Roger wrote:

Not too long ago, well, mebe a couple of years.. but no more than
that, I was sitting at the hold line for 24 waiting for a little blue
Grumman Tiger to land.

Now we had one hefty cross wind from the south and that little Grumman
was doing a very nice job of a slip to land. He had the upwind wing
low, the airplane was tracking straight and the nose was pointed right
down the runway.

Unfortunately the nose gear has that long, streamlined wheel pant
which was weather vaned at near 30 degrees (looked like even more...
Grummans have a castering nose gear) Every time that nose gear would
touch it would whip straight and go into one GAWD awful oscillation.
About the third time this happened he must have had a death grip on
the yoke and the mike button ended up pushed. As he pulled the nose
up yet again I heard, "Come one you Mutha...." complete with family
history, canine ancestory, and un-natural habits.

It must have worked as it stayed down the next time. :-))

I did have to wait to quit laughing before departing though.

A few years back I was just turning downwind from the 45 at an
uncontrolled airport when I heard "McMinnville traffic, Skipper 12345
turning left base runway two-two"

I couldn't resist and immediately transmitted "McMinnville traffic,
Cessna 5156-Hotel left downwind two-two, number two behind the little
son-of-a-Beech."

There must have been a bunch of people monitoring the CTAF because I
heard three different laughs and a dozen clicks.

- John Ousterhout -