Missing the CAF this year and someone asking about flying to Wings
Over Houston got me thinking...

Several years ago I had been saving all my nickles and dimes for
months in order to rent a C-172 and fly, instead of drive, to the CAF
Airsho out in Midland, TX. From Waco It's about a 2.5 hour flight
IIRC, which beats almost 5 hours on the road.
I knew the Airport closed at a certain time and I flight-planned to
arrive in plenty of time before Midland International's closure went
into effect. Well, the C-172 wouln't start. It cranked but would not
fire. They had a C-152 available. Ugh. I unloaded and re-loaded and
got off about 45 minutes later than I had planned. Now I was nervous.
According to my calculations (more like good guesses) I would arrive
minutes before the a/p closure. Of course the C-152 cruises slower
than the 172 so I had a stress-filled flight west, which was NOT fun.
At the windmills (about halfway) it was obvious I would miss the close
of Midland International by about 5 minutes so I redlined the rented
Cessna and started descending to speed things up. 20 miles out the bad
news came on my watch...and on ATIS...the airport was closed!
Have you ever BEGGED ATC? I begged that morning. I kept it short, but
I begged them to let me in, to no avail. I thought about declaring an
emergency but I think that would have made a bad day even worse. I had
to divert to Midland Airpark north-east of the city, which was the
only other a/p I knew of with avgas.
On the ground I caught a taxi to Midland International, which cost
almost $50.00. All courtesy cars were being used. I missed the first
hour or so of my favorite airshow, had a huge cab bill, had to fly a
C-152, and couldn't land where I wanted. The Airsho was awesome as
usual but was somewhat bitter that year.

Have you ever flown to an airshow and yet couldn't land at the field
because it was closed?

Ricky