Massey Party

Last weekend Roger and I flew to our favorite grass strip in Maryland for the annual Christmas Party. Usually Ray and I make the pilgrimage to Massey but this year he was in Florida so I lured Roger with the promise of an airplane ride and free food. I think the free food had more allure for him but I was happy that he agreed to go. It had been well over a year since we went flying together and last time he sat in the back and this time it would be just us.
The party was scheduled to start at 1:00 but I wanted to beat the crowd and from past experience it can get quite crowed. We left New Garden early and it was about 10:00 as we approached Massey. Their were already aircraft in the pattern and from the radio traffic we determined that Massey was using runway 20. A large number of the aircraft that attend have no electrical system or radio so Roger and I had our heads on a swivel as we set up for a straight in approach.

We were about two miles out with traffic behind us when Massey announced a runway change from 20 to 02. This caught me a little off guard, I knew that their was an announced aircraft behind me but their were now aircraft announcing landing intentions for 02. With newly arriving aircraft now preparing to land opposite the way I was flying and an aircraft behind me that I could not see I announced that 88Charlie was departing the pattern and I started a slow turn away from the airport so that I could get a better picture of what was going on. I circled the field about five miles out and waited for everything to get straightened out. The aircraft that was behind me continued and I watched him land into an approaching aircraft that was landing on the now correct runway. He managed to land short and was clear of the runway before the other aircraft arrived but I was glad it wasn't me. Roger and I entered the now calm pattern amid field and set down on runway 02 with out incident other than having quite a decent tailwind.

Apparently Massey had decided to use 02 with the tailwind rather than use 20 since 20 would require aircraft to taxi back along the active and thus limit the rate that aircraft can land. I had mistakenly assumed that they changed because the wind had changed, silly me. Another reason to always be aware of which way the wind is blowing, in this case I wasn't.
Even though we were a few hours early their were still a bunch of aircraft on the field. We were directed to a parking place in the grass and we shut her down across from a couple of beautifully restored Stearmans. I told Roger that when I was his age I could have bought a Stearman for less than $10,000.
We hung out for awhile and looked at the planes, we climbed up the tower and checked out the rotating beacon and got some free food.
There were a lot of old Pipers on the field and it was fun to look at the differences in aircraft that are so similar.
We didn't stay as long as I would have liked. I had an agreement with Roger that we would be home for the second half of the Steelers game so at 1:30 we needed to leave. Getting out turned out to be almost as tricky as the arrival. The wind had picked up so Massey was back to using 20 which was causing arriving aircraft to back taxi down the active into arriving planes. Since the party was now well underway their were many more aircraft arriving than departing and we had a little wait for a spot. Once I got the signal I taxied out, did a quick runup and we were off. There is always a group along the runway watching arriving and departing aircraft so I did my best soft field takeoff and it wasn't long before we had cleared the pattern and were headed home.