ORIGINAL: AMA 74894
BTW, if you ever see a 'Kid' Named Dan Landis in the magazines... his father (Richie) and grandfather (Harvey) were both RCRC members (at orangeburg) you could not ask for a better bunch of folks to fly with.
I know Danny....he visited me in Florida several times and we flew couple contests together. Good kid, although not a kid anymore; young man.
I've got ashort story about Danny L and Pete Collinson.About 10 years ago, Pete and Dan it turns out where going to flight school at about the same time down in sunny FLA, Pete for piloting and Dan for Ops. They had no Pattern planes with them so I invited them to fly mine. Pete accepted and proceeded to beat the pants off every F3A guy who flew that contest. That was about the last time Pete had no engine problems (BG)
To thank me, Pete tookDanny and I out to dinner down to Orlando in hisdad's plane. Ocala to Orlando, just for dinner and back. Pete piloting, Dan co-piloting and the old man, that's me, in the back with head phones on. A whole 'nother world, listening into all that jabber......
The return trip was really something. Fog had rolled in and you literally couldn't see 5 feet in front of you. Pete puts it in auto-pilot, and in that dead, smooth air, and drone of the engine coupled with the earlier effort in that sunnyrather breezyday, I was fast asleep in no time.
The kids of course, are kids. No problem. Fog and all. I finally wake up an hour or so later, to thick fog. The kids as calm and collected as any one could be while I'm sweating it in the back seat. We finally broke through the Fog when we were about 10 feet off the deck; I could barely make out a runway stripe. Auto pilot all the way; Pete took over just before touch down.
The rest of the story involves trying to get out of locked airport. That's a whole 'nother story