There is a time for driving but better for flying.I had the opportunity Tuesday to do something that I have been relishing for months and I fully enjoyed it.
Early Tuesday I caught the buzz over my air radio of a fellow Wolf-Pack member who invited me to take a short hop with him to Jackson Hole. Few pilots will turn down a chance to fly, so I met my pal up at the Uinta County airport and off we went in his Jet Ranger Helo. We did a touch and go there at Montpelier then I took the controls. Ah it felt great. There is something to be said and for all those that are landlocked will never understand, but feeling your body lift from the ground and hitting 10,000 feet or higher at 275 mph, the real beauty of what God creates is very apparent and it’s a time of reverence. So we got to Jackson Hole, Mark went and delivered his load at the hospital, and I stayed at the airport , slurping some 100 mile tea, with some other aviators and I started getting the old bugs again.
Now I’m all for being online blogging of two wheels, and 18wheels and of course the rebel confederacy and Hazzard County, but sadly and maybe there’s something to this, but the AyreWolvez are gaining more altitude in the measure of success, but sadly ignored, by me on the blogs and of course on air. Which by our deadline of June 1st should be live on air again. Okay then, the thing being the Wolf-Pack is as much the Knytes as any air crew could be, and then some. There’s much to say here so if I go on tangents here bare with me. It was the Wolf-Pack aka the AyreWolvez that saved the Knytes from going into total oblivion, and perhaps disbanding. Back in early 2000 just after 9/11 I had just moved to Jerome from Goon’s Ferry, At this point the Foundation was still intact, but I needed to get working to bring my second love of towing together. The thing was I was sitting in my front room at some adult apartment complex there watching BlackSheep Squadron on TV on the History Channel when they ran the series. When overhead and I thought I was dreaming I heard the sounds of Whistling Death or two Corsairs flying overhead. Thinking it was just the TV up too loud, I turned it down and sure as I eat pizza, here they circled again. There’s just something about that Pratt and Whitney 3800 radial engine, that will make a aviators blood churn. So I took out of the driveway, up to catch some coffee, when I heard over my air radio in the WolfPup, that they were landing at Jerome’s airport. So I went in found the birds in a hangar with not just one, not two but 4 F4U’s in there. Got to chatting with the owner of a joint called the Airpower Museum. So got a job sweeping and wrenching on aircraft. It was about the fifth day working there that I got a slight shiver and thought, since the then Hazzard Knytes had conquered everything on land that burned fuel, why not get into the air. By this time the Hazzard Knytes only had 2 main subsidiaries, the Rode Knytes Truckers Association, and the Deere Dazzlerz. But what about aircraft. To make this short, when I found out how much John at Airpower was making refurbishing and restoring these old warbirds, I thought, hey rather than tool on hot rods, lets build aircraft. Shortly after that, came the concept of a warbird enthusiasts club, as a part of the Hazzard Knytes(aka, Knytes-of-Anarchy) . We figited around some names for it but finally the idea of The BlackSheep Vintage Aviation Association came into mind, however while the 214 of which I proudly am still part of was okay with the name, the USMC and DoD wasn’t. However the club lived as the BlackSheep for 3 years after that. Now understand and I’ll get to the rest in a few microns here, but hear me out. One afternoon, Kathy my then fiancé Knyte member Terry Junkert and I went to a Knytes meeting in Blackfoot Idaho at Rupe’s Burgers. Over the course of the meeting, I was disgusted and thought maybe the BlackSheep ought to be the parent organization over the Knytes rather than the other way around. So I met with most of the officers and all of both groups, in Jerome the following week, and it was decided it’d be the Wolf Pack over the Knytes. With that done, events came where there was a call by both the USMC, and Deere and Company about going truck racing in the fresh then NASCAR truck series. So Jerry Westlake and his brother and I went to RMR in Salt Lake City. I decided to move down to Utah. Jerry chickened out of course, but Living just outside of a major air force base with f-16’s overhead and all your heart is in the air not on the ground, and in 2003 just before the Foundation collapsed, a hangar was procured and AyreWolf Aviation Restoration was born. In late 2004 the news came that the funds of the Foundation was froze and the court battle between the Foundation and Summit Securities to recover our invested money in Summit began. So at this point I moved in with Cuzzin Bud, in Bountiful, where shortly after Cuzzin Gordon came by, and over the few weeks later with just under the last $400,000.00 in liquid of the Foundation, AyreWolf Aviation was born at an old restored hangar there at Woods Cross, Utah as a agricultural aviation company. As well as a warbird including helicopters restoration company. But how do you gain business? And with DoD hammering down our necks, the BlackSheep name was swapped out for the AyreWolvez, and the rest as they say is history.
That being said, as it was Tuesday, in the spring as the weather warms up and clears out for a few short(Really short in Wyoming) months an aviators heart does not turn to romance, he(or she) wants to fly. However there’s more here. The AyreWolvez true to our name and mission is not just to restore the aircraft, but to honor the men (and women) who have flown and still fly for the defense of this nation. To those we created AyreWolfFM,(www.livestream.com/ayrewolffm) To report the news and information to military aviators of DoD and VA benefits and so on. As such, for many reasons , I’ve decided to put more oomph into the Wolf-Pack as well as here on the blog and on air, of the AyreWolvez, rather than so much Hazzard. Summary, its time to get back into and on the air.
Keep it Wyngz Level
Quote of the Day:
Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.
--Wilson Mizner
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