Earning My Wings: Pumpkin Drop

October 27, 2012

Today was a fun day. Not a lesson, not a cross country, not even ground studies. Today was my airport's Annual Open House and Pumpkin Drop Competition. We attract a lot of visitors, some of which are pilots and some are not. It's a day that people from all around the area come to hang out, talk airplanes, eat food, have a little friendly competition. They can also check out the Corvette car show, experimental planes on display and get up and close to the old Air Force Planes.

I don't have to work dispatch today, so I invite a lot of family to come out and visit. I pick up my brother and arrive at the airport at 10am. First thing on the to-do list is to register for the pumpkin drop. The sooner that I sign up, the sooner my bombardier and I can throw pumpkins out of the plane. The rest of my family shows up and we hang out for a bit until it's my turn to fly.

The competition works like this: You pay $20 for one round, and one round consists of 3 trips in the traffic pattern where you will drop one pumpkin on each trip. There is a 100ft diameter circle target on the ground. The goal is to get your pumpkins closest to the center of the target. I will fly about 300ft above the ground and fly at a slower airspeed. After all three drops, you get a score based on the distance that your pumpkin fell from the center. The person will the lowest score (meaning closest to the center) wins!

My brother is going to be my bombardier, but I have a backseat so I ask if any of my family wants to also ride along. My sister-in-law speaks up. It's our turn, so I grab the keys and we all walk out to the plane. I do the preflight inspection, buckle everyone in, then start the engine. I taxi us out to the runway behind a couple other planes. They takeoff one by one, then next up is me. I watch for traffic and listen to pilot's radio calls for positioning reports. The pattern is packed with planes. We sit for 5-10 minutes because there just isn't a place for us yet. Finally we catch a very short break, and I take it. Lift-off.

We follow the traffic pattern around, being vigilant to watch for other traffic. After turning onto final, I start my descent and slow the plane. My brother opens the window and starts giving me directions; a little to the left, little more, perfect. He releases the pumpkin and it falls from his hands, 300 ft above the ground, and plummets to the ground. SMASH!

I add power and climb back up to pattern altitude. My passengers look out the side window and see that the B25 Bomber is making it's way into the pattern. It was directly off our right wing. Wow, how cool is this? Sharing the sky with a sweet old Air Force bomber! We then turn onto downwind, still watching for traffic. It appears that there are at least six other planes up here with me, and all are flying different patterns; some wide, some narrow. I look out the left window and see another plane also on downwind! Well crap. We are literately side by side, and I'm not sure if they know I'm right next to them. Making our turn onto base is going to be interesting. We watch to see what he does, and it looks like I'm going to be able to squeeze onto base first. I make my radio call and then turn. All works out ok but man, I'm getting stressed. We descend and turn onto final. Window open, line up with the target, drop some airspeed, then release. SPLAT!

One more chance now. I climb back up to pattern altitude and watch traffic. Thankfully this time, some of the planes were done with their round and were landing. Less traffic to deal with, and my blood pressure slowly starts coming back down. Breathe... we turn onto downwind, then base, descend, turn onto final, slow down, line up, drop!

That's all we have left, so I fly the pattern around again so that I can set up to land. The wind was breezy and coming from the north, so we land on runway 36. Nice and smooth, just how I like it. We taxi back, turn the plane off and turn in the keys for the next person.

That was fun! Not long after, half of my family leaves and the other half stay so that we can walk to the other side of the airport and check out all the other planes and corvettes. I won't know until after closing who won the competition, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be us.

We walk around for an hour or so before calling it a day. My family goes home and I decide to stay for another hour to hang out with airport friends and watch the B25 drop its pumpkins. The bomber starts up its engines and taxiis out to the runway. He takes off, flies around, lines up with the target then BAAM! He releases about 10 pumpkins, some of which were hollowed out and filled with flour. They shoot towards the target and slam into the ground.

He flies back around for another try. This time he absolutely nails the target. It was incredible, and it made the Channel 5 News! Click here to watch: KSDK.com

After he finished up, I decided that I had enough sun and the cold wind and was ready to head home. It was a lot of fun and probably the most fun I've had since my airport started holding this annual event.

Update: We did not win, but that's ok. Still worth doing!