The last day of our winter flying season was February 23, 1994. All subsequent flights in 1994 we referred to as those in our "summer season".
We used the word "summer" loosely, because those flying days in March and April were not remembered for their balmy weather. But, that's another story.
On this blustery day in February, we had 9 flights. Our launches were excellent, averaging 2000 feet, and were followed by flights of about 30 minutes long. There was lift, but the sink was wide- spread.
I had the dubious honour of having the shortest flight of the day. Four minutes after a 1900 foot launch, we were back on the ground, because I just couldn't seem to get clear of the 8 to 10 down sink.
Staying clear of the frozen cow patties was also a problem. Sometime during the winter, our grounds-keeper, a local farmer, had decided to fertilize the airfield. The problem was, the manure was frozen when it was spread, and so it laid on the field in rather large chunks. Some were as big as hockey pucks; others were the size of phone books - the yellow pages. All had the consistency of iron. The significance of these runway ornaments was not immediately apparent to us, but this was soon remedied, as you shall see.
It was an interesting sight from the air, really. One could look down and see 2 groups of brown dots running the length of the runway. Each group had about 6 strings of the stuff, and each dotted string was a foot apart. There were 2 sets because our grounds-keeper, being very thorough, made not one, but two manure- spreading runs down the field.
The dotted lines looked as if the Jolly Green Giant had pulled a rake down the runway - a rake that was missing a couple of teeth in the middle.
In the circuit, the brown dots became strikingly larger to the eye, but their real significance became obvious after I turned final for my first landing of the day.
There was a brisk crosswind and lots of mechanical turbulence to keep me busy as we approached the well-manured field. We touched down in a clear space between chunks. Just as I was congratulating myself for avoiding the brown obstacles, we rolled up over a stray chunk. With a horrendous bang, the aircraft lurched over it and rolled to a stop, hitting several smaller pucks along the way.
An unmistakeable barnyard odour wafted up to us as we unbuckled our harness. I looked down, expecting to see holes in the canvas and brown stuff in my lap, but all seemed to be intact.
The worst injury was to my pride. It was an injury inflicted at a leisurely pace throughout the rest of the day by my colleagues. I became well acquainted with just how many variations of the standard cow patty jokes there really were. There was even talk of including in our flight training program at Bluenose a training module on How To Dodge Cow Pucks. Either Stu Baker or I were to be the Course Module Director, since we were considered to be the flying cow dung experts.
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