Is this Heaven? No, it’s Arlington.
Maybe you have to be from Iowa to get that joke. Check out the movie “Field of Dreams” to figure out what I’m talking about.
Anyway, that’s where I went last weekend. The Northwest EAA Fly-in and Airshow in Arlington, Washington (KAWO) on the north end of Seattle. What a great time!
I was expecting it to be a lot bigger than it was, but I think my expectations were maybe set too high after going to Oshkosh four times. Nothing can compare to Oshkosh.
I almost liked Arlington better though. Its size made it a lot more personal and easier to get around at. I saw everything I wanted to see at Arlington which is almost impossible to do at Oshkosh. I think there were about 500-1000 aircraft at Arlington, compared to 10,000+ at Oshkosh.
This was the first time I camped at an airshow, too. It couldn’t get much better. There’s nothing like being able to sit under the wing of your own plane, hang out with friends, and watch an airshow from “home” in front of a tent. Then, after the sun’s faded from the horizon, crawl into a sleeping bag and drift off to sleep, only to be awoken the next morning by a big-bore Continental rumbling in to the sky.
Here are some pictures from the trip over on Saturday morning. It was a beautiful day to fly. There’s still snow on most of the peaks in the Cascades!
Following the arrival procedure in to Arlington:
Just chilling around camp on Saturday night. A lot of the transient planes from earlier in the day had left for the night. The entire field around us had been crowded with planes a few hours earlier:
On Saturday night they did a “fireworks airshow.” I’d never seen anything like it, but it was sweet! Imagine a regular daytime airshow except with the performing aircraft using fireworks instead of conventional smoke systems:
The regular airshow on Sunday afternoon:
When we left Arlington on Sunday afternoon an airmet was in effect for mountain obscuration over the Cascades. Our trip home across Stevens Pass looked a little sketchy at first, but we made it through no problem. I’m going to *really* miss mountain flying when I move to Nebraska in a few weeks:
We stopped to eat dinner in Wenatchee (KEAT), then took off on the final leg home. It was an all around fantastic weekend:
What’s my next adventure? Should be flying over to Portland next weekend. I’m going to be a groomsman in my friend, Erik’s, wedding. The whole wedding party is staying at a hotel near Portland International (KPDX), so that’s where I’m planning to park. It should be an interesting experience, mixing my 140 in with 737s during the Friday afternoon rush!