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Buy and fly (First flight is 1600 statute miles)


freedomaddict

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Monday April 6, 2015 flew from West Texas (Midland) to Orlando, Fl. with a United Airlines one way ticket and a plan to buy a small fun airplane. Looked at and flew a few Light Sport planes on Tuesday including a Remos, Super Petrol amphib and a CTLS. Been flying factory airplanes for 30 years and currently own a Turbo 210 for travel, but wanted a fun sport plane for low and slow flying fun.

I go to Oshkosh every year and Sun-n-fun every 2 or 3 years and have been on demo flights in several experimental and LSA airplanes. The CT line is the one that keeps calling me back. Anyway,  it was about noon on Wednesday April 8th and I had not made a deal yet on any of the airplanes in Florida. One of the last built, best equipped and lowest time (no damage history) 2007 CTSW was for sale in New Jersey about 15 miles from New York City and I decided to call and make an offer. The buyer accepted my offer and by 2:30 that day I was buying another one way ticket from Orlando to Newark NJ on Jet Blue. It was a "stand-by" flight. I got lucky and made the flight. By 8:30 pm I was in Newark. Next day was the first day of a cold front and low pressure system that brought low clouds, rain and generally lousy weather that would stick around for the next two days.

The CTSW was clean with only 540 hours TT and Dynon panel with a Garmin 796 with weather built into the panel and so I bought it. Spent the afternoon of Thursday sitting in the airplane and studying the POH.

Friday morning I took the Ferry across the Hudson River to New York City and went to the New York Auto show in the morning and walked around Manhattan in the afternoon. Saturday morning the ceilings were about 1700 overcast with gusty winds, but better weather was waiting a few hundred miles southwest. Since I was more than ready to leave and southwest was my direction of flight I took off about 8:30 am Saturday morning. The airport at Lincoln Park NJ is in a valley with hills running parallel to the runway on both sides. The wind was pretty stable in the valley and pretty darn rough above the hill tops. 

As soon as I climbed about 30 feet above the runway the rodeo began. For the first two hours I was pitched and bounced more consistently than I can recall and far beyond the bounds of what I consider fun flying. About an hour into this I was asking myself what I was thinking when I bought this plane. But after what seemed like about eight hours (about two hours) the clouds began to break and soon I was on top at 6500 with smooth air. Landed for fuel in Ohio and made my second landing in Olive Branch Mississippi (about 10 miles from Memphis). Did not have any trouble sleeping that night.

Next morning at 7:30 am the air is calm and I am about 100 feet above the muddy Mississippi river absolutely loving the view. Flew low in calm air all morning across the corner of Tennessee and all of Arkansas. This is what I bought this plane for. One of the most enjoyable flights I have ever taken. Landed in Sherman Texas for fuel and got home to Midland Texas at 3:30 pm after covering over 1600 statute miles of some of the best and worst flying I have ever done. In two days I logged 16.5 hours and now (just 3 weeks later) I have logged 47 hours TT in my 2007 CTSW.

I love this little airplane. I think all cowboys who are good should get to take a rough ride in a CTSW when they go to heaven.

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To Doug: Who wrote "We do need a button on this forum!" Thx it was a great adventure.

 

To Procharger: Who wrote  "Good for you welcome to CT world  :) How were your first landings in plane? What u pay for 2007 don't

have to reveal price if don't want to like, to see how values are holding on theses planes."  Thx- the first landings were much better than I expected. I have read the accident reports and the comments on demo rides had me concerned, but I slowed down and flew by the numbers and found it easy to land. The gusty winds in West Texas are a little more challenging, but I have no complaints.

As for price, not comfortable publishing price I paid on here, but the values are holding pretty well.

 

To CT4ME:  Thx 

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"For the first two hours I was pitched and bounced more consistently than I can recall and far beyond the bounds of what I consider fun flying. About an hour into this I was asking myself what I was thinking when I bought this plane."

 

We've all been there.

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Now come join all of us at the 2015 Page, AZ Fly-In in October. It's a one day flight for you. Best flying ever.

 

 

 

http://ctflier.com/index.php?/topic/3150-2015-annual-page-az-fly-in/

Thanks

I have a tentative trip to Arizona the weekend of the 23   Big Sandy Machine gun shoot

I will probably not be able to do both, but I really would like to come out and meet everyone.

We will see.

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Not sure yet about the Arizona Fly in, however,

I go to Oshkosh with some friends every year for about 3 days.

This year we will arrive Tues evening and leave Saturday morning.

We usually rent a deck boat and spend one day at the sea plane base.

If any of you would like to meet for supper one evening, let me know.

Seems like CT owners are a great group of people.

 

Mike Massey

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Welcome Mike.  Wondering if your CTSW has tundra gear?  You can have fun popping in and out of unimproved short fields in Texas @ 40 flaps.  Always interesting to read about the "ah-ha" moment when someone gives the CT a good workout and finds out what capabilities it has.

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Mike - that's a great oxymoron: Freedomaddict!

Good observation. I guess that would be true if freedom was free. I had not really thought it through.

Could the word freedom be an oxymoron by itself?

For us humans it seems that with every ounce of freedom comes an equal or greater amount of responsibility,,,,,,,

 

I think most of us who fly are freedom addicts.

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Welcome Mike.  Wondering if your CTSW has tundra gear?  You can have fun popping in and out of unimproved short fields in Texas @ 40 flaps.  Always interesting to read about the "ah-ha" moment when someone gives the CT a good workout and finds out what capabilities it has.

This one has the 400 X 6 tires They look pretty small. What size are the tundra tires?

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freedomaddict, was that really your *first* flight in a CT?  Do you have lots of experience with very light airplanes?  Many people coming from heavier airplanes have a hard time with the low inertia and light controls.  

 

Good on ya for the trip, that sounds like a lot of fun!  Hope to see you at Page in October if you can make it. 

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Mike - that's a great oxymoron: Freedomaddict!

 

An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction   Freedomaddict is not contradictory,  

 

Freedom is a noun, addict is a noun meaning: an enthusiastic devotee of a specified thing or activity, in this case the state of being free.

 

At best combining them is ingrammatical, but works if you expand addict to be addictive and thus an adjective to the noun freedom.

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Apparently it wasn't obvious. That's why i clarified it. Lecture? I leave those to others...

I think you should look up the definition of lecture. You don't need to post it here, the rest of us know the definition.

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