Back to Llano

It's been about 7 years since I've been to Llano. Larry, the airport manager has retired but it is still as good of an airport as you'd ever want to visit. I can't say enough about the how good the service is there. Roy is the man there now and he is awesome! So if you're headed there for some Cooper's BBQ, bring him back a sweet tea. He'll really appreciate it.

Llano is a great little place to visit. They have a great porch filled with rocking chairs, for those not in too much of a hurry. Roy will come out and greet you in his golf cart and help you with anything you need.

Now for the crew cars. I only got a picture of one of the Crown Victorias. They have 2. Number 1 has a working passenger door. They also have a Suburban and a passenger van. No one goes hungry here.

As far as Crown Vics go, it was very clean and the A/C worked.

 I also found out that Llano is the deer capital of texas, or so they say. When we took off to the south, there were several deer stands very close to the airport. I'm not saying that this is good or bad, just stating some facts.

Of course we were there for BBQ! So off into town we went. This was Scott's first time there and he soon found out why I like this place so much.

That's 3 ribs and a nice chunk of brisket. You have to get the brisket dunked. This was some of the most tender brisket that I've ever put in my mouth. We both had to bring home some for the wives, if we wanted to maintain our status of sleeping in our own bed.

When we got back, it was starting to get busy as another Cirrus, a Meridian and a King Air had arrived and when we were getting fuel, a Grumman Tiger landed and taxied over.

So now it's time to head back to soggy North Texas. I hope it won't be another 7 years before I come back.

Back to KOSA Mount Pleasant

It's been a while since I've been to KOSA. The last time here we went into town and had lunch at Chili's. I finally got a chance to go to Outlaws BBQ and for a change, I was not too disappointed. Of course the crew car hasn't changed. Still a city owned Crown Victoria but it had great A/C.

Did I mention it had great A/C?

I'm not sure what the button does but with all of the problems with Takata air bags, I wasn't taking a chance. For all I know, it is an igniter for an ejection seat.

 I was very excited top finally get to go to Outlaw's BBQ. I've heard from many people that the BBQ was good but I've never made it here on a Saturday. Thanks to Scott for asking me to fly right seat for this trip.

Being a BBQ snob has its disadvantages. You can never just go and enjoy the BBQ. I usually judge BBQ by 2 things initially. These are the things you have to get right. First is brisket. It can't be dry or over-smoked. Second is the sausage. One of my favorite BBQ places changed their rub up and made it too peppery and the sausage is very cardboard like in its taste.

These guys got it right. The brisket was moist (even though I ate it on a sandwich) and the sausage was very good and tasty. Don't worry, I sampled the brisket without the sauce you see sliding off the sandwich. I don't usually use sauce but they had a nice variety. There was one labelled "HAF" that I was not going to try. I was told it would hurt you and that's not how I like my BBQ.

All in all a good day of flying, crew cars, museums and BBQ. I love their drive thru at Outlaw's BBQ.

We originally went to go to the Mid America Flight Museum at KOSA. It was a great museum. Some of the pictures below are from the trip.

So all in all, we had a great day. Just wish the Texas heat would take a break. This would have been even better at 80º instead of 94º.

Kickapoo Downtown Wichita Falls KCWC

The Texas heat is finally starting to show. We hopped into Scott's Cirrus and headed for Kickapoo Downtown for some lunch on a hot Sunday afternoon. It has been a long time since I've been here. The last time was when I was on my long solo cross country as a student.

Nothing has changed except that today we got one of the crew cars and headed off for lunch. It reminded me of one of the old posts about Bridgeport. You start seeing a lot of Crown Victorias when you go to a lot of the out of the way places. This was no exception.

This beauty came with all of the fine interior additions you would expect from your local used car lot. Someone was kind enough to leave us a hot, partially consumed Diet Coke to quench our thirst for our 2.6 mile drive to The Parkway Grill.

While the car was nothing to write home about, the food at the restaurant was great. Scott had the grilled cheese with brisket (nothing short of awesome) and I had the dry cheeseburger with onion rings.

Despite the red tape Scott had to go through to get the crew car, it served its purpose quite well getting us to a great restaurant. Until next time!

Texarkana KTXK

I haven't posted here in a long time. I finally got back in the air after a 2 year layoff and we headed to Texarkana for some cross country work. The fine folks at TAC Air let us borrow their nice crew car as we went for lunch at Applebees (no judgement because all of the good BBQ places were closed on Sunday).

Our crew car for the day was a grey Ford Focus. It was nice to finally get a crew car that didn't used to be a government owned vehicle. It was clean, didn't have any licenses plates n the inside and smelled good.

We took it to town for lunch and if you haven't bee to an Applebees in a while, you might be surprised with their new menu. We opted for the 2 for $25 meal with has 2 main courses, a side and either a pair of salads or an appetizer.

All in all, it was a nice trip for a good lunch and some very pricey 100LL. At least they were nice.

Mount Pleasant KOSA

After a summer of 29 100 degree plus days, our first cool front was a welcome addition to our daily lives. That being said, my friend Curtis wanted to head out to Mount Pleasant which is 82 nautical miles from McKinney. I couldn't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon. So off to KOSA we went. On our way over there, we were reminded of one of the things that haunts pilots. You can have clear air or hazy air, take your pick. With clear air comes a lot of turbulence. With hazy air, you get a smooth ride. When you look up and see blue sky, all you can say to yourself is "I want to go flying!". And then as soon as you get up there and start getting beat up but the turbulence, you remember that old rule again.

That was today. On top of that, Curtis' headset had the noise cancelling go out because of batteries. So I volunteered to get batteries out of his bag. Turbulence and being in a position that only a contortionist would appreciate is probably not a combination you want to be in for very long (I'm speaking from experience here). We finally made our way into Mount Pleasant and were greeted by a beautiful 6000 foot runway in fantastic shape. This place is very well maintained.

We went in and was greeted by Paul Henderson who is the manager there. What a great place! This is what flying is all about.We inquired about a crew car and they have 2. He gave us the keys to 304 and told us to use the garage door opener to open the gate to get out.

It is your typical municipal city car (an old Crown Victoria). It was tough to get the key to turn but it finally worked. The A/C worked fine (unlike the crappy car in Beaumont). They have a sticker on the car that says that there is a 2 hour limit and to please replace any fuel you use. That is quite acceptable. If you can't replace the fuel you use, you really don't need to be "borrowing" anyone's crew car.

We needed to refuel before we headed back so we pulled over to the fuel pump where there were a group of plane that had just come in. These were a blast to watch.

So we went to get some decently priced fuel. Anything is decent when you see the prices they charge at McKinney. Since we left our jet at home, we had to settle for the 100LL.

All in all, a great trip. I highly recommend you head out there and meet the fine folks at Mount Pleasant and you will be "pleasantly" surprised (yes, I really did that).

KAQO Llano

I have to preface this by saying that the reason we went down to Llano was for the BBQ. I could have had to peddle a tricycle into town and been happy. The BBQ here is just that good. I've been to Hard 8 in Stephenville and Coppell and thought that they were awesome. This is a whole new level of awesome.


We began by leaving McKinney about 10:40 AM in the Cirrus SR 22 that Keith flies. It cruises at about 165 knots. Lucky for us that Keith is an IFR guy and a professional renter. He always files IFR no matter where he goes. When we left, the ceiling was about 2500 feet and about 1500 feet thick. After takeoff, ATC cleared us to 2000 feet and to expect 4000 in 10 minutes. When we finally got to 4000 feet, it was right at the top of the clouds so it was really bumpy. Our clearance to our cruising altitude of 6000 feet didn't come until we were out of the class B shelf. Once we got above 4000 feet, it was smooth.

A strange thing happens here in North Texas that prevents thunderstorms from developing. Normally the higher you go, the cooler the temperature gets. We're not normal here. We get this layer of very warm air that comes off of the plains of Mexico that prevent moist warm air from condensing (which is how thunderstorms build). So our temperature was 16C when we took off but was 17C at 6000. Normally it should have been about 6C at that altitude. That is a strange phenomenon.


So we finally get to Llano after we broke out of the clouds at 2500 feet. Nice touchdown and taxi back where we were met by Llano Larry. The first words out of Larry's mouth when he saw Keith was, "I thought you had died!". Larry and Keith go a long way back. He is probably one of the best Ambassadors for the town of Llano there is. There is a great article on him, the airport and the hill country way of life at http://www.flyingmag.com/pilots-places/pilots-adventures-more/gear-taking-hill-country-spin.


We finally got a key to one of the vans so we could head into town to Cooper's BBQ. Coopers has a van there and so does the airport. It seems that Cooper's knows that there are a lot of people who fly in just for BBQ so what better way to get them fed than to let them drive themselves into town. These are big crew vans. Not the latest models but they get you to Cooper's. That is all you need.

I can't begin to tell you how good the food was. I had ribs and sausage and my wife and daughter had ribs and a pork chop that was about 2 inches thick. Don't be shy, get the sauce. It is awesome. All I can say hours later is still "WOW!".


We got back to the airport and decided that it was time for a little conversation on the porch with all of the rocking chairs.
It was a lazy overcast day with nothing moving faster than it had to. I guess everyone was still getting acclimated to the time change that occurred last night where we had an hour stolen from us while we slept. The hills in the background made for a very calm and peaceful day spent doing some hangar flying.
We knew we had to head home as much as we would like to stay so we saddled up and began our 200 nm trek back to McKinney. At least we had a slight tail wind this time although Keith predicted we would have a head wind both directions. We got out early enough to avoid the nastiness that will be over us tonight.


In conclusion, the presence of good BBQ trumps a crappy crew car, you don't need to review it. It did get us safely from the airport to Cooper's and that is what really counts. Maybe on my next visit, I'll actually pay attention.