Source: 2021 Q4 Beartracks, Monica Murphey
The Triple Tree Aerodrome (SC00), located near Woodruff, South Carolina, hosted their 14th annual fly-in September 20-26th, 2021. Thomas Patterson “Pat” Hartness bought the property in 1997 and began developing it into the beautiful venue that offers General Aviation and Radio Control events. Triple Tree’s 7,000 foot grass runway is immaculately maintained. The Triple Tree website states they had a new record of 1,349 total aircraft operations at this year’s event.
My husband Stephen and I began attending Triple Tree after we moved to South Carolina. Stephen has always been interested in buying or building a plane, and began to seriously look at plans after we found an old farmhouse on enough acreage to develop a short runway of our own. After looking at several short field options, it didn’t take long for him to decide building a Bearhawk was the best fit for us. One of our favorite parts of Triple Tree is meeting other Bearhawk enthusiasts.
This year, Jerry Cornwell, aka Stinger, was at Triple Tree with his LSA. He enjoys flying his Bearhawk “Lil’ Bear” with his grandson, but was flying solo this year. Mike Swain, who is building a Bearhawk 4-Place, flew in with his son Len in their Maule. We met two potential Bearhawk builders from the Greenville area. One is in the process of ordering a Model 5 kit and the other gentleman is in the exploration phase.
Triple Tree also offers a variety of workshops and seminars. Attendees receive tickets that are entered into a raffle. We attended a workshop hosted by Mr. Jim Wilson detailing his restoration of a Travel Air belonging to a family connection of Pancho Barnes. I have a history of never winning anything, so I did not have high expectations when we joined the others in the maintenance hangar as they called out the numbers of winners. I was chatting with another gentleman and didn’t even realize what I won when one of my tickets was called. I was thrilled to learn I had won two new tires for Stephen’s Bearhawk-to-be.
Stephen is excited, too.
The weather was perfect. A good time was surely had by all, and we hope to see more of you guys there next year.