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The second annual Canadian Sunset Fly-in was held on June 22, 2002 on fellow Rocket builder Tom Martin's 400 acre farm in St Thomas, Ontario, Canada.  What started out last year as a friendly visit from members of the Indianapolis First Air Force has quickly grown into a classic, grass-roots fly-in for all RV/Rocket builders, fliers, and wannabe's.  This year as last, the weather was simply magnificent and the weather was only outdone by the hospitality of Tom, his family and friends, the his fellow builders from Canada.  For anyone reasonably close to Ontario, Canada, you have to put this on your calendar for next year.  I was fortunate to be able to attend again this year armed with my new digital camera.  Many thanks to Bob Japundza, fellow RV-6 owner and F1 Rocket builder, who let me tag along as dead weight in his RV since I had sold my RV-6 last October.


     

As was the case last year, Mark Frederick flew up from the heart of F1 Rocket country (Taylor, Texas) to meet up with the flyers from Indianapolis.  The group met at the new Hendricks County airport (K2R2), which is being built on Indianapolis' west side to replace the old Speedway airport, which closed in December.  Our flight director was Tom Utterback, and you can see from the picture that everyone is intently paying attention to his briefing.

After a call to Canadian customs, the group departed for St. Thomas via Detroit.  Tom Martin had earlier arranged for customs to meet us at the St. Thomas airport thus eliminating an unnecessary stop for us at Windsor for customs check-in.  One of the great things about flying up to Canada is that their customs folks are so accommodating, not so the American customs agents (more on that later).

On the way up, the weather was VFR, but pretty murky.  The US controllers were very accommodating and offered us Flight Following services all the way there, handing us off from one radar facility to the next.

     

We landed at St. Thomas and checked in with our friendly customs agent.  After a quick check of our credentials, it was off again for the short hop (less than 2 miles) to Tom's grass strip.

     

Tom's strip is new this year and he has done a fantastic job of providing a smooth surface with great grass.  Even after all the rain they had the week before, the strip was dry and firm.  This is a shot to the east of his 09/27 strip.

     

     

The ramp at Tom's strip filled up rather quickly with the arrival of those "pikers from down south".

First order of business was lunch.  Tom had the burgers on the grill and the coolers were full of beer, sodas, and water.  Once we topped off our stomachs, we proceeded to visit with all of the airplane folks there from Canada.

     

Tom then took us on a tour of his shop where he has two F1 Rockets going together.  Tom took the time to explain some of the trick's he's learned.  As you can tell from the pictures, Tom has a very spacious and well organized shop.

     

  If you knew where to look, you could find a number of very interesting modifications to the F1 airframe.

     

It's amazing how quickly an open cowling will attract attention.  Mark removed the top off of his Rocket to show us the new plenum chamber he's been using.

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