Jellystone Air Park: Flour Bombs & BBQ

Ladies and gentlemen the 2013 PBA Flour Bomb Chuckin' Fly-In & BBQ was a huge success! More than sixty-five people were on hand to enjoy Brother Price's World Famous Fall-Off-The-Bone Baby Back Ribs, and watch fourteen flying machines battle strong west winds at the November 2nd celebration at Pond Branch Airfield. The extra large turnout was not a surprise. The Pond Branch-Jellystone Telegraph was extremely active in the weeks leading up to the fly-in. If you are a member of the Gaston Tree Top Flyers; the Citadel Round Table; EAA Chapter 961 in Rock Hill, South Carolina; or one of the Luscombe groups on Yahoo and Facebook, your inbox was inundated with fly-in updates---all for a good cause!

This years contest was the third official (fourth overall) flour bombing competition to be held at Pond Branch Airfield. Previous events were held in December 2011, April 2012, and October 2012. Once again Brother Baker was in charge of advertising. I'm sure everyone involved will agree; he did a fantastic job! My bride, however, was not enthused with his decision to publish a 9am start time. As Commander in Charge of the Jellystone Squadron Support Vehicle (CCJSSV), she was responsible for fuel and ammo delivery.

Friday evening the conversation went something like this: CCJSSV: "Why do Yvonne and I need to be down there at 9am?" Me: "Because you can't have a flour bombing contest without flour bombs." (I probably should have skipped the sarcasm.) CCJSSV: "You know you'll never leave Rock Hill on time---just like last year, you'll be fogged-in!" Me: "Yeah; well we can't have people waiting around just because we thought it might be foggy." Saturday morning the fog was thick as pea soup. . . . (sigh)

Photo by Colin Baker

Eventually the fog cleared and the Jellystoners launched for Pond Branch Airfield. Just like the Triple Tree Invasion, I hitched a ride in the Hatz with Brother Barbeau, and young Colin Baker flew right seat for his Pop in Four Three Bravo. It was a chilly ride! Thirty degrees cooler than the flight down to Triple Tree Aerodrome---too cold for open cockpit iPhone photography. Luckily the Luscombe crew took up the slack.

Photo by Joe Baker

Fog near Winnsboro, South Carolina.

Photo by Colin Baker

Test shot.

Photo by Eddie Price

Joe and Colin announced their arrival at Pond Branch Airfield with a low pass down Runway 11. Gary and I were three miles north of the field. I had a nice view of the signature Baker pull-up from my seat in the front of the Hatz.

Photo by Eddie Price

Gary and I touched down a few minutes later. Another superb fly-in landing by Brother Barbeau. He always seems to know when the cameras are rolling---that's why we call him The Great Barbeau!

NC1143B and N558 in their usual parking spaces.

Tree Top Flyers Don Bledsoe and Neil Deye were the first to arrive. They were parked on the East Transit Ramp next to Elzie Hallman Road and I-20. Don's Super STOL Cessna 172 is a work of art. Neil's Apache is a frequent visitor during cooler months.

CCJSSV, Nancy Cottom, and Yvonne Carrasco (of Team Carrasco-Barbeau) set up shop on the north side of Runway 11.

Opposite the (very active) windsock . . .

. . . with a nice view of the target.

The flight deck of Karl Von Kaenel's 1949 Ryan Navion. In his spare time Karl flies a Boeing 717.

Brother Price's 1950 Cessna 140A, and two of three Weber grills used to produce PBA Fall-Off-The-Bone Baby Back Ribs.

Triple Webers at the 2013 PBA Fly-In.

Here they are in action! Nine racks of baby-backs, and 40 pounds of BBQ!

Gary and Yvonne in the chow line.

Just a few of the 65 (or so) . . .

. . . that passed through the line.

Karl had to sit on the ground because I broke a chair at the PBA Tree Top Flyer meeting back in April.

Team Baker's first bomb run.

I only snapped two action shots all day, apparently. This shot of Colin and Joe . . .

. . . and Neil's departure fly-by. Centered in the bulls-eye! Just not in the picture.

I did manage a nice video of Karl's Navion fly-by, however.

As the day progressed, the winds got stronger. After watching several go-arounds I started calculating approach speeds. The rule of thumb in the airline world is to use half of the computed head wind, plus all of the gust factor, when calculating wind additives. I know PBA isn't the airline world, but it's still a good rule of thumb. The winds were forecast to be out of the west at ten knots, with gusts up to eighteen. Eddie's windsock agreed with the forecast. Takeoffs would not be a problem; especially on PBA's downhill Runway 29. However; a thirteen knot wind additive will increase your landing distance significantly! My first landing at PBA was on Runway 29. The winds were light---and I used every inch of the 1,500' runway! With that in mind, I decided to skip this year's competition.