2nd ANNUAL PRIMARY TRAINER FLYIN

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The Upland community was delighted to see all of the activity at Cable Airport on Sept 18, 19 and thought there was an air show being performed. That’s what happens when 15 Stearman, 6 Ryans, 3 Wacos, a L-19, a N-2-N, 2 Cubs, a Great Lakes, and a Fairchild gather. Then comes the formation flight demonstrations complete with smoke, the multiple attempts at message drops, short field take-offs, and of course the spot landing competition.

The aircraft came from southern California, Phoenix and Las Vegas. Even had a visitor that came from France. He shared there were only 5 Stearman in all of France. He learned about this fly-in on a Stearman web-site and came. He was delighted to see 3 times as many, but was terrified they were landing on asphalt, as all the fields in France are grass.

Weather Gods decided to add additional challenges by switching wind directions. The planners had to re-strip runway 6 for the judging marks and the photographers loved the background with the trees.

Besides all of the soft drinks and beer, there were 500 bottles of water, 40 pounds of brisket, lots of fuel and one runway light consumed at this fly-in.

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This was the second annual “PT” Primary Trainer Flyin. Those visiting pilots had nothing but good comments, ie “What a wonderful piece of heaven we have at Cable”. There is a third annual PT Flyin being planned already.

In an interview with Mike Polley, the ideas of the Flyin were inspired by Lane Leonard and all the stuff he did. It was impressive when pilots like Jimmy Doolittle and Eric Shilling would drop by his hangars. When he had a flyin, he also had the “drive-in” when all the antique cars joined in.

Among the activities were two fly-outs….a 7 Stearman formation flew out to the beach cities, out along the coast. One pilot’s daughter collected her friends on a pier waiting for the fly-by. The rest of the planes went to the Cal Aero Country Club hangars at Chino .

Each evening there were flights to ‘salute the sunsets’. As we said, there was lots of fuel consumed!!

Saturday night there were 80 people attending the festivities. Awards were given out to the winners of the competitions. Our own Doug Schuster won the spot landing contest and Terry Freedman got Best of Show/People’s Choice for the PT-22 Ryan!!!

The PT Flyin sponsored 20 students from the “Horizon Project”, a collegiate program for student pilots. The students helped with every aspect of the three day event.

Many thanks go to Maniac Mikes Café staff and the Green Egg Cookoff. With special thanks to Jim Craven for the multiple trips he made to keep the planes flying!!! He stayed late to make sure all of the planes were fueled for the next day’s early flights.

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