Greg's airfield in Westosha, WI.
The flight club office.
Greg's pretty truck.
Our horse for this ride, a Piper Archer .
Greg fueling up.
Hooking up all his GPS equipment.
Locking into satellites.
Taxiing by some of the other club planes.
And here we go...
Up, and heading toward the lake toward Chicago.
Heading to the east, we soon hit the lakefront.
Traveling down the lakeshore, we fly by
the Evanston area and Greg's Offices.
Movin' on down the lakefront to the Gold Coast.
Note the ship on land. That's a restaurant.
Downtown Chicago. Tallest here
is John Hancock Building.
Further along the skyline (Hancock Bldg now on right).
Chicago's Navy Pier and the Chicago locks.
Wider view. Tallest is Sears Tower.
A little further down, the Shedd Aquarium
(middle) and Planetarium (far, lower left)
Crossing over toward Gary, IN.
This one's for all you who battle the
Steel Bridge morning traffic drive.
After hours of looking out over the Indiana flatlands,
we hit the rolling foothills in Ohio.
Hard to see, due to an overcast sky, that's
the Ohio river wrapping around the bottom
of Ohio, with Kentucky across the river.
We need to head over to the Kentucky side now,
we can turn and line up to head for
Portsmouth at the southern tip of Ohio.
Beautiful rolling hills in this area. Now over Kentucky.
Nice, little hideaway, eh?
Close up. Not sure if it's a resort or a house?
Cool, little towns down in the valleys along the way.
Bigger towns. So cool looking, tucked in these valleys.
Head back across the river now to
land in Portsmouth, Ohio.
Barge along the river.
Close up.
There's the airport...coming in for a landing.
Turning for final...
...there's the runway.
I used to hate when planes landed. But after being
able to watch Greg land, it now doesn't bother me.
Touch down.
Welcome to Ohio!
Greg with his mom and dad, recreating a photo
from 30 years ago.
Greg and his mom, Carolyn.
Dad, Jerry Chapman.
Well, that was a fast visit!<smile>
Just a quick run by to transfer a car
title over for Greg's daughter, Beth.
And here we go again. Off toward Cincinnati to
stop for lunch and visit with PowerPoint MVP,
Steve Rindsberg at Lunken Airport.
Back up in the wild blue.
Checking the GPS, there's our plane!
Flying NW across Ohio.
After a little while, we start looking
for the airport.
Not far from Lunken. Recognize anything, Steve?
And there's the airport. Cleared for runway, right.
And as we're ready to land, air control warns us to move
our butts when we land, as there's another, bigger
plane right behind us.
We're down and keep on zippin'
to the end of the runway, as control huffs
and tell the other plane to go around.
"Hey, whatcha want, we're little guys! Geez!"
Thankfully, ground control is much nicer and
gives us greetings and help finding the
restaurant at the end of the airfield.
There it is. Home of the Hundred Dollar Hamburger!
Ooh! I'll take one of those!
Some cool cats hangin' out here!<smirk>
Unfortunately, the aviation store was closed,
even though the sign said these were open hours?
So we look around and then head off to the
very nice, fun, casual restaurant.
Very nice people here. The hostess?, manager?,
Lauri, comes out to help us with hotel info
as it's getting late and we decide we might
stay over night here in this beautiful area.
Greg chats with Lauri about where's a nice, local
hotel to stay the night and maybe hire a taxi?
Steve Rindsberg, wandering around trying to
find his way into the restaurant. Lauri lets him
in through the side door, onto the terrace.
Hey Steve! Thanks for coming out to
visit with us for a bit!
Steve look thrilled, as usual, to see Dian's
camera pointing in his direction.
A toast to a safe trip.
Greg proving to the FAA that he's just sipping soda.
Well Dian's not!
Another cosmopolitan...why thank you, Jen!
Greg takes Steve for a ride. Photographer that he is
I now have 20 minutes of film...of his seatbelt!<HA!>
Ah! Steve finally wakes up and gets some nice
shots of some type of dam along the river.
Hey, he even finds the zoom button! Impressive!
Back on the ground, conversations stop as
this Gulfstream blasts by the restaurant.
Cool...and Loud!
PPT MVP, Steve Rindsberg
Ok, if you insist.
Look Steve! Ice!!
Steve has had some bad experiences with ice!<smirk>
As this plane fires up, these kids enjoy sucking
exhaust as the wind from the engines blows them
back across the lawn.
Great guy that he is, Steve gives us a ride to
the hotel, the Best Western Mariemont, a
very cool, Olde English style hotel.
Nice lobby!
King Chappie!
Extravagant lobby.
Very quaint.
Greg checks in and nearly falls over
to learn the room is only about $70 night!
(Being used to paying an average of $150-$250
a night, this was an amazing price
for such a beautiful hotel.)
Very nice, relaxing atmosphere. Love all the wood!
Obligatory elevator shot!
Lots of warm wood and low lights give a relaxing feel.
Nice room.
Very comfy.
Gotta check out the bathroom.
Even the keys are cool!
A little park area outside on the street.
Rise and shine, Greg!
Checking out the rest of the hotel,
as we wait for a taxi.
I love this hotel! We will definitely be back!
Buckle up, we're off again!
Pretty area.
A little pool surveillance.
Humm, starting to get a little overcast!
Hey, they have drunk aliens here, too.
Yup, the weather definitely sucks!
We head for Dayton/Wright Bros airport to
wait out this weather.
Landing at Dayton/Wright Bros airfield.
While we watch the radar and wait it out,
we stroll around the hangars and check
out the planes.
Sadly, the Wright Bros museum wasn't open!
This little guy, Corbin, was visiting his aunt,
saw the planes and asked to go see them.
Greg sees him looking at the planes, and offers
him a close up look. Corbin is thrilled!
And so is mom, Trudy, as she enjoys seeing Corbin
enjoying himself as Greg lets him listen to the
incoming planes and talk on the headphones.
Corbin's aunt, Tina.
Lots of very loud jets zipping in and out.
Getting to know all the airfield staff as we hang out
for a few hours waiting out the storm.
Bill McNab, Chief Flight Instructor.
Nice guy! Wanna learn to fly, head over to
Dayton/Wright Bros and ask for Bill!
News helicopter lands. Cool!
Nice visiting, but excited when
the sky begins to turn blue again!
Still dark over the field, but blue skies
in the direction we'll be going.
We wait for a jet to land.
And it's our turn.
Now that looks much better!
How pretty!
Heading away from Dayton, toward Richmond, Indiana.
But another storm front is passing! Not too
bad out Greg's side, but out over my wing...
It's a little darker, to say the least!
Holy crap!
Check out the wall of rain!
Greg checks for airfields, in case we need to land.
But we skirt the outter edge of the storm and,
luckily, soon it clears up as that front passes us.
Cool...a blimp!
See.
Heading back through, ahem, exciting Indiana.
Nice house being built, doesn't it look like a toy?
Wild looking golf course!
We get permission to fly through military airspace.
There's the base.
Cool!
Ah! The Chicago skyline appears
above the clouds as we near northern Indiana.
Ah and the lovely Gary, Indiana, steel mills!
Waves crashing along the breakers out in the lake.
Pretty.
This is your captain speaking!
Steel mills.
Heading back along Chicago's skyline
Meigs field and McCormick place.
See our pictures from when we flew
out of Meigs.
Cool shot of Sears Tower off the wing.
A little cool and windy today.
Heading up near Wisconsin.
Cool marsh.
Almost home.
Turning to final approach at Westosha.
And there's the airfield and runway.
Almost done.
Touch down.
Thanks for riding along...
hope you enjoyed the flight!
