Borrowed Dave's Stakes

     [From my notes written last week.]

     I had not thought of parking my aircraft on the grass. We most often park on the tarmac. The rules state that all Air Classic racers must carry tie downs and stakes. We pound the stakes into the grass, then the tie the ropes to them and to the wings of the plane. Not that panic set in, for I try hard not to stress about things, but I did, momentarily, two days before take-off, recognize that one could panic about not having stakes for the tie-downs. No problemo, as they used to say. I phoned my hubby and asked him if he happened to have stakes.
      "Hmm. Well, they are probably in my hangar." (Note: LOTS of stuff in John's hangar; may take hours to locate anything; not pressing panic button yet.)
      So off I drove to his hangar. Turning onto the drive of Wichita Valley, I noted that Dave's hangar door was up. I pulled up and parked. Dave, upon seeing a vehicle pull up and park, stopped his work building a Piper Cub (from scratch) and brought out a couple of lawn chairs.
     "Hi, Dave. Is Pat at home?" I said as I sat down, knowing the drill.
     "Don't have the foggiest idea," he said, sitting down and offering me a bottle of water.
     "Just wanna ask her a quick question. What's your home number?" I dialed on my cell phone as he told me.
     "It rings four times and then switches to the fax," he said.
     "One . . . two, hi, Pat," I said.
     I asked her a question that Natalie Garcia, KAUZ News, asked me. "Are we the first women in our area to enter the Air Race Classic. Her answer was, "Yes." Pat wished me good luck and fair skies.
     "Well," I started to say, "I now have to venture into the hangar to find a set of stakes.
     "No, you don't," said Dave, and arose from his lawnchair, and walked to one of the shelves. He took from the shelf a bag containing a set of stakes. He blew the dust of the bag.
     "A one hundred miles per hour tornado tore the plane off these stakes. They were made of steel, but I made them of 'aluminium' to save weight."
     "Great, Dave. Thanks so much."
     "I entered an air race once," he said. He looked up at the sky. "The insurance said not to enter races, but I entered anyway. Do you know how to lean?"
     "Yes, I use my EGT," I said.
     "Wrong. You use your speedometer," Dave said.
     "I bet Mary knows that."
     "I bet she doesn't. And put all your weight toward the back. It makes your plane fly faster," he said.
     I felt delighted by my spontaneous interaction with Dave, and did not want to leave.
     "I'd better mosey on along. I gotta cook supper," I said, conscious of the several lessons learned, not all having to do about carrying stakes.

Dave's "claws" grasp the ground to hold the plane tightly grounded. 

Oh, I just cringed when I wrote "grounded." Let's hope we are not truly grounded! 

Cross your fingers that Aero Maintenance will be able to send the documents I need by Monday!