Flying to Sun Valley
I flew to Sun Valley yesterday with Bill Bell.
The radios in the airplane have been giving me fits for six weeks, and I finally sent my primary GPS/nav/communication radio into the factory two weeks ago to be fixed. Reported to take a week, as of yesterday I was still without, but we went anyway. I figured I could use a hand held GPS (but being a highly trained pilot, I could use charts just as easily. Stud.) and a hand held radio.
The handheld radio presents particular issues of dexterity, but I found the radio transmits very well from 15 miles out, so it was going to do for this long overdue trip.
We left Boeing Field at 8.30 a.m., as a thick fog bank was working it's way up the south end of the runway, moving inexoribly, though rather slowly, to cover the airport. We rolled out to taxiway Bravo 5, then onto the runway in bright sunshine, and took off in the opposite direction the wind dictated, and away from the fog.
It was smooth, but the smoke got thick over the Cascades. We went to 9,500 and stayed there - we could just see the ground from Ellensburg on, and at times could just make out contours. The picture above shows the main culprit - a fire between Dryden and Chelan. There was another near Yakima; further on there were numerous fires near McCall.
I can wax poetic about flying for graphs and graphs, but it's usually not very entertaining.
We had a great time in SUV. Rod and Linda Kvamme picked us up, fed us, and we went off for a hike in the Sawtooth Recreation area. An hour and a half with Toby the dog; a little rain, the clouds keeping the heat down. We were back at their gorgeous home in Warm Springs by 6, drinking gin and waiting for foxes to cross the yard.
Today it was perfect out of SUV, though the wind was up a bit. We dealt with headwinds all the way home, making the trip 2.55, rather than the planned 2.35. But smooth and lovely the whole way, with beautiful clouds over the mountains of Idaho and Oregon, and the Boeing tower gave me a challenging landing to make up for some others' mistakes. It was a lot of fun.
The radios in the airplane have been giving me fits for six weeks, and I finally sent my primary GPS/nav/communication radio into the factory two weeks ago to be fixed. Reported to take a week, as of yesterday I was still without, but we went anyway. I figured I could use a hand held GPS (but being a highly trained pilot, I could use charts just as easily. Stud.) and a hand held radio.
The handheld radio presents particular issues of dexterity, but I found the radio transmits very well from 15 miles out, so it was going to do for this long overdue trip.
We left Boeing Field at 8.30 a.m., as a thick fog bank was working it's way up the south end of the runway, moving inexoribly, though rather slowly, to cover the airport. We rolled out to taxiway Bravo 5, then onto the runway in bright sunshine, and took off in the opposite direction the wind dictated, and away from the fog.
It was smooth, but the smoke got thick over the Cascades. We went to 9,500 and stayed there - we could just see the ground from Ellensburg on, and at times could just make out contours. The picture above shows the main culprit - a fire between Dryden and Chelan. There was another near Yakima; further on there were numerous fires near McCall.
I can wax poetic about flying for graphs and graphs, but it's usually not very entertaining.
We had a great time in SUV. Rod and Linda Kvamme picked us up, fed us, and we went off for a hike in the Sawtooth Recreation area. An hour and a half with Toby the dog; a little rain, the clouds keeping the heat down. We were back at their gorgeous home in Warm Springs by 6, drinking gin and waiting for foxes to cross the yard.
Today it was perfect out of SUV, though the wind was up a bit. We dealt with headwinds all the way home, making the trip 2.55, rather than the planned 2.35. But smooth and lovely the whole way, with beautiful clouds over the mountains of Idaho and Oregon, and the Boeing tower gave me a challenging landing to make up for some others' mistakes. It was a lot of fun.
posted by C at 8:07 PM
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