Mandan, North Dakota.

A couple of Sundays ago, I made the trip to Mandan’s Y19 airport for their annual Planes and Pancakes fly-in. I try to get there every year to help share the Civil Air Patrol story, sometimes bringing along the glider behind me. That was the case on this day, as well as hoping to give some Civil Air Patrol members a sortie or two in the glider after we showed it off to the fly-in attendees. The beautiful day made for quite a draw and I was to learn that the fly-in volunteers served over 2,000 breakfasts to the visitors. The bad news for our glider operations was that the winds came up, not so much as to endanger the safety of flight, but people unfamiliar with gliders are already nervous that they are in an aircraft with no engine. Add to that the thermal and wind turbulence, that makes for uncomfortable and even scary flights for those who might be experiencing their first flight in a non-powered aircraft. We opted to call it a day and head home after the fly-in was over.

About the photo: It takes a crew of people and a lot of time on the runway to launch a glider so when we attend these shows, we wait until virtually all of the powered aircraft head home so we can get the glider launch underway. I happened to stop and see that one of the classic warbirds, a Mustang P-51 out of Fargo was just getting ready to leave. Along both sides of the aircraft, the remaining fly-in visitors, many like myself, with cell phone cameras in hand, awaited for the pilot of “Boomer” to fire up that powerful engine. This image was captured with my Samsung S7 cell phone, processed in Lightroom and Aurora 2019. The rule for Cellpic Sunday is simple. The image must be captured by a mobile device. Click on the image and if you’re lucky, your browser will give you a better view of this classic aircraft.

John Steiner