X-Country to Buffalo Bill Territory (Part 1)
By Ron Kilber
When AVweb reader (and regular contributor) Ron Kilber looked into what it would cost to get a round-trip airline ticket from Phoenix, Ariz., to Gillette, Wyo., and back for a business trip that came up on short notice, he concluded it might actually be cheaper to rent a 172 and fly the trip himself. Certainly, it sounded like more fun. So began an aeronautical adventure that challenged Ron with unforecast weather, unexpected mechanical problems, and a lot of breathtaking mountain scenery. Yet, when it was all over, Ron was still glad he didn't fly United! --Mike Busch, AVweb.com
Sunday, June 14, 1998
Chandler, ArizonaWhen I called United Airlines a few days ago to price a ticket to fly to Wyoming on business, I spent more than thirty minutes with the reservation agent who explained all the complicated fares for me.
First, there was the 14-day advance-purchase deal for $228.00 round-trip -- a smoking deal -- but you have to travel on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and if you want a last-minute change in the ticket, it'll be a big-time penalty -- 75 bucks. That's about a months worth of lunch money for me. I rarely get to travel without having to change plans mid-stream, so that option would've certifiably meant a $300-plus ticket. That option also would've meant my business deal would've evaporated before I could get to Wyoming. Believing in the old saying, "if you snooze you loose", I wanted to get to the land of Buffalo Bill Cody much sooner.
The 7-day advance purchase was quoted at $350 ($425 if I wanted to include a change in the ticket). I settled on that fare. Only problem, after all that, I couldn't get to Wyoming on that deal. All the $350 fares were sold out for two months in advance. Yeah right, probably all of two whole seats on each flight. If I really was to get to Wyoming via United Airlines, the only game in town, it meant more than 700 bucks right out of my back pocket. Ouch! Short of that, I would've had to devise a plan to keep my prospect lukewarm until I could get to Wyoming.
At any rate, the idea of giving an airline that much money stung me so bad that I wanted to have lunch first and think it over. That's when I did the math and concluded I could rent N738BH, a Cessna 172, for about the same amount of cash as commercial air fare on short notice. And given the fact that it's a milk-run route on the airlines to Wyoming from here, flying a C-172 would be about as fast, too. Why give United Airlines all those shekels when I can use them to not only get myself to Wyoming and back, but also log a few hours and have some fun, as well? Flying an airplane has many advantages over the airlines, and the more I thought about the idea, the more excited I became. The only down side I could think of was that I wouldn't be able to drink beer served by a cabin attendant on the way to Wyoming.
It's a few minutes before 6:00 AM when 8BH's engine springs to life in the just-getting-light sky at Chandler Municipal Airport (CHD). The control tower guys aren't up yet, so I'm able to taxi and take-off -- ā la Unicom fashion. I finagle my way through the Phoenix Class B Airspace without having to contact Approach Control, and then I'm flying 7 degrees magnetic and climbing to 10,500 feet on my way to Grand Junction, Colorado (GJT). I won't be able to receive the Winslow VOR for quite a while, and I don't have a GPS, so I'm on my own using ded reckoning and pilotage to follow my way on a pencil line drawn on my sectional chart. In fact, the Winslow VOR station is the only navigation aid along my straight-line route from CHD to GJT's VOR station. The Winslow VOR just happens to be on the way, and if it wasn't, it'd be seat-of-the-pants flying all the way from Chandler to Grand Junction -- about 400 nautical miles. Not exactly a cake-walk for pilots today who rely heavily on cockpit navigation. I'll be able to make position checks using off-route VOR stations, but that's about it. No radial tracking. It'll keep my nose out of the cockpit for sure, and the navigation activity will keep me on my toes. It's the most fun way for me to fly. Just give me a chart and a compass (and maybe a watch), and I can find my way any where.
I kinda like 8BH. When I called Venture Aviation to inquire about renting an airplane, Jeff Falco, the manager, suggested her because she's equipped with long-range fuel tanks and the recently majored engine has only 100 hours of use so far. The interior has been retrofitted, and aside from a couple of clunker radios and a broken door lock, I can't find a thing wrong with her, fingers crossed, of course.
Yesterday's satellite weather image
11 AM Mountain Standard Time
I hate getting up so early with the Fixodent crowd, but I had to do it in order to out-run El Niņo today. When I checked the satellite image yesterday, my destination in Wyoming was pretty much IFR conditions, as was some of the route along the way, but a lull was moving quickly into position, and now today I have a ten-hour VFR window all the way to Northeast Wyoming. If I get delayed or the weather changes, it'll mean big-time trouble for me. Then I'll have to bivouac somewhere and wait for the next VFR window to come along, all the while worrying if my business deal will go cold on me. With a little luck and cooperation from El Niņo, I'll not only have full luxury of this lull in the weather, but with the lull I predict to arrive again on Friday when I plan to fly to John Wayne Airport in Southern California.
Chandler, AZ to Gillette, WYThat's where I want to meet up with an associate, Roland Korst, who will be visiting Irvine from The Netherlands. Both of us are volunteer directors for the Dakota Squadron, which is a Dutch memorial organization paying tribute to American WWII soldiers and pilots who fought for, not only the liberation of Holland during Operation Market Garden, but for the liberation of the entire world. It's a great organization, and already is fully equipped with a beautifully restored C-53 Skytrooper (aka DC-3, Dakota, Gooney Bird). If you haven't already had a chance to do so, drop in and check out the Dakota Squadron.
The Dakota Squadron's logo is especially symbolic. It depicts a parachute, camel, and red cross, which represent the uses of this venerable aircraft during WWII: Airborne, cargo and medical.Anyway, the whole week should run as smoothly as a Swiss watch. Shouldn't it?
Forty-five minutes past the hour puts me a little east and abeam of the pretty little mountain community of Payson, AZ with its mesa-top airport (5156 MSL). No longer in the desert, I'm now in 5,000-foot-high, pure mountain country, complete with wall-to-wall forest about as far as I can see. They've got good breakfast food down there at the airport, and the way my stomach is growling right now, I'm tempted to drop in for some pilot food. And I would, if I wasn't racing El Niņo. I can pass on breakfast, but I can't pass on getting to Wyoming today.
Dead ahead is the Mogollon Rim, a huge, prominent fault that traverses much of Arizona from the northwest to the southeast, and where the terrain is 7 to 8,000 feet and higher. Off to my left at ten o'clock, I can see the 12,000-foot San Francisco Peaks, which are about 90 miles away, prominently poking above the near mile-and-a-half-high terrain of Flagstaff. To the east, the sun is rising higher in the morning sky, already raising the temperature of the air.Crossing over the Rim changes the perspective of things quite a bit. A little while ago I was one mile above the terrain. Now I'm only 2,500 feet at times.
Finally, the Winslow VOR (about 4938 MSL) tips one of my Omni needles, and when it settles on dead center, I know I'm on the 187-degree "From" radial -- exactly where I want to be. I just love flying this way, always managing to be right where I want to be. It's a challenge I enjoy.
No sooner do I overfly Winslow when I notice that the Alternator Overcharge indicator is illuminated. Hmm. Now what?
Fearing the worst, cockpit smoke or even a fire, I turn off the avionics master switch. But the indicator just keeps glowing red, and even so after I turn off everything electrical. So I switch off the master and alternator switches. Naturally, the indicator goes out, but what about when I turn both back on?
Okay, now it seems to be working, and continues to do so as I gradually restore power to everything. Strange things always happen whenever I fly an airplane. This one's not serious though, as I can fly all the way to Wyoming and back with the master switch off, if need be. I'm not sure if that's legal, but I am sure it'll work, only I'll be without benefit of my on-board avionics equipment, and I won't be able to communicate with Flight Watch or Flight Service. It'll also mean I'll have to know my light-gun signals if I want to land and take off from tower-controlled airports.
Anyway, the charging system is performing fine now, so the problem is no longer a factor. I'm not much of a giver-inner when it comes to malfunctions, preferring to forge ahead and deal with the problem at a more convenient time.
At 90 minutes into my flight, I'm right over the air strip at Polacca (5573) -- again, exactly where I want to be. A Minute Man Missile wouldn't be any more accurate. This is Hopi Indian Reservation land, but you wouldn't know it from up here. It looks the same as any high desert in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada or California. There are a few roads, all looking the same, and they run in all kinds of illogical directions. One road actually goes out ten miles or so, makes a big bend, then returns almost where it began. Hmm. Why did they do that? Maybe it was some sort of land dispute, which forced a neighbor to build his own road. Who knows?
There's a lot to do to stay on course in these parts when you don't have the benefit of VOR, GPS or other navigation aid. I'm constantly finding another landmark to aim for, and constantly verifying my position with terrain features, roads, train tracks, power lines, windmills, oil wells, pumping stations, mountains, peaks, mesas, canyons, lakes (wet & dry), rivers, washes, ranches, landing strips, mines, radio stations, teepees and yes, ruins -- there are lots of them around here. Right off my right wing a ways is Chinle, AZ and nearby Canyon de Chelly National Monument with its White House Ruins.
Canyon de Chelly
White House Ruins
White House Ruins
White House Ruins
On top of all that, it's nice to know one's position when the terrain just doesn't quite match up with the chart, and one way is by using a watch. In my case, I'm using an old Timex with a missing band. Of course, it's not a digital, useless piece of junk. Mine has a good old analog face on it -- the only way to fly, literally. Earlier, I calculated that I'm advancing at the rate of two miles every minute. If I place tick marks on my chart at twenty mile intervals, every ten minutes means I'm twenty miles along. Also, every time I positively identify a landmark, my chart gets a tick mark and a time stamp. These things keeps my hair from standing on end when I can reason where the hell I'm at. They also help me stay relaxed enough to think about things like how far the airplane travels with each rotation of the propeller (about seven feet).Anyway, flying in this fashion is the only way to get intimately knowledgeable with the land below. You can't do it with your head buried in a GPS moving map or staring at an Omni needle. Nope, you have to turn off your navigation aids and pit your wits against the universe. Besides, time flies faster when you're having fun or working hard.
Arizona is a vast and still-untamed land. Sparsely populated, its human habitation is barely detectable from the air in most parts. More interesting, though, is the small amount of privately owned real estate. After subtracting the Federal government's holdings, all of the Indian reservations, and then the state-owned land, Arizona may well rank as the smallest in the Union. Okay, maybe don't count those really small states back East.
Monument ValleyNow I'm in Navajo Nation country, and Monument Valley is off my left wing, as are the head waters of one tributary flowing into Lake Powell, a huge reservoir held back by Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. The Arizona-Utah border is below me, and it's taken me two hours and twenty minutes to get here. It's definitely a long way across Arizona.
Mittens and Merrick Butte
Three Sisters
So far I've not seen a single airplane in the sky all day. Imagine that, after all the looking I've been doing. There's good reason -- there are neither Victor airways around here nor the pilots who prefer them. Personally, I feel safer out here away from all other traffic, and if given the choice, I'd rather have a dead-stick situation here where no one would find me than a mid-air there where they would.Time passes quickly as I fly abeam of Bluff (4476) and Blanding (5865) and then Monticello (6998), Utah at 9 AM, which puts me on the backstretch to Grand Junction less than 100 miles away. The west winds have picked up, and my ground speed is less as my heading is now more towards Montana than Wyoming. Scattered clouds have already formed around here, and looking in the direction of Grand Junction and beyond, I'm wondering about the weather on the remainder of my route to Wyoming. I've been aloft 3 hours already, and it's a good thing I didn't drink a pot of coffee earlier.
When I fly over Hubbard (4670), Colorado, I'm in some of the most beautiful mountain country in the US. Beautiful green valleys, meandering rivers, snow-ladened mountains in the background, and lakes on top of a mesa. I'm definitely out of the desert now and into the alpine country of Rocky Mountain High.
When I first knew I'd have an airplane with long-range fuel tanks, that's when I decided that I wanted to refuel in Grand Junction. It's more than mid-way to my Wyoming destination, and fuel is available for $1.82 for 100 octane low-lead. I found that out by emailing Timberline Aviation, a new FBO at GJT. Considering some of the prices you have to pay for fuel these days, that's a bargain. Also, if you get stuck in weather, which can be upwards of a week at a time these days, it's nice to have a fair-sized city to wait for better days and maybe take in a hoot'n anne or something. There's nothing worse than getting stranded in some place with no where to go, no one to talk to, and no place to eat or drink a beer.At 9:50, I radio GJT Tower that I'm inbound to refuel at Timberline Aviation. I receive instructions to report downwind for runway 29.
Wouldn't you know it, the alternator light comes on again! What a convenient time. Now what? Do I advise the tower, or should I just try my "reset procedure" that worked for me before? Fearing the controller may freak or invoke a bunch of rigamerole that might freak me, I elect to reset it unwittingly to anyone (I'm his only traffic anyway). Besides, if he calls me while I'm fixing it, and I don't respond, he'll just try again. They always do.
The manipulation works again, and ten minutes later I'm on the ground and clear of the two-mile-long active runway. That's when I find out that my FBO is way the hell at the west end of the field. Why didn't the controller advise me to land way long inasmuch as Timberline Aviation is practically on the West Coast from where I'm at now? It's not like I didn't tell him. Now I'm forced to commute across Colorado on the ground in a C-72. Not only that, these Hobbs meters run pretty fast, and by the time I get to Timberline, it'll cost me a month's worth of beer money. What a nincompoop, that controller non grata in the tower. He must be having a bad day, and my arrival is stressing him. Therefore, I must be punished, and what better way than to do it in a subtle manner?
I'm still a quarter mile from the FBO and already a golf cart sporting a flag is racing towards me. Then it stops and turns around as quickly as if driven by one of those Hollywood stunt-car drivers. I follow, and as soon as we park the airplane, three attendants appear to accommodate my arrival. One guy invites me to go inside the FBO office and have some coffee and cookies, but I want to stay outside and supervise the line crew and check the engine oil. It needs a quart.
I'm a guy who is never comfortable giving anyone carte blanche access to mess with anything as vital as an airplane, especially if they are not an A&P mechanic or a very experienced pilot or aircraft owner. Once, after being informed that my engine could use some oil, I authorized a line man to add a quart. He proceeded to do so, dirty funnel and all. Luckily, I caught him just in time, and prevented what would have been a lot of dirt and sand entering my engine. Ask me if I didn't yell at him. Or if I didn't want to dope slap him along side the old noggin. How is it that these people survive so they can potentially inflict so much damage? You'd think they'd eventually do something stupid to themselves, freeing us once and for all from schmuck-stupid conduct.
Timberline Aviation is a great FBO. Everyone is friendly and helpful, and the gals at the front counter are dressed chic enough to be working the jewelry department at a large-city mall. And they are intuitive. I don't even have to ask for the bathroom, but they tell me where it's at. Then again, I've never met a pilot who didn't need a bathroom after landing.
If I'm hungry, I can have a lift into town. Even if I wasn't, I'd still want to go anyway, considering the beautiful young gal who's offering to drive me.
Upstairs is where I find the pilot lounge. Actually, the whole upstairs may be a lounge, big enough for a tribe and complete with comfy furniture, television, galley, refrigerator, bathroom, bunk beds, and yes, a shower, too. There's also a weather briefing room and a computer with dedicated access to the Internet. Yeeaaaahhhhh, this place is equipped with the whole kit and caboodle. I can check my email while I'm here. It's already on forward to "Yahoo! Mail", just so I can read it while I'm on the road.
Until I arrived here, the best-equipped FBO I ever visited was Flight Services, Ltd. at the Reykjavik airport in Iceland. But that place has to take a back seat now to Timberline Aviation. I'm going to make sure I stop here on the way back to Arizona. This place is too much!
I'm still smarting from a little high-altitude exposure, so before I do anything else, I have a soda with some jolt in it and a little snack from the break room. Then I close my flight plan and check the weather using the computer. The satellite images don't look bad over northern Colorado and Wyoming, but the radar images do. In fact, I've now got marginal-VFR conditions along my route, and worse, the weather is steadily deteriorating. Hmm. How did this happen? What happened to my 10-hour VFR window? Things do not look pretty. El Niņo is winning this race.
When I get up to look out the second-story window, 8BH is gone. There's dust and violent wind everywhere, it's raining, and my first thought is that my airplane has blown away. What the hell! I rush downstairs where I'm greeted by the line supervisor who says he had my airplane towed into the hangar. He tells me he didn't think I wanted to see 8BH on its back. See what I mean about this place? When was the last time you had an FBO park your airplane in his hangar for you? I'll bet real money, never, unless it was here.
Maybe the weather will improve with time, and I'll still be able to get out of here yet today. Meantime, I check my email and play around on the Internet. There's a message from Carol Gibson who is sending some humor about Arizona. Some of it's pretty comical:
You know you're in Arizona when......
You no longer associate bridges (or rivers) with water.
You know a swamp cooler is not a happy hour drink.
You can make sun tea instantly.
You realize that Valley Fever isn't a disco dance.
You can understand the reason for a town named "Why".Carol works as a volunteer for the Dakota Squadron, too, and her skills as an editor come in handy. Actually, Carol may want to go with me to Irvine this weekend. If so, I'll swing by Deer Valley Airport in Arizona and nab her on the way from Wyoming. Then we'll continue on to John Wayne Airport in California.
There's also some mail from an aviation source making noise about the FAA and its new citation program for pilots. Jesus, under what aegis do they get to do this, anyway? How long have things been operating without such a program? And why do we need one now? Personally, I think the whole program has more to do with the government (at all levels) wanting new opportunities to acquire airplanes without having to buy them, and less to do with citing for an FAR violation (does the government really care if someone flies too close to a cloud?). In other words, they want more opportunity to find drugs and contraband without having to establish "probably cause", and accordingly acquire more airplanes under the RICO laws for use by public employees who otherwise would never have an opportunity to get behind the stick of a flying machine. I'm not sure when those with position and power in this country are going to wake up, but we can all do with a little reading from Thomas Paine. He's the one who wrote: "THESE are the times that try men's souls." (The American Crisis: December 23, 1776). Remember?
Another weather check confirms there are now thunderstorms all over Wyoming, and, accordingly to the FSS, VFR flight is not recommended along my route. I'm sure IFR isn't either in places. The radar image is now lit up like a Christmas tree. It's now certain I'll be staying in GJT overnight.
After a nice two-hour nap in the bedroom, I decide I want to go into town for food. My driver is no longer available (too bad for me), but the front-desk attendant gives me the keys to the brand new crew car, and informs me I should stay at the Grand Vista Hotel where I can get a room for the special rate of 46 bucks. That's about what Motel 6 asks for these days, which is a lot a money to pay them just to have the lights left on for you.
Maybe I shouldn't have ordered breakfast so late in the afternoon. Perhaps the breakfast cook knows better how to prepare bacon and eggs. It's hard to screw up this all-American food, but just leave it to the afternoon cook at Lenny's (owned by Lenny Walterscheid, former NFL Chicago Bears), and he'll manage it. Actually, considering the quality of the food, I don't know how the morning cook could do much better. For example, the bread is straight from a 40-cent loaf they serve at school lunches, and the hash browns taste like they're from Ore-Ida, complete with all those little black ends on some. I'd have to be football-player hungry to stop back here. Sorry, Lenny.
On the way back to Timberline Aviation, the sky is overcast for as far as I can see in every direction. I pass the time sending email messages and surfing the Internet.