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Mark Meredith

@msmeredith79

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It's a beautiful day for an airshow here at Wildwood! Practice show starts shortly...Chippy and I takeoff at 2 PM. Lots of great performers positioned at both Cape May and Millville (jets). Weather is beautiful on the Boardwalk!

Main show is Saturday starting at noon.

Schultz Airshows
Electroair
Eastcoast Propeller Service Inc
Flight Flix taken in Wildwood Boardwalk, NJ by @msmeredith79

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a year ago

Harrisburg Airshow (Air Dot Show Central PA) is this Saturday and Sunday! Weather looks great starting tomorrow morning and through the weekend. Terrific line up of performers! Check 'em out:

https://air.show/centralpa/

Blue Angels have arrived! Chippy and I were hoping to get in there this afternoon but weather is still a bit skuddy with the passage of a cold front. Looks nice for a Chippy (and other performers) tomorrow morning. Practice day on Friday!

Air Dot Show Tour
@PAAirShow

#Airshow2025 Electroair Smooth Power, LLC Lycoming Engines by @msmeredith79

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a year ago

Congratulations to Esteban Bollina Varela who passed his private pilot check ride today!

He's training with ATP Flight School which has locations all over the country. He's been training in Leesburg, VA, but he and his instructor (and chief pilot) Will Beckman met me at Martin State Airport near Baltimore. He flew a beautiful Cherokee 180 G1000 NXi. Esteban is aiming for the airlines. ("Or crop duster, whatever flies!") by @msmeredith79

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2 years ago

Congratulations to Lauren Wilson, our newest Private Pilot! She completed her check ride on 25 November 2024. Lauren is looking forward to finishing her senior year in high school and taking friends and family flying!

We were blessed with a beautiful day to fly around the Chesapeake Bay. She was trained at Navy Annapolis Flight Center by her instructor Fernando Argeles, a fellow retired Navy shipmate paying it forward for the next generation of pilots.

I'm honored that Lauren is my first check ride as a Designated Pilot Examiner. taken in Navy Annapolis Flight Center by @msmeredith79

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2 years ago

Here's a handful of pics I took of the Flying Horseman Ranch fly-in, hosted by my friend Richard Landis. Big crowd for barbecue on Saturday! Dozens of kids ran around all weekend. Richard specializes in
giving kids a chance to fly and get excited about aviation! He gave a dozen or more rides in his Champ despite mostly rainy weather.

Also a few pics I took after after crawling out of my tent early Saturday morning. Richard and his family have such a beautiful place in the Virginia Blue Ridge, with lots of room for campers, plane parking, and a smooth (but hilly!) grass runway. He has so much sweat equity invested in making his place special, then sharing it. Thanks once again for hosting this all, Richard and fam! And all the other friends who came over to work, cook, and make it all come together. by @msmeredith79

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2 years ago

My friend Glen Becker sent me these pics of his cat Lucy watching YouTube - Chippy and me at Flying Circus Airshow. He said "Lucy knows what's good." Haha! 😆

By the way, I tested 20/20 (corrected) in both eyes on Tuesday. Still have issues to work through since the detached retina in August, so it will be early December before I can get back in the air. Since I was in for overhaul anyway, I had a bum toe worked on so now that needs to heal too.

Longest stretch ever without flying! I added Ross Harwell to my insurance policy so he can fly my Chippy. He teaches in Super Cubs and owns a beautiful Super Chipmunk so Ross is the perfect guy to come up from NC to exercise Chippy. Thanks, Ross!

Airplanes are like horses and herd dogs: got to give them some work to keep them healthy.

Still doing ground instruction with students over the phone and finding lots of other things to keep me productive at home using one good eye and one good foot! I'll be ready to get going on the canopy project in a couple weeks when I have: 👁️👁️🦶🦶 by @msmeredith79

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3 years ago

Mike Gottwald took this great photo yesterday at Leesburg VA Airshow (JYO) with Chris Thomas and Mike Eberhart (Buick), before their formation SNJ aerobatics. I always like candid pics! This was the first time I've gotten to see them fly their SNJ aircraft as Warbird Thunder Airshows. Check out their page! Of course I've seen them before when they were a part of the Geico Skytypers. So glad they are working their magic, keeping these 80+ year old aircraft on the airshow circuit!

Warbird Thunder Airshows by @msmeredith79

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3 years ago

Arg!
I'm no Wiley Post, the famous Golden Age era pilot with his eye patch. But yes, I did order a Chippy blue patch!

Sadly, I'm going to be out of action for awhile due to an eye injury. I had a detached retina in my left eye which apparently started on the flight back from Oshkosh in Chippy.

I had eye surgery at the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute in Baltimore last Friday. All is well! There never was any pain, I just could not see out of that left eye. Still can't, but that's normal during the healing. I have a gas in my eye used to reattach and hold the retina in place. Of course gas expands with altitude so I'm grounded for the next 2 months at least. My AME (FAA doc) says the normal waiting period for the FAA to clear me to fly is 3 months, after demonstrating that both eyes work.

I'll miss the rest of my airshow season - 5 shows! That's obviously disappointing because they are all terrific shows. The Atlantic City beachfront show (with the Thunderbirds) is Tuesday and Wednesday this week. (Y'all come out!!) Then I'll miss crowd favorite shows at Martinsburg, Leesburg, Culpeper, and Old Rhinebeck.

Also leaving my flight students in the lurch at Navy Annapolis Flight Center. But others will pick up the slack - nice being on a team. Hanging out at home, I've already done quite a few hours of ground training with students since the surgery (on the phone) helping them prep for checkride or mentoring them to their study.

The important thing: problem is fixed! Just gotta heal. So I'll be back! Very upbeat.

Blessed to live near this wonderful Johns Hopkins network of hospitals and clinics across the DC/Baltimore area. The Wilmer Eye Institute is probably the best in the world. Terrific docs and teams!

So what caused it? Detached retinas can result from blunt trauma, though in my case it's probably due to myopia, PRK (the Navy corrected my eyes while I was still active duty), and past cataract surgery.

Once I can drive again and get back to my hangar, I also have a Chippy canopy to finish! Onward. 👍👍 by @msmeredith79

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3 years ago

Chippy and I will be performing at the Atlantic City Airshow, "A Salute to those Who Serve" on 16 August. I'll be interviewed by local radio host Harry Hurley this Friday morning.

I'll talk a bit about the airshow (y'all come out to the boardwalk!), about Chippy, and I suppose how I got here. It's an amazing and surprising journey! It was just February 2018 when I got the crazy idea that just maybe...at age 60... I could fly airshows in this beautiful airplane that I rebuilt. I never imagined where it would lead. Chippy has opened doors to so many amazing adventures and friendships, ever since I started the rebuild in 2009. It was just a wild hair to even buy this crazy plane. I have met what seems like a whole universe of lovely people, many who have become good friends and mentors.

I'm sitting with some of them now in our Oshkosh camp, as I type this post. A group of pilots and friends from Australia, New Zealand, and UK. Everywhere I turn in this airplane life, I see amazing and inspiring people.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=673256914844125&id=100064794663656&mibextid=Nif5oz taken in Visit Atlantic City Airshow "A Salute to Those Who Serve" by @msmeredith79

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3 years ago

Yes, there is a new Chipmunk brew again this year! The King's Chipmunk Ale, a Regal IPA

Thanks to local brewer and Chipmunk pilot Mike Dobel, with help for Erik White as organizer, and label design by Richard Wilshire. Set of 4 different labels. taken in EAA AirVenture Oshkosh by @msmeredith79

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3 years ago

Hmmm...is this full size Chippy or a scale model?
🤔 by @msmeredith79

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3 years ago

Ana Bonafede Miller and I enjoyed a lovely flight in Chippy this afternoon. Ana recently soloed a Warrior with her regular CFI Fernando Argeles at Navy Annapolis Flight Center. This was her first opportunity for aerobatics and spins. We both had a great time!

Ana was good for the whole aerobatic repertoire including parts of my show sequence with a flat accelerated spin and 8 point roll. After only a little bit of instruction and occasional stick nudges from me in the back, Ana flew very nice aileron rolls, loops, hammerheads, Humpty bumps, power off spins, Immelmanns, barrel rolls, and very smooth wingovers.

Now, back to the good ol Cherokee tomorrow. Watch out, Ana! Once you've tasted aerobatics and the joy of maneuvering a sweet flying Chippy in 3 dimensions, you'll never be the same.

Ana is a world class triathlete and Iron Man competitor. Future IAC aerobatic competitor? 👍 by @msmeredith79

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3 years ago