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Our Christmas candy drop at Dodge City
took place on Sunday December 22nd. LAFA pilots met at X51 early in
the day to tweak their candy drop devices and finish wrapping the candy and
stuffed animals to be dropped.
Thirteen planes and their respective
crews were ready at take-off time. The first drop was scheduled for
1:00pm, and the second one two hours later. The two powered parachutes
departed about 15 minutes before the fixed wing craft in order to reach the
rendezvous point west of the drop zone at about the same time. As we
arrived a bit early, we circled the area while the ground crew readied more
than 1,000 sugar-deficient children.
A few of drop mechanisms failed during
the first attempt and the red faced pilots returned home with full loads,
but enough candy was deployed by the rest to ensure many happy young faces
on the ground.
When one of Tim's candy pods departed
from his MiniMax together with the candy, Dick (our ground spotter)
appreciated how good his aim had been while jumping out of the way of the
candy-filled bleach container.
There were less planes during the
second bombing run as some members left to to take care of other
obligations, but there were still enough planes in the air to get the
attention of people on the ground within miles of our flight path. All
but one of the drop mechanisms (mine!) worked well on the second run.
The event was a success. All
planes returned safely and apart from a bit of left over candy, all went as
planned.
Note: I need more
photos! I gave my co-pilot/bombardier the job of taking photos, but
being his second flight ever, he was more concerned about hanging on with
all three hands than taking pictures. As a result, I'm lacking
air-to-air and air-to-ground pictures of the drop. If any of you
took photos, please send them to me so they can be included here. I'm also
lacking ground photos from the drop zone.
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