Summer's over -- where'd you go?

cjcampbell wrote:
Jay Honeck wrote:
With school started, and family vacations a soon-to-be-distant memory,
it's time to reflect on a summer of flying. Where'd everyone fly to?

I flew to Manila two or three times. Commercial. :-(

sigh

We fly home to the US of A in two months. Already my old flight school
is asking me if I will be coming back.

Oh, and for what it's worth...

I hope you rekindle your photography skills too...

Jay B

What was the coolest flight you made this summer?

Coolest? Hard to choose. They are all cool, but for different reasons.

I'm based at DXR and the wings are on the bottom, the compass points to
the left, and the ocean is on the right. But every September I take the
aluminum tube to the other side, (which is where I learned to fly).
There, the wings are on top, the compass points to the right, and the
ocean is on the left. But the lifting fairies still work without
complaining.

We usually do Santa Rosa (STS) to "Greater Pasadena" (El Monte, EMT),
but this time we went the whole way from San Diego to Seattle. It was
done over several different flights, since we started from Santa Rosa.
I got checked out in a 172SP from Dragonfly, and found to my amazement
that that airplane really =does= do 135+ knots. I had expected it to be
just a 172 with fancier avionics and a heavier interior, but it's a
really nice plane. It was the first time I'd flown up North, and we
picked early September hoping for the nicer weather. The trip up was
awesome; my wife, who was somewhat apprehensive about flying "right next
to" the big mountains (she calls them "pointies") found it to be
beautiful, serene, and absolutely loved the flight. We stopped in Yreka
(1o5) for gas since it was the last stop before things thinned out, and
a friend from college came from there. The FBO there was wonderful.
They were welcoming, gave us a courtesy car to drive around the area,
told us to call if we had any problems at all, offered us a room if we
needed it, and told us about some great local spots. Two hours later,
stuffed with local hamburger, pie, and ice cream which couldn't be beat,
we took off again in with Mount Shasta in the background, and headed for
Seattle, arriving just about at sunset. Passing Mt. St. Helens, it
puffed a bit of smoke for us in greeting.

The adventure was a few days later, on a short flight from Seattle to
Portland. It is just a one hour flight, but there were some mean
thunderstorms between us and them, which I understand is typical of the
area. Although I'm instrument rated, flying =in= a thunderstorm is a
non-starter, and we didn't want to get Seattle ice while trying to fly
around it in the soup. So, it was VFR or bust. There was a low
ceiling, but I carefully planned a low level VFR flight and figured we
could always turn back if it wasn't working out. We got about fifteen
minutes out and I decided that things were too close for my comfort and
we turned back. Halfway back, I spotted a hole in the clouds, and
figured that if we could get on top, it would be easy to avoid the mean
stuff visually. Katie wasn't too thrilled with that idea, but up we
went. It was absolutely beautiful, but we had to climb to over ten
thousand feet, and it was a solid undercast. A picture I took is at the
bottom of the flying20club.com website. Being below freezing, it
wouldn't be pretty if the pilot's cooling fan gave up the ghost. But
this is true in many places, so on we went, until we started getting
near the storm. It was a big grey mass in front of us, Katie wasn't
very thrilled, and alas, it was not going to be easy to get around. The
mountains were to the left, and the storm extended out over the ocean.

Not wanting to be debated on r.a.p posthumously, we turned around again,
flew back to Seattle, had a steak at Denny's (which was a much better
steak than one we recently had at one of Seattle's top restaurnats - go
figure!) and came back to see that the storm was still going strong. We
reclaimed the rental car and decided to take the very low altitude
route. For most of the drive I kept looking up and thinking "we could
have made it" but near the end, it was clear we made the right choice.

This meant we had to drive back again when we were done to retrieve the
airplane for the flight back to Santa Rosa, and we lost a day of
visiting friends, but them's the breaks. We'll be back one day.
Willamette Valley has some lovely pinot noirs and we picked up a few.
In fact, I've gained a new appreciation for this variety.

We returned from Seattle over broken clouds, stopped again at Yreka (the
FBO was closed, but true to his word, one call brought him out to fuel
us regail us with the courtesy car, and chat some more. Another burger,
more pie and ice cream (it's worth the trip just for that!) and we were
on our way. By the time we got to Santa Rosa, the fog had rolled in and
we got a popup IFR clearance. One ILS to minimums and we were back.
Boy that ticket comes in handy sometimes!

While we were on the left coast, I also got in some aerobatics time with
an old friend from college. That was memorable; it always is. We took
a decathelon up and flew upside down, and I polished my barrel rolls.
(I have a tendency to hesitate three quarters of the way through).

The trip from EMT to STS was looking especially promising - we'd done
this trip several times and it's always smoggy. This time it was
crystal clear, and I've been wanting to show Katie what it looks like
when you can see it. Alas, it was not to be, fires in the morning
quickly filled the basin and a good part of the desert with smoke up to
12000 feet. We could smell it in the cockpit and barely had three miles
visibility. But it cleared up after about a hundred or two miles, and
we got home fine.

In April I got up way early in the morning to fly to Lincoln Park (N07)
for the Space Ship One talk they were having there. I got the date
wrong and was one day late, so I surprised my brother and sister (who
live nearby), and then my brother and I flew down to see our Aunt. It's
a good three hour trip by car; forty minutes by air, so this turned a
real disappointment into a very nice day. I did a similar trip just
this month, except that after visiting my aunt, we flew out to the
middle of Long Island to see my other brother who lives near Islip
(ISP). Coming back at night (en route to Lincoln Park) I asked for a
Bravo clearance, and we were asked to let them know when we could see
Shea Stadium. Shortly they asked us if we could see "the lady". Well,
unless NY has another "lady", we weren't going to see it from 2000 feet
halfway out over Long Island, so then they asked if we could see the
Empire State Building. Bingo. "Fly straight towards it, and make a
right at the East River". Ultimately we were vectored right over
Manhattan at 2000 feet, just inches from the Empire State Building.
(ok, a fair number of inches, but it was awesome!)

A few weeks ago I took three children, friends of ours, down the Hudson
Corridor, and they were all enthralled. The next day their mom drove
them down past the harbor, and pointed it out. They responded "Oh, mom,
we saw that from the =air=!"

This May was this year's September, and we were back in California
again. Weather is different in May; usually it's dry, clear, and a
million miles, this time it was cloudy and we had to go IFR. Since the
clouds over the Gorman Pass would be icy, we took the Santa Barbara
route. It's the first time I've seen clouds of any significance on my
yearly pilgrimmage. But we could see lots of Los Angeles through the
clouds (the visibility was excellent), which we don't get to see when
flying the pass. We passed lots of vinyards in the Santa Barbara area
and north, which we may explore one day. But there are so many
destinations, and so few days.

I also got some tailwheel time in a few months ago; flying the J3 cub is
quite a blast and brings me back to what flying really is! After that,
our club planes feel like trucks. But alas, somebody upended the plane,
and it's no longer available for solo flight. I was quite close to my
tailwheel endorsement too.

Well, there are a lot of memorable flights I've skipped, and hopefully
there will be lots more to come.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Coolest? Hard to choose. They are all cool, but for different reasons.

Ain't it the truth? But thanks for sharing yours...

Some day I want to fly the Left Coast. We've had family in California
and Washington since the 1950s, but I haven't been out that way much in
the last 15 years -- and it just takes too danged long to get there in
Atlas...

We've done that ride on a motorcycle, and it was gorgeous -- it's gotta
be even better at 1000 AGL.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

...and it just takes too danged long to get there in
Atlas...

We've done that ride on a motorcycle...

The bike is faster?

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

We've done that ride on a motorcycle...

The bike is faster?

No, but back then I was a corporate drone with paid vacation time...

Now, no way could I be gone almost three weeks. 10 days was really
pushing our staff to the breaking point, this past summer.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Sounds like you need some " better staff"... G

10 days away and the place goes to hell will not be good in the eyes
of a new buyer. Ya probably shouldn't have stated that on the
internet.....



Jay Honeck wrote:
We've done that ride on a motorcycle...

The bike is faster?

No, but back then I was a corporate drone with paid vacation time...

Now, no way could I be gone almost three weeks. 10 days was really
pushing our staff to the breaking point, this past summer.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

This was my first low-level flight (low meaning, like, 500' AGL -- I'm
no dare-devil) over water, and the sensation of speed going past island
rock formations was fun, and the beauty of the scenery simply
breath-taking.

That's where I like to fly - 500 feet AGL. It's more fun over land, but
nowadays it's pretty dicey due to all the radio towers (don't even think
about doing this near Orlando!) It does take careful VFR planning,
which can sometimes take as long as the flight, but it is well worth it!

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Although I'm only in my second year as a pilot, I did expand my world a
little bit with trips to Valle, AZ (40G) and Page, AZ (KPGA).

Valle is home to an annex of the Planes of Fame museum most people know
as being at Chino, CA. They have a great collection inlcuding a Ford
Tri-Motor, a Bf109 and a whole host of other vintage aircraft.

The airport at Page is hard by the shores of Lake Powell so it's a very
scenic flight.

Flying wise, Valle was a relatively simple flight as it just requires
a bit more airtime than going to Prescott which I've done several
times.

Page was a bit more challenging as I had to avoid fire fighting TFRs in
the Sedona area. I had originally planned to expand on the Valle trip
and squeeze past the Grand Canyon's airspace, but I instead ended up
going via Payson, Winslow and Tuba City.

The rest of my flying in 2006 has been a smattering of breakfast runs
and taking friends for short sight seeing hops.

Now that my favorite club owned 172 is back from an annual and engine
overhaul, I hope to get back to seeing more of the SW from the air. I
also will be up for my very first BFR by the end of October.

Jay Beckman
PP-ASEL
Chandler, AZ