Adventure at the Amelia Earhardt Museum Slope
Posted by Greg Smith on Aug 24, 2002, 00:33
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On the way back home from the Midwest Slope Challenge, I happened through Atchison, Kansas, the birthplace of Amelia Earhart. I decided to drive past the house her grandparents owned when she was born.
The house is on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River and wouldn’t you know it, there is a slope right out front. It is a small park and the bluff is covered with trees (more on that in a minute), but it is a slope nonetheless. It just seemed appropriate to at least make a couple of passes in Amelia’s memory.
I tossed the SH-50 and circled around to test out the landing area. I gave it a bit more on the next go and found some lift over the trees. After a couple of passes I landed again. Now for a good toss and straight in to the lift zone. I had planned to go out a bit further and get more room to work with and after a few turns it seemed all was well, that is until I grazed a particularly tall tree on the left and spun it in. OOPS!
The ground cover was super dense and I pushed my way through to try to find my downed bird. I spotted it in some trees below the lip of the bluff. Uh, Oh that seems to be a long way down and steep too. After almost sliding down the face of the bluff, I decided to attack the problem from below since I could not reach it from the top.
I spent the next hour or so searching in vain as well as sliding down the steep bluffs every so often. Is that poison ivy? I hope not! (as of today I seem to be relatively free of itching. So far so good, either I missed it, or I am one of the 25% that does not get affected by the plant).
Anyway, I was beginning to think how ironic it would be if my memorial flight ended up with a lost plane. I went back to the top, got my bearings and a couple of landmarks below, went down to the bottom again and this time as I walked up the hill for a final attempt to find the plane there it was, just lying on the ground waiting for me to pick it up and undamaged to boot. So I guess all’s well that ends well and I still think it was a nice thing to do for the memory of Amelia.
For info on the museum go to http://www.ameliaearhartmuseum.org/
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