July 1999
Float Flying
Adventure
Challenger Owners Association


The first Challenger Float Flying Adventure started at the Iroquois 5-Star Fly-in. The adventure lasted 8 days and meandered over 2000 km of fabulous scenery!

The area explored is interspersed with lakes and is bounded by the St. Lawrence River to the south, Kirkland Lake to the north, the Ottawa River to the east and Georgian Bay to the west. How appropriate that such watery landmarks form the perimeter of a float tour. Just imagine how many feet of runway all that water represents! And imagine what it would cost to pave!

Here's a selection of photos to give you a sense of what transpired. Enjoy!



The weather outside is frightful, but the lunch is quite delightful! The flying portion of Iroquois '99 fell victim to the weather - but 55 people turned up nevertheless! Once again the Jackson family were magnificent hosts!




The core tour group consisted of 4 amphibious Challengers carrying 5 keen adventurers: Major Claude Roy, Jean-Marc Côté, Paul Schaefer and Nate and Bryan Quickmire.





Along the way the group visted a dozen or so Challenger owners. First stop was the home of Dr. Tessa Clarke and Ken Feigleman on the Rideau Waterway. If you look carefully you'll see another Challenger hiding behind the trees!





Once in a while they even visited non-owners.
(Of course all non-owners are really wannabes!)








They flew high ...








... and they flew low!







Sometimes even on high the scenery was up close and personal!







Sometimes the runway ahead was clear, such as here, departing Notre-Dame-du-Nord for the Kirkland Lake area.






But sometimes there were delays for traffic on intersecting runways!






Speaking of traffic, how about this parking lot on Go Home Lake! Bet the Borland's neighbours never thought this would happen when the first Challenger arrived!





So how did the participants view the adventure?

Paul looks like he's having an awful time!







Okay, so it was all play and no work!

Claude floats on a float by a float!





Jean-Marc and Nate take a couple of tubes for a test ride! And no, they're not being pulled by a Challenger!







Bryan uses XSL for an umbrella as a shower passes. The group had good fortune with the weather, flying on eight days out of eight!





One hundred percent of those surveyed (ie Nate) prefer travel by Challenger over travel by houseboat.

Nate says: "See you next year!"

Stay tuned as the Challenger Owners Association plans a group flight to Oshkosh 2000.



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