The International Cessna 170 Association

N49CP will be heading south in September. We are moving from Winnipeg Canada to Wichita Falls, Tx. I am very much looking forward to meeting the Texas 170 gang - I may even volunteer to be the special guest referee at the "TEXAS DEATH MATCH II - The Rematch"! More to follow as the details unfold.

Bruce

4-Shipp wrote:N49CP will be heading south in September. We are moving from Winnipeg Canada to Wichita Falls, Tx. I am very much looking forward to meeting the Texas 170 gang - I may even volunteer to be the special guest referee at the "TEXAS DEATH MATCH II - The Rematch"! More to follow as the details unfold.

Bruce

Ohhh My, Bruce I would picture Winnipeg as a pretty place. You need to some how prepare yourself for what you are moving to. A Texas Magazine once described Wichita Falls as the armpit of Texas. The city took the magazine to court over the statement - AND LOST
One fun thing you can do after you get there to stir up trouble is call some of the locals standing around a rodeo, or just standing around anywhere, yankees. New of a Canadian who was trying to explain that all of us were yankees where he was from when a blood vessel broke in one of the Texans forehead, that forehead never looked the same after that.
Looking forward to you getting here, there are a lot of fun places to fly to between Grand Prairie and Wichita Falls - we'll do some meeting up and fun flying

4-Shipp wrote:N49CP will be heading south in September. We are moving from Winnipeg Canada to Wichita Falls, Tx. I am very much looking forward to meeting the Texas 170 gang - I may even volunteer to be the special guest referee at the "TEXAS DEATH MATCH II - The Rematch"! More to follow as the details unfold.

Bruce

Hey, Bruce! Don't listen to Joe! His judgment is totally under question. He thinks his A-model is the fastest airplane in level flight too!
Do you fly for a living? Are you taking the Conquest job up in Wichita Falls?
Wichita Falls is pretty different from Winnepeg tho'. Moving there in the summer is going to be a shock to your system. The area is dry creeks, sagebrush, and red dirt with an occasional oil well pump-jack. But a pretty nice getaway nearby is " 'possum Kingdom", a state park with a landing strip and great fishing about 30 mins south in a 170. Keep going another 1.5 hrs and you'll be at my house. Come on down!!!! '53 B-models RULE in Texas!

It won't be that bad, I'm a native, kinda... We were in WF from 96-99 prior to moving to Winnipeg. Why would I ever move back you ask? Ever been to Enid OK or Del Rio????

No Conquest job...we're going to Sheppard AFB to give Uncle Sugar the last 3 years of our hitch. I'll be an IP at Sheppard.

The first call I made after I received the news this afternoon was to my bride. The second call was to the owner of Wichita Valley airport to get my name on the hangar list. House...what house???

Never got to PK last time George. We did our crappie fishing closer to home, but now everything will be closer to home.

Bruce

Ha! I've been to both. Many times. Enid nearly got me kilt several different ways. (Ever drink at "The Wharehouse"? Those nurses are deadly in more ways than one!) I once landed after dark, in Enid in a D-50 Twin Bo, fresh out of annual inspection on Xmas Eve. The wind was blowing 40 kts out of the North and the temp was 18 degrees F. I have no idea what the chill factor was. Dropped off my wife's girlfriend, "Edla", and the missus and me warmed up inside the terminal bldg with hot chocolate while the poor lineman fueled the Twin Bonanza up. (I hadn't wanted to do the girl the favor of taking her to Enid but my wife insisted.) We dashed to the plane, lowered the airstair, my wife got onboard and I fought the urge to just get onboard myself. My copilot, Yaweh, urged me to "dash" around the airplane to check the fuel caps and when I did I slipped and nearly busted my butt on the huge oil spill under/around the left engine. I never would have seen it in the dark, otherwise. The mechanics had signed off the annual leaving the left tach-generator loose on the accy case and there was less than 3 qts oil in the engine, out of a 14 qt. capacity. If we hadn't made the side-journey to drop Edla off, we would have lost that engine somewhere over Mississippi on our way to Atlanta's Charlie Brown airport where the wx from Tx/Ms/Ark to Ga was 200 and 1/4 in blowing snow. Three hours of frostbiting work with tractor wrenches and 10 qts of oil got us airborne and 3 hours later we were breaking out in minimums at Atlanta. Thank God I still had two engines.
Now, Del Rio is another story of survival. But we got out of Ciudad Acuna with our lives, if not our wallets!

Oh Lucky Bruce... Anything will be an improvement after Winnipeg. I lived there for 10 years one year... Your ski flying days 10 months out of the year are over!!! Good luck at the new posting and we'll still try to hook up on our RV adventure to the Rockies this summer.
JD

Bruce, I echo Joe's welcome to Texas. I look forward to meeting you and having you join in with our group. Maybe we can have a "welcoming 170 fly in" @ WF. Too bad you can't get down earlier and you could witness the "Hotter N Hell" bicycle race! They didn't just come up with that name, there is a real reason for the name as you probably already know or will find out soon enough. I am sure you have visited there or you wouldn't be making the move. Lots of really fine people there. Several neat airports too. Kickapoo (in town), Lake Wichita and Wichita Valley.

COME ON DOWN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Frank N6888A

Frank and I did some river flying a while back - we picked up the Brazos River at I-20 west of Ft Worth and flew every bend and turn down low sometimes looking up at houses built on the bluffs and waving our wings at the canoes and tubers. Frank was in the lead and would advise when he seen wires and we would climb a little bit. We landed at Possum Kingdom Lake and met some very nice airport people who tossed us their truck keys to drive to the restaurant. There is a lot of fun flying waiting on you here Bruce, the hamburgers at Hollies Burgers 3 blocks walking from the grass strip in Laguana Park just west of the dam at Lake Whitney are like you would get 20 years ago, really good. And the grass strip at Cedar Mills on Lake Texoma is great, come in over the water landing to the west, and take off to the east back over the water - that big tree is not really in the center of the runway like it looks like it is. Sailboats and a good restaurant are an easy walk from there also. Lake Murray is just north of there with a strip along side the golf course, Catfish McGee's on the Red River with it's great catfish and interesting grass strip is just west of there, and damm, I've worked myself up - gotta go hop in the 170 - see ya

New guy here,
Just had to brighten my daughter day with your text..
She will be stationed there in a few months with the Air Force!
Maybe somebody can show her around the patch!

Just reading Joe's post from 2002 (we miss him ). I'm sure your daughter will find folks around to show her where a lot of good eating places are located. A lot has or may have changed in the 17 yrs since Joe's post so be sure to have her ck on any of those locations prior to heading out to them. I know for sure, unless there's been another change, that McGhee's Catfish no longer has their runway open. Last time I knew, the restaurant was still open so one could drive there.

4-SHIPP Welcome Back! To bad the old airstrip and hangar isn't available for ya.

I wish “4Shipp” was back... but this older thread has been revived by a recent post. Bruce Shipp has moved on I’m afraid. Haven’t heard from him since he flew down to inspect my hangar door as a prelude to building his own.

I believe 4SHIPP is flying Cubs. At least it's the last I saw his handle.

Bruce has moved on. He is no longer a member of the TIC170A, and doesn’t participate in our forums. Although I am pleased to report he and his wife, June, are doing well. He is a neighbor of mine at C77, Poplar Grove, Illinois, and I see him often. He sold his 170, and his 140. He still owns a cub, about a year ago he purchased a bonanza, and is nearly ready to fly a Pitts S1 he has been working on. He says to say “hi” to all the 170 community.

Thanks for the report Steve. I had wondered about Bruce several times over the years.