Aerobatics competition to fly Friday, Saturday
♦ A local father and son will fly their first aerobatics competition against each other.
Friday’s looking good but the organizers of the Mark Fullerton memorial 2019 Bear Creek Bash are casting a wary eye to the weather on Saturday.
This year’s event is dedicated to Mark Fullerton, contest director of the event the past few years and manager of the US Aerobatic Team that competed last year in Romania.
Charlie Sikes, the organizer of the event, said they’ve had 20-22 pilots register for the event set for Friday and Saturday. With the weather forecast, the number of pilots that show could be cut in half. Despite that they’ve got good weather Friday and are planning on flying all day, Sikes said. The pilots will meet at 7 a.m. and will begin flying at 7:30 a.m.
It’s even bringing in some local talent.
A local father and son, both pilots, are looking forward to their first aerobatics competition.
Rick Ferrin has been flying 47 years and Dan Ferrin has been flying for 22 years, but
for each of them this is a first. Rick Ferrin, a 767 pilot for UPS, said while he has been in the cockpit of a plane for over 37,000 hours of flight time, the flights planned for the next couple of days will be particularly exciting.
This time he’s flying them with his son. While they’ll each fly their separate routines they’ll be competing against each other in the primary division.
It’s been dry in Rome since
the event was originally postponed in June, but now this Saturday it looks like not only rain but likely storms.
According to the National Weather Service:
There’s an increasing chance of showers Saturday, beginning at 4 a.m. with a low around 52. Rain showers are likely throughout the day with wind gusts as high as 15 mph. The high will reach to around 65.