Mystery Solved

Greetings Brethren!

We have a print of a Great Lakes Biplane on the wall in our family room.  It's by Sam Lyons, and is titled "Gone Flying."  The scene has a blue and white Great Lakes parked in front of an old corrugated metal hangar, on what is surely a small town airport---just about everything I love about general aviation.  In the background the pilot is hanging a sign on the hangar door that says:  Gone Flying.  I often wondered why Sam painted the guy wearing a flying helmet when he wasn't in the cockpit yet.  Now I think I know why.

On Thursday Brother Baker and I had planned on flying over to Rutherford County to have lunch with a some of the guys from our side of the field.  As it turned out, it was kind of breezy.  Instead of tempting fate in the 21 knot crosswind, we decided to just hang at Jellystone Air Park and work on the Hatz's brake system---a job that ended up being much easier than I thought it would be.  Of course I was assisting the Zen Master, so I don't know why I thought it would be difficult!  We even finished in time to have lunch with the guys at the Ebernezer Grill in Rock Hill.

Before closing up shop for the day we decided a taxi test to check the brakes would be a good idea.  Since I wasn't going to fly, I put the flying helmet and headset in the front cockpit.  Then I leaned forward and promptly whacked the top of my bald head on the back side of the windshield frame.  I had some momentum going too!  On inspection Brother Baker said:  "Yeah, it's oozing a bit."  I've done this once before.  From now on I'm donning the helmet before I climb in the cockpit!  I guess Sam knows what he's painting.