was the first to land in his RV-8...

...followed a few seconds later by Gary (Shiner) in his not-so-slow and ever-so-shiny RV-6.

After lunch with the RV group (Tom, Bill, Gary, Damon) and a couple non-RV flying friends (Dave and Dan), we got to meet Brian (an American Airlines Super-80 pilot) and his friend Jim who had driven over from the central Ohio area. Brian is considering starting an RV-8 project when he gets time.

Rick showed up with his daughter flying right seat just before we were about to leave. Apparently his lawn mower threw a belt and he had to fix that before flying out, so he missed lunch. Too bad...the pie was great.

They decided to fly out as a flight of four with Tom and I straggling behind the formation. Here we are bringing up the rear as we taxi out for runup.

Runups complete and it was time to go!

Bill was lead, Gary had 2nd position, Damon had 3rd, and Rick was in the slot. Tom and I were the photo-ship for this run.

This was the first time I'd been witness to a formation from the air. Very cool.

One more shot of the flight for good measure.

After making a low pass over the private airstrip of a friend of theirs, we continued as a flight of three-plus-one up to Medina where we dropped in on Bernie. Bernie had his airplane taken apart for the annual condition inspeciton. We chatted for a while before the group started to break up.

Here's Damon in front of his beautiful RV-4. Ya know, I think I like the looks of the RV-3 and 4 the best of all the planes Van has designed.

Bernie asked me to snap a shot of all the transient RV's on the ramp. Apparently there are three RV's based out of Medina, but for the time we were there, it was seven. :-)

A little later, Gary and Bill headed out. Here's Gary in front of his shiny RV-6. I sure love the look of a polished airplane...as long as it's not mine. ;-)

Bill was kind enough to let me snap this shot of him in front of his RV-8.

Before Tom and I headed out, I got a photo of him and Bernie.

Then Tom and I climbed aboard his -7A and headed out.

Bernie snapped this shot (and the previous one). Tom let me fly quite a bit this time both on the way to Carrolton and back to Delaware. That RV sure flies nice. Thanks again for the flight, Tom. Great fun as always.