October 4th

Having pottered around most of the morning, I went over to the airfield hoping to go flying.  I pre-flighted the plane and pulled it out, then saw a fire engine driving up the taxiway.  That's not good.  There was a little crowd forming, so I went over and asked what had happened - Richard had ground looped his biplane on landing, and broken the undercarriage.  When Steve came over looking for levers, we asked him what he needed, and he needed a way of carrying 8' 2x4s, so we threw them in the van and went over to see what was up.  As we got there, they had an engine winch holding up the front of the plane, and they were just breaking the wheel off trying to bend it straight again.  There was damage from a prop strike, and one wing was creased, too.  Richard had a scratch on his arm from climbing out.  We eventually used the engine winch to drag the plane off the runway, so the circling 172 and Citation could land, then pulled it back to Richard's hangar (he used to be in with Jack, but no longer).  At this point, Tony showed up and we put the gliding mob's golf cart behind my plane (they currently have their glider and tow plane in our hangar).  He was flying down to Modesto to drop somebody off, and I didn't feel like flying my plane any more, so I hopped in and went with him.  I haven't flown at night for ages, so that was an experience, too.