Angel Air (Chandler, AZ), or, What I did on my Christmas Vacation

This last week I came to Angel Air at Stellar Airpark in Chandler, AZ
with Alex, my brother-in-law, who is just about ready to do his
private checkride. We had planned to do an xc together that day, with
Alex as PIC, but since he didn't have his ticket yet, Angel's good ol'
insurance policy required a checkout. For my checkout that day, I drew
Jelica Matic for a flight instructor, who introduced me to the Cessna
172 Skyhawk SP. Jelica is a woman from Serbia with a very calm
demeanor.

Bearing in mind that I'm used to a customized 1957 Cessna 172, with a
Fastback fuselage and the straight tail, and only nominally acquainted
with a later model Cessna Skyhawk, this thing came as a confusing
morass of New Equipment. The newest Cessnas appear much simpler in
layout than the oldest ones, even though the radio stack contains a
literal planeful of equipment I've never tried to use before,
including a very impressive GPS.

As usual, every instructor is slightly different, and in that sense at
least I was expecting it this time. Jelica carefully introduced me to
the equipment and the airport procedures, and we took off for the
practice area. She asked me what I wanted to do, and since I'd never
done them in a 180 horsepower Cessna I asked her to walk me through a
departure stall. ("You mean a power-on stall?" "Yes, that's right")
She told me that the PTS required demonstrating them at 2100 RPM in
the 172SP, which was news to me; I'd tested at full throttle in a
145hp 172. So what I thought was going to be a frighteningly nose-high
experience turned out to be rather pedestrian. For a departure stall,
that is.

She had me go back to Chandler Municipal for some controlled-airfield
touch-and-goes, followed by a return to Stellar, where she signed me
off for the FBO. I waited an hour for Alex to finish with his stage
check, during which I planned a flight from Stellar to San
Carlos-Apache for some sightseeing and prepped the airplane again. I
have to say, the briefer I talked too seemed just bored out of his
mind.

We took off under the PHX Class B and stayed clear, flying south of
under the 4000 foot floor until we were clear of that, and then more
or less directly to San Carlos, climbing up to 8500 when we were fully
clear of the Bravo airspace.

What can I say? If you go to Phoenix, it's a nice flight. I would have
liked to have tried to go to Flagstaff, but there wasn't time for
that.

On the return leg we turned south to have a look at Coolidge Dam and
Hayden, AZ, again at 8500 feet, and had planned to return through the
inactive restricted area between Hayden and Phoenix. (I had assurances
from the briefer that the areas were inactive) We were on flight
following about two miles from the eastern edge of the restricted area
when Phoenix approach called "traffic 2 o'clock one mile 7000". We
were at 7000. Alex looked for 'em, and found *three* airplanes flying
in formation bearing right down on us, with no motion in the sight
picture relative to us. I made a sharp left turn away (they were into
a left bank of their own) and we missed each other by about 3/4 mile.

He said, "We're being intercepted! They'll fly to our left first!"

Needless to say, we chose a heading that would divert south around the
restricted area and waited for them to form up and give instructions.
Then we saw them turning away. It turned out to be a light twin with a
couple of light singles in formation, and not a military intercept at
all, that we could tell. Even so, we stayed clear.

We returned to Stellar to find 10G15 winds right across the runway.
The landing was safe, but not pretty.

Overall I had a very good time flying in the Phoenix area this week.
If you can afford the $100/hour plane rental and $40/hour for an
instructor, I think you will not regret flying out of Stellar Airpark
with Angel Air's Cessna 172SP's. It's a comfortable, clean FBO, and a
very nice airport. Ask for Jelica.

Rob