Bouncing it off

Forrest Byron was remembering meeting an old man once... up in Northern Arizona somewhere... hell if he can remember where exactly ... but the old man used to restore Taylor Crafts.... see the way Forrest figures the old day flyers are pretty much gone....  he sort of felt.. he was holding on to the very tail end of that comet tail  himself.

Anyway......... the old man told him about bouncing off.... if he were going out of a short strip and had fear of running out of runway .. they would build a mound... maybe like the equivalent to  today's speed bump in an apartment complex parking lot, but  near the end of the runway.. that way if the plane would not get air born by that point.... powering along  he would plow into the bump and the spring loaded landing gear would bounce them up into ground effect... then you could drop the nose and accelerate in ground effect off the end of the runway over who knows what? and ... gain flying speed and then climb out....an interesting maneuver  no doubt ... Byron some how doubts it is  being taught in today's flight schools.
                                   Bouncing it off.
                                           Forrest Byron

On Vertical Wing ZEE ZZajuar...........

Forrest is a Pirate too...  I I I.... mean he knows how to drive a Sailboat:  Excuse him:

I don't think  he is really all that good at it... but he knows his limitations .. and if he goes past them well he is learning then.

He had a nice old boat once, well more then one, but one he used more then the others I suppose you could say...the one he went to Cuba in a couple of times before Bush signed the Executive Decree depriving him and others of their basic fundamental Constitutional rights to exercise freedom of movement..

He was not slacker though he covered his ass with a Humanitarian Aid License to enter Cuba of course with the U.S. Coast Guards Blessings... you know you inform them  the approximate time you are going to penetrate the military defense zone and at what coordinates .. so they can meet you there and pilfer your boat and question you because you told them where and when you were going to be there.... giving away your position to the opposing forces in a loose sense of the word... pure genius for sure....I don't think  Patton would be very proud of Byron maybe even giving him a slap in the  face, giving away the very basic tactic of the element of surprise like that.. but in this case  Byron was in Charge and thought No big deal.. the Coast Guard guys are o.k they are on our side.  in Forrest's  book.. they are always polite.. well to Byron anyway... of course he was not an asshole either towards them... most of them young bucks from Oklahoma...

Nothing quite like being 20 miles off of Cuba at 2 A.M. in the morning and seeing a flare go off a mile off on Starboard... and then hearing over the radio in broken Slavic... This is the Jaguar how do you copy.. zis is za zzzjaguar.........za  zzzzzjaguar... shit... Byron no likey.....  he turned off the  running lights... and turned the engine up to full throttle making a bee line for the big steel buoy off of the entrance to the Marina Hemingway still 20 miles away ...  looked to him like he was in the direct crossfire of some illegal activity by pure chance.. come dawn he and his crew of Son and Daughter in Law... slipped into the Marina for showers and chow... and of course the delivery of the humanitarian aid......... then off on the Bicycles.
                                  On  Vertical win........ Zee  ZZajuar...........

Byron gets a chrome plated .45 pulled on his Ass In Oblivion.

The Piper Warrior had a fresh overhaul... it was still running on straight mineral oil... for the break in period.
Testing the engine......... was it done right?  Wheeeeeeeeeee!

It was a Joy ride... into Oblivion:  Byron cleared Customs at Bimini and got his cruising Permit /Transire.
It was early afternoon  and he really was hoping to make Matthew Town by dark....

He was sliding along at 500'  just about sunset by the Cliffs of Cat Island... the way the setting sun was reflecting on the cliffs as he looked out the left side of the plane ...  the scene was indescribable ... such fire of beauty..... 2nd or 3rd most beautiful sight he ever laid eyes on....... even still to this day.........

Well Hells bells... Byron thought to himself , not gonna make Matthew Town by Sunset... guess its Cat.

A couple of years earlier he was delivering a plane and spent the night and a day  or two  on Cat Island, he rented a bug and drove to the farthest northern tip of the Island there was an old wooden house on a pristine cove with a powder sugar white  sand beach and the water a turquoise a glory color that is  hard to describe... it was an old wooden  house there  and a  place where Neville Chamberlain once lived.. or so he was told.. it was quite rotten and had enormous ant nests inside... but what a location..... spectacular.

This day he was in the area once again and The sun was setting and there is no V.F.R.  supposedly after Dark in the Bahamas... and no runway lights...  or smudge pots , most places...  he thought quickly... well it  was either Arthur Town, Cutlass Bay or Hawks Nest on CAT... he shot for the middle and into Cutlass Bay...  he taxied up onto the apron and parked under the sole sodium light that was  atop a high pole... shit... nobody around.. he got out and walked down the Queens highway into a little local village.. only one  lone barking dog in the distance  and nobody around like some kind of a movie set... kinda weird... what the hell?  He walked back to the airport and climbed in the plane and shut the clam shell door on a sweat stained shirt  so it would hang to block out the light streaming in the cockpit,  Byron admired the real pretty homemade curtain as he  tried to get comfortable, smelled good too...as Byron was  just starting to snooze.. he heard A big manly voice say....' Who In Der? ' oh man!  he peeked out the window and  there was this Bahamian Official in a Uniform with  what looked to be a Chrome plated .45 drawn out of its holster and he was swinging it back and forth.. a big long shiny barreled  bastard glistening under that light... a Dirty Harry Special pointing , and     in his general direction too,  Good Lord take it easy pal.... Don't shoot!

Byron  hollered out " Ebery ting Cool Mon...  Yaaaaaaaaa Mon"........ a couple of three times.. the dude ordered Byron out of the plane... Byron once again " Ebery ting Cool Mon........."

What the fuck....  engaging in a lengthy  conversation  with the Constable  and around 3 hours later they were the best of pals.... lets tip a few.... they spoke about a gambit of topics one lastly  being about Free Masonry and what the Officers mother had told him about it.

Byron has  to go back to Cat Island one day... its his destiny to meet himself there.. and eat a bowl of mutton stew... He is reasonably sure he met himself there in the past... in a parallel dimension... why not? after all it is the Bermuda Triangle....

The next morning Byron flew into Inagua.. and thought how similar  Matthew Town looked to what  Key West once must have looked like once  .. with  its square grid  patterned   streets.. that  were still all  coral dirt.. flying up into the air  and the houses were made of clapboards and still utilized rain catchment and cisterns... while he was there  Byron also  visited the Flamingo rookery and some caves.... at times there are over 30,000 birds.. and the salt works ... catchy little place by the sea... Matthew Town Proper no tourism much to speak of how nice... The Natives were having some kind of a party with  amplified jungle music as  he called it,  and grilling chicken... he bought 'hims' self a nice plate of Peas and rice and and dumped a bunch of ketchup and hot sauce  on it..... he was the only white man for miles.. Byron  strolled freely about the Island community no fears whatsoever .  You can see the mountains of Haiti off in the distance on a clear day........ The following Hazy Day it was... poor visibility Byron was over Jeremie Haiti  Looking down through the haze  at the red tile roofs... and hoping he had not made a  wrong turn as the navigation transmitters were down what was a G.P.S.   you used to have to know how to Navigate........................The Maroons were down there you know?

The Warrior  ran like a champ.

However in sharing expertise.


Byron suggests you land well before dark.

Dear Marty...........