Monocoupe Entry 3

Well, we bought an airplane today. 

And this plane actually participated in the 1938 national air races. 

But I really bought it because it is really my dream airplane. It's like a Buell motorcycle with wings, and by that I mean that it has lots of power, and very little else. 

Here's a video of it taxiing up after a short flight. 

http://youtu.be/Chu5czlRf5A

And I already have a really funny story about our first flight of ownership of this plane. 

We bought the plane, signed papers, and took the rental car back to Hertz at Richmond international, about 20 miles north of the small airport where this airplane was based. We planned to head west immediately and get two hours in (240 miles, enough to get us to Blacksburg) before sundown. We were back at the hangar, all gassed, loading bags in the minuscule baggage compartment when I realized that I'd left my wallet in the rental car. 

To understate: "Bummer..."  

Picture all our options:

1) screw it. Cancel the credit cards, forget the cash and reapply for all my IDs and licenses after returning home.

2) drive back up there and look for it -- 1 1/2 hours wasted and forget about flying tonight. 

3) call.  See if it's there and have them hold it. (Good luck even finding the number to the right place)

4) go online and fill out the lost and found form with Hertz and wait two weeks hoping to get lucky (I call this Nancy option, Switzerland passport story later)

We went for option 5) which is pure Polish logic. "I left my wallet at an airport. I have an airplane. Let's fly up and get it!"

Ok, this is funny. I've owned this plane for an hour, have one successful landing in it, have very little idea how any of the radios work or even where the damn altimeter is, have almost never flown into a tower airport, have not reviewed radio procedures for tower airports prior to this trip (I've been busy at work), and did you know this is not just a tower airport but a regional/international airport and they're landing MD-90s over there? 

And yet this guy who just sold me this airplane and wants me to just disappear, and my own father talked me into thinking this is the best idea. 

Ok, let's do this. 

The map gives the weather and tower frequencies, but we were too clueless to know that they only put that info on the chart for guys like us to call in and say "How do you do and I'm legally overflying your airport, have a good day". It's not for guys like us to call in to land. You have to call Potomac on 126.75 for sequencing. "Oh, OK." 

Here's a tidbit of the the radio exchange:

ME: "Potomac, this is Monocoupe 054 10 miles south at 1200ft inbound to Richmond"

Potomac: "Last calling station, say again call sign."

After a few tries they finally figure out we are the smallest plane you can imagine trying to fit in between the big jets. I think they understood all along but just wanted to point out to us just how ridiculous it all was. 

I was in complete agreement. 

But this is all completely legal and we persist in attempting to land so they finally route us in a 20-mile loop around the south and west sides of Richmond over to runway 25 which is a short, skinny little thing going perpedicular to the runway the big jets are using and is still 8 times larger than we need. We could almost land sideways on it. 

We narrowly missed turning off on taxiway "J" but the thing turns a 180 in its own shadow, so the ground controller asks to flip a U-ey and then they gave us an awesome tour of the grounds, finally holding short of the runway the jets were landing on. Yup. In comes an MD-90 landing right in front of us. We finally taxi over to a corporate jet service called "Million-Air". Not kidding. And they don't offer tie down but can park our little plane in their huge hangar with a bunch of jets for $75 a night. Fine, I gotta get my wallet. Go for it. 

We use dad's credit card (our sole remaining card now) to get a reservation at a nearby hotel that will send a shuttle for us. We talk the shuttle driver into stopping by at the Hertz car return lot on the way to the hotel. At the Hertz counter they send me to the lot, where they send me to the pumps, where the car has gone in the 3 hours since I dropped off the car. On the way I get to know Calvin, who is just working here temporarily to get money to pay taxes on the house he's not living in that his mother left him when she died..."  I guess my day's not so bad. At least I got a new plane. In the office at the pumps I find...  

MY WALLET WITH ALL CARDS AND CASH STILL IN IT!!!!

I gotta send those guys a cake sometime. 

But somewhere, there is a man named Calvin who gave me the excellent advice that "you just keep chugging along and it all works out."  And Calvin knows that there will be a man in Idaho who for a very long time will remember a man named Calvin in Virginia.