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Here is a post that I put on my family website about a trip to the Reklaw, Texas fly-in this past weekend. Zack is my 11 year old son.
Zack and I went to Reklaw, Texas this past weekend. Every year, in the 4th weeekend of October, Dave Mason has a get-together at his grass strip (Flying M Ranch) in Reklaw Texas (about 100 miles SE of Dallas, between Tyler and Lufkin).
On the first day, we flew two hours to Alexandria International (no joke, that really is the name of the airport) where we stopped for lunch and fuel. The flight was very nice. We flew at 4500' high. The flight was 143 miles. We had about a 15 mph headwind. Smooth air, cool temps. Zack did the navigating (the hard job) and I did the flying.
After a 2.5 hour break in Alexandria, we set out for Reklaw. Because there is no fuel at Reklaw, we took enough fuel to fly there and back to Alex. We continued there at 4500'. As we approached the Toledo Bend reservoir, we saw a Cessna flying at a lower altitude on a similar flight path, so we figured he was going to Reklaw also. This leg was 152 miles and we still had about a 10 mph headwind. So this leg took about 2 hours also.
Thanks to some good navigating by Zack we found the strip (it's normally known as a hard-to-find strip, but it helped that there were about 150 airplanes already there).
We landed and found a group of Louisiana friends already there. So we camped near them. Our campsite was about 50 yards from a lake. Zack brought a fishing pole so he got busy scoping out the fishing scene. That night our friends, Todd and Hallie Newsome cooked some awesome steaks for a party of about 30 people. They have a Bonanza (big and fast by small-plane standards) so they can carry their kids and lots of eats. Several people told tall tales about the campfire.
Zack and I turned in at about 8:30. We slept in Ben's tent. It got fairly cold during the night, so we ended sharing our covers.
In the morning we had pancakes and sausage that were being served in Dave's main hangar. As we were eating, even more airplanes were flying in. Zack set out to net the fish that had taunted him the night before. Even though he got hard nibbles every time he cast, he never hooked a fish. By 10:30am we decided to pack up.
We took off for Alexandria International at about 11:30. We had a little tailwind at 3500' and we found we had more at 5500' so we flew at 5500'. We got lunch and a 7 gallons of fuel (at $4.56/gallon!) at Alexandria. On the last leg, we were ready to get home. It was nice that we had at tailwind at 5500' of between 25 and 30 mph the whole way! We scooted home and put the airplane away.
Zack and I went to Reklaw, Texas this past weekend. Every year, in the 4th weeekend of October, Dave Mason has a get-together at his grass strip (Flying M Ranch) in Reklaw Texas (about 100 miles SE of Dallas, between Tyler and Lufkin).
On the first day, we flew two hours to Alexandria International (no joke, that really is the name of the airport) where we stopped for lunch and fuel. The flight was very nice. We flew at 4500' high. The flight was 143 miles. We had about a 15 mph headwind. Smooth air, cool temps. Zack did the navigating (the hard job) and I did the flying.
After a 2.5 hour break in Alexandria, we set out for Reklaw. Because there is no fuel at Reklaw, we took enough fuel to fly there and back to Alex. We continued there at 4500'. As we approached the Toledo Bend reservoir, we saw a Cessna flying at a lower altitude on a similar flight path, so we figured he was going to Reklaw also. This leg was 152 miles and we still had about a 10 mph headwind. So this leg took about 2 hours also.
Thanks to some good navigating by Zack we found the strip (it's normally known as a hard-to-find strip, but it helped that there were about 150 airplanes already there).
We landed and found a group of Louisiana friends already there. So we camped near them. Our campsite was about 50 yards from a lake. Zack brought a fishing pole so he got busy scoping out the fishing scene. That night our friends, Todd and Hallie Newsome cooked some awesome steaks for a party of about 30 people. They have a Bonanza (big and fast by small-plane standards) so they can carry their kids and lots of eats. Several people told tall tales about the campfire.
Zack and I turned in at about 8:30. We slept in Ben's tent. It got fairly cold during the night, so we ended sharing our covers.
In the morning we had pancakes and sausage that were being served in Dave's main hangar. As we were eating, even more airplanes were flying in. Zack set out to net the fish that had taunted him the night before. Even though he got hard nibbles every time he cast, he never hooked a fish. By 10:30am we decided to pack up.
We took off for Alexandria International at about 11:30. We had a little tailwind at 3500' and we found we had more at 5500' so we flew at 5500'. We got lunch and a 7 gallons of fuel (at $4.56/gallon!) at Alexandria. On the last leg, we were ready to get home. It was nice that we had at tailwind at 5500' of between 25 and 30 mph the whole way! We scooted home and put the airplane away.
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