April 24, 2005 -- Utah Adventure: Day 1 - Marina to Vegas
After packing as few things as possible, I headed for Marina airport to ready my Citabria 7GCAA for the next week.s flying adventure. Bob Ross at United Flight in nearby Watsonville very kindly worked me in to his busy schedule the day before and changed the oil, adjusted the trim tab (which saved immense grief in the coming week.s flying), and did a general overall inspection of the plane to ensure nothing was out of place, or in need of repair.
Once in Marina, I pulled the Mighty Blue Citabria from its hangered slumber out into the beautiful sunlit blue sky. I did my own last minute inspection of everything, filled her up with gas, and did a quick wash job knowing full well that she would be covered with red desert dirt shortly.
Drew arrived about noon. We packed all our stuff into the plane and were in the air around 12:30 for the start of our South-Western, back-country flying adventure.
Leaving Marina was a breeze. We climbed to about 7000 feet on our way over Hollister, and the California Central Valley. In the distance, we could see some pretty nasty looking clouds forming over the Sierras where we planned to cross, so we decided to call Flight Watch and get a current weather briefing so we could make an informed decision about whether to cut through the Sierras between Fresno and Mammoth over the San Juaqine River, or head South around the weather to a safer crossing. Flight Watch informed us the tops were about 13000 feet, and only over the Sierras. both Mammoth and Bishop were totally clear. With that knowledge, Drew and I opted to climb over the weather at our planned crossing. We started climbing.
For those of you unfamiliar with aircraft, a Citabria is a 1200 pound fabric aircraft able to do most anything and everything in the air, but in a limited manner. In other words, the plane can do everything satisfactorily, but is excellent at nothing. Combined with this knowledge is the fact that with Drew, myself, 100 lbs of baggage, and full tanks, we were about 180lbs over gross, with a tail bias.
At about 13000 feet, it was clear to Drew and I that the tops of the clouds were much higher. We continued to climb. and climb. and climb. At about 16000 feet, with the carb-heat on, and a speed of 60 knots (barely faster than a car), Drew and I crossed over the top of the Sierras just scraping the tops of the clouds. Quite a hairy way to cross over mountains. mountains that you cannot see through the clouds! In retrospect, we should have gone south around the weather. In the future, that is exactly what we will do!
Once over mountains, we glided down into Bishop for a quick food and gas stop. Bishop is one of my favorite stopping points for a $100 hamburger. Great food, great service, and an amazing view. The restaurant sits right on the airfield at the intersection of the 3 runways. After eating, and talking through our poor judgment, we hopped back into the plane to finish up our leg to Vegas.
Once in the air, we flew over the remaining valleys in the Sierras, searching out all we could find. We flew into Death Valley where we took a little detour North to check out some of the giant meteor craters along with some of the incredible rock formations framing the valley. Once satisfied with that, we headed south again towards Vegas passing over little known desert air fields like Panamint Springs, Saline Valley.s Chicken Strip, Stove-Pipe Wells, and Furnace Creek. Once past Furnace Creek, we decided to have a little fun. After clearing the area for about a 60 mile radius, I decided to do something completely out of the ordinary. I flew the plane below sea-level!
After playing 20 feet off the ground (and 200 feet below sea-level) for a couple minutes, we gained a little altitude and rode over the last set of mountains into Vegas. Over the last set of mountains we came out over the Red Rock formations at the North end of the valley. Playing there and dropping down through the rocks was a great way to end the day and setup the week to come. From there we called Henderson tower and got our clearance to land.
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Journal Entries
November 24, 2006
Coyote Flats
April 24, 2006
Utah Adventure: Day 8 - Flying Home
April 23, 2006
Utah Adventure: Day 7 - The Landing of a Lifetime
April 22, 2006
Utah Adventure: Day 6 - Floating Down the Dirty Devil
April 21, 2006
Utah Adventure: Day 5 - Mackinaw Hashbrowns at Needles Outpost
April 20, 2006
Utah Adventure: Day 4 - Happy Canyon and the Dirty Devil
April 19, 2006
Utah Adventure: Day 3 - Kegs, Gruvers, and Mexican Mountain
April 18, 2006
Utah Adventure: Day 2 - Flying, Hiking at Biking Angel Point
April 17, 2006
Utah Adventure: Day 1 - MOab Beckons
October 13, 2005
Flying With My Hero
August 13, 2005
Flying With The Raven
May 30, 2005
Flying a B17 Flying Fortress
May 28, 2005
Flying with the Marines... Semper FI!
May 27, 2005
Watsonville Airshow with Violet and the Marines
May 22, 2005
Showing off and Flying a Dehavilland Twin Otter
May 1, 2005
Utah Adventure: Day 8 - Moab to Marina in a Day
April 30, 2005
Utah Adventure: Day 7 - Dropping in at Needles Outpost
April 29, 2005
Utah Adventure: Day 6 - Green River, Trent Fluckey, and Tang-Ri-La
April 28, 2005
Utah Adventure: Day 5 - Flying With a Legend
April 27, 2005
Utah Adventure: Day 4 - We can rebuild her...
April 26, 2005
Utah Adventure: Day 3 - Four-wheeling in Moab
April 25, 2005
Utah Adventure: Day 2 - Vegas to Moab and a crash landing
April 24, 2005
Utah Adventure: Day 1 - Marina to Vegas
April 23, 2005
Day in the Sky Event
March 26, 2005
Flight to Bishop By Way of Mammoth
January 23, 2005
IFR Flight to Truckee
January 17, 2005
Another Trip Over Half-Dome and Carb Ice
January 16, 2005
Whale Watching, and Kelsey's First Flight
December 25, 2004
Drew's Endorsement, Gregs Take-off, Landing Practice, and End of Year Totals and Thanks
December 11, 2004
Landing at Big Creek, and ending up at Wayne's
December 5, 2004
Getting Lost Along The Way...
December 4, 2004
Best Day Of Flying Ever
November 28, 2004
Acro Lesson With Wanda
November 26, 2004
Dawn (To Dusk) Patrol
November 21, 2004
More Dog-Fighting with Mitch
November 13, 2004
Dog-Fighting with Mitch
October 16, 2004
Hanger Flying with an Allied Ace, an Axis Ace, and a Rock Star???
July 23, 2004
Hitching a ride in a P51-Mustang
June 27, 2004
Flying a 1941 Waco
April 10, 2004
Flying an Extra 300 With Wayne Handley
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