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Did anybody go to any of the AOPA fly ins? I was shooting for the Frederick MD event, but missed it and ended up going to the St. Simons, GA (KSSI) two weeks ago. The weather was good VFR, the approaches were well organized and most pilots followed the procedures, well attended with over 400 aircraft, and some interesting booths and seminars. It reminded me of a mini Sun-n-Fun. I would recommend it for the future.

Joey, I was flying my DA40 next to you on the fly out. We were flying from SSI to HXD and you were right next to me.

We flew a pair of 40's in from KILM, the air boss was awesome the way she orchestrated the chaos.

Jimmy

The one at Indy was a real zoo. A pilot whose hangar is next to mine at TYQ flew in. What made this ?hilarous? is that he was put into a hold (for 30 min) for the alternate airport and then had to wait another 30 min on the ground for the bus to transport him to MQJ. MQJ is only 20 nm from TYQ. I'm glad I just drove my car By all accounts, the Fly-in at MQJ was highly successful. I sure hope AOPA continues these next year.

Attended the AOPA Fly-In in Frederick, MD (KFDK) at AOPA HQ, since I needed to put our DA42-VI on static display there. Had a great time; caught up with a lot of people I hadn't seen in awhile.

However, because the weather forecast for the morning of the fly-in was poor and I needed to get the plane to Frederick very early, I chose to fly in the day before -- all of 22 miles from my home airport at KJYO in light rain and about 1500 foot MSL ceilings. Thought I'd share a story of what happened when flying in IMC on an IFR flight to Frederick that afternoon:

(This is what I remember took place as I'm flying the ILS 23 approach into KFDK totally in the clouds, having been vectored onto the ILS by Potomac Approach...)
Potomac Approach: "Four-two delta alpha, contact Frederick Tower 132.4"
N42DA: "Over to tower, four-two delta alpha"
N42DA: "Fredrick Tower, Twinstar four-two delta alpha inbound for landing on the ILS 23, 8 miles out"
Fredrick Tower: "Twinstar four-two delta alpha, wake turbulence alert; be aware of a B-17 about 7 miles out, about 1000 feet below you at your eleven o'clock. Follow him, you're number two for landing."
(There was apparently a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress giving rides, scud running just below the 1500 foot MSL/1200 feet AGL ceiling around the airport area and flying VFR.)
N42DA: "Frederick Tower, Twinstar four-two delta alpha is still in IMC; I can't see a thing! I've got him on the fish finder, less than a mile and less than 1000 feet below me!"
(I was doing about 115 knots coming down the ILS glideslope, so I quickly brought the throttles back to slow the DA42 down to about 85 knots. Just as I broke out of the clouds on the ILS, there was the tail of the B-17 in front of me, coming from my eleven o'clock. Too bad I couldn't have switched to guns. )
N42DA: "Frederick Tower, Twinstar four-two delta alpha has B-17 in sight, I'm slowing down to try and stay behind him."
B-17: "Fortress here; Sorry about that; we can't fly any faster than 100 knots on the approach."
Frederick Tower: "Fortress cleared to land runway two-three; expedite runway turn-off due to following traffic."

I came in over the numbers just as the B-17 pulled off the far end of the runway. Keep in mind that the Frederick tower doesn't have radar. This was a great example of where our plane's Avidyne TAS traffic system proved its value.