Celeb Sitings at FBO's

Well, very often. After all, that's what happens over "on the other side of
the airport". A couple of those celebrity sightings is what made me realize
how nice it is to be able to use the FBO at major airports instead of
searching around for the lowest cost fuel and free tiedown at Podunk. It's
not the celebrity sightings that makes it nice but rather location,
facilities and services. It's a luxury to not have to go thru the cattle
chute, 'er I mean, the passenger terminal.

One that kind of cracked me up was seeing NASCAR celeb Richard Petty alight
from his King Air. The guy understands image marketing (or he's shy as
hell). As dusk settled on KGSO, he exited the King Air with hat and
sunglasses and western suit all in place. He was meeting no one and was
with no one except a small entourage but he stayed in character thru the
little FBO and out to whereever. I'm sure it's not a natural act to keep
the hat and shades on while moving one's carcass from King Air seat to bed
somewhere but he was up to it.

BTW, I love NASCAR even though I don't know squat about it other than they
all fly and that means top quality GA airports all over the Carolinas. Long
live NASCAR! GO PANTHERS!!

"Ben Smith" wrote in message
...
How often do you guys see celebrities, or otherwise famous people at your
FBO? A few months ago, I was at MSN, and saw a Gulfstream pull up and it
ended up being Joe Francis (Girls Gone Wild video founder). He was doing
some filming on the UW Campus that night, and there were about 4 camera
guys
in his entourage. I had only recognized him because I saw an E channel
story about him the night before...

Others around MSN said they used to see Chris Farley often, back when he
was
alive and well. (His hometown was Madison)

--
Ben
C-172 - N13258 @ 87Y

BTW, I love NASCAR even though I don't know squat about it other than they
all fly and that means top quality GA airports all over the Carolinas.
Long
live NASCAR! GO PANTHERS!!


I enjoy watching the races, and was even talked into going to a race at
Talledega a few years back. Although it was fun, the best part was sitting
on the car waiting for the traffic to clear....we watched most of the
drivers take off from the ajoining airport. Some niiiiicceee planes in
those fleets.

I won't comment on the Panthers bit

In article , Jeff Franks
wrote:

I enjoy watching the races, and was even talked into going to a race at
Talledega a few years back. Although it was fun, the best part was sitting
on the car waiting for the traffic to clear....we watched most of the
drivers take off from the ajoining airport. Some niiiiicceee planes in
those fleets.

You missed a great opportunity!
Arriving and departing are kind of like AirVenture, only less
organization.

The heavy iron gets to sit on the paved ramps, the rest of us get to
park on the grass. (You can even camp if you are parked by the trees!)
We arrived "late", just in time to get parked and hitch a ride to the
south side stands, get seated and watch the start of the race. Straight
in approach from the north, no other traffic.

Departing, if you are quick, you can get to your airplane, crank, taxi
and depart before the line starts forming.

I had to pay for fuel, so by the time I got back to the plane the line
was already 1.5 miles long.

We elected to pull our Bonanza from the grass to the taxiway by the
runway (a good one half-mile, slightly uphill). We were at the south
end of the field, traffic was departing to the south, so we had the
full length of the taxiway to go. We pulled the airplane for the first
couple hundred feet, at which point the aircraft ahead began to start
up.

The temporary tower was stuffing heavy iron on IFR flight plans into
the line at intervals, allowing the VFR aircraft to depart quickly.

We got to the airplane following the race at 4:30 pm.
We were wheels off at 7:00 pm.
Another Bonanza ahead of us let his engine run the entire 2.5 hours we
were waiting on the ground.

"Maule Driver" wrote in message .com...
One that kind of cracked me up was seeing NASCAR celeb Richard Petty alight
from his King Air. The guy understands image marketing (or he's shy as
hell). As dusk settled on KGSO, he exited the King Air with hat and
sunglasses and western suit all in place. He was meeting no one and was
with no one except a small entourage but he stayed in character thru the
little FBO and out to whereever. I'm sure it's not a natural act to keep
the hat and shades on while moving one's carcass from King Air seat to bed
somewhere but he was up to it.


Here he is with his toys.

http://www.aerospace-technology.com/...rboprop10.html