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Our flight took us out over the Everglades and then over the sugar cane fields close to Lake Okeechobee . As we got farther north and west we started getting into horse country with wide open fields and live oak hammocks . Our destination would be alongside one of those hammocks .
Flying into Square 1 is an interesting affair . Not having a control tower and being a private airfield , some local knowledge , or at least some well-written instructions , are required . We had to fly to a certain set of coordinates , then look for a cell tower . We would turn left at the tower , then look for the dirt road , and turn left along the road . We would turn base at the end of the road ( by this time we had the grass strip in sight ), then turn final to come in over the power lines that were well marked with orange balls . We landed on a nice wide 3000-foot grass runway that ran alongside the rifle range . Nothing to it !
Part of the fly-in included a precision landing competition , as well as a bomb drop competition . The bombs were bags of flour that had your tail number written on them . We opted out of the bomb drop and forgot about the precision landing competition until we had already touched down . Thankfully , we had made a touchdown comfortably close to the target line so it was a respectable score , even though we didn ’ t win .
Once down on the ground , we got the opportunity to meet our hosts Daphne Hinton and Martile Blackman , who own the property . They had coffee and muffins ready for us , and as we were one of the early arrivals , we settled in to watch the rest come in . It was quite fun watching the landing competition and Monday morning quarterbacking their attempts .
By the time everyone was there , we had about 15 Cubs on the flight line of various models and ages .
Some of the pilots brought their guns to shoot on the range , but we had not done that this time . However , we made a promise to ourselves to bring them next time . We talked to Daphne about flying in when we wanted to come to the range , and we were told that it was not a problem to do that . I am already looking forward to it .
E3AVIATION . COM