Mooney Gathering 10/07/10 through 10/10/10
This was not an Arizona Blue Sky Flyers event but we thought we thought maybe
some of the other club members might be interested in our adventure. Dewey
and Sandy Harnagel bought their first Mooney in 1983 and shortly thereafter
joined MAPA (Mooney Aircraft Pilots Association). Each year in October,
MAPA holds a gathering somewhere in the US. Each hear since 1983 Dewey has
been saying, "One day I would like to go to one of those gatherings". This
year when we got the flyer for the gathering in the mail we noticed that it was
in Colorado Springs, CO. I said to Sandy, "One of these years, I would
like to go to one of these gatherings". And she said, "Why not this year".
And so that was it. We made our reservations and departed early
Thursday morning Oct 7th. We had nice tail winds all the way there and
with a short stop in Farmington, NM, we were on Colorado Springs shortly after
noon. When we landed, we were greeted by a couple of MAPA representatives,
one dressed in a clown suit. One of them asked me if we wanted to enter
our airplane in the beauty contest. I replied that we thought it was
beautiful but there were probably lots of newer, prettier Mooneys there.
A MAPA van picked us up at the airport and took us to the Crowne Plaza Hotel
where all the activities took place. That evening there was a reception in
one of the large ballrooms sponsored by aircraft equipment vendors. Many
of the vendors had booths set up and were hawking their latest products.
On Friday morning there was a breakfast, also sponsored by the vendors and all
afternoon there were seminars for the pilots on things such as mountain flying,
weather, maintenance etc. There was a special luncheon just for the wives
and and afternoon seminar on self defense, identity protection, home protection,
etc. On Friday evening there was an ice cream social and several door
prizes were given away.
Saturday was filled with more informative seminars with a banquet dinner that
night. The guest speaker for the banquet was Linda Finch who, in 1997,
re-created Amelia Earhart's trip around the world in a restored 1935 Lockheed
Electra. I had found out on Friday that the "Beauty Contest" the guy at the
airport had mentioned, included a trophy for each model that Mooney had
produced. Ours is a model M20A which was only produced from 1958 through
1960. I also found out that out of 75 or 80 Mooneys that flew in for the
event, ours was the only A model there and that it would be judged even though
we had not officially entered it in the contest. So, at the banquet, we
received a nice plaque indicating that we had the best looking Mooney M20A at
the gathering.
Sunday morning, we caught the early van back to the airport and were blessed
with tail winds on the way home also, arriving back at Deer Valley around 11:00
AM. It was a great trip, nice and cool in Colorado, and we picked up a lot
of good information at the seminars. We may do it again. Below are
some pictures of the trip.
Click on the thumbnail
for a larger view
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When we arrived, our 1960 Mooney was sandwiched |
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between a new Ovation on the left and a 201 on the right. |
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This was part of the room where the Vendors had their wares set up. |
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This was the area where we registered with MAPA when |
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we arrived. As you can see, they also had lots of MAPA merchandist to sell you. |
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This was part of the breakfast set up Friday morning, provided by the vendors |
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The Saturday evening banquet |
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Here we are with our trophy for the best looking A model Mooney |
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Just a few of the Mooneys on the ramp when we left Sunday morning |
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