August 23, 1998 Cross-Country to Buffalo Bill Territory

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by	Ron Kilber
	This article is Copyright © 1998 Ron Kilber. All rights reserved.

About the Author ... Ron Kilber is a private pilot who lives in Tempe, Arizona.

Chandler, Arizona
Sunday, June 14, 1998

When 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 — à 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 Niño 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 Niño, 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.

That'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 Niño. 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.

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 Valley

Now 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.

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 is 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 jolt soda 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 Niño 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:

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.

Grand Junction, Colorado
Monday, June 15, 1998

Timberline Aviation opens for business at 0500 hours, but when I call from the hotel at 4:30 AM, I find out that they've already taken my airplane out of the hangar and put it on the line. They knew I wanted to leave right at 5 AM, so someone came in early to make sure I wouldn't be delayed. On top of all that, they let me take the crew car to the hotel overnight. What a great bunch of patriots!

I'm in another race with El Niño today. When I checked the weather last night, I found out there'll be another VFR window along my route form 6 AM to noon. And their prediction was quite accurate from the looks of the sky now. Last night it was solid overcast here. Now, even the satellite and radar images look good, although it appears I'll have to fly VFR-on-top for awhile across parts of Colorado and Wyoming.

Seat-of-the-pants flying today is going to be pretty tough. I've just lifted off from GJT, and as I climb higher I can see that there are quite a few low clouds over the mountains along my route of flight. Landmarks will be hard to discern, so I decide to make a few adjustments. Instead of flying directly to Rawlins, Wyoming, I decide to use V-26 and fly 18 degrees from the GJT VOR directly to Meeker. Who knows what the winds are really doing out here, it's just too easy to get lost when the ground is obscured like it is. My hands are full as they are, and the last thing I need is to learn that I'm lost — over the Rocky Mountains with no place to land.

Many of the clouds below me have holes over the valleys, which are still giving off heat from yesterday, and which explains why the air over them isn't saturated. They appear to be safe refuge should I need it.

I never am able to actually see the Meeker VOR, but when I'm right over it, I make a course correction, still on V-26, but now tracking 354 degrees directly to the Cherokee VOR west of Rawlins. Farther back in the mountains I was flying VFR-on-top, here, in rolling-hill country, I'm flying VFR-under, and there's a broken ceiling as far as I can see. The Cherokee VOR is 120 miles from Meeker, and it takes 55 minutes to reach nearby Interstate 40, the only major road connecting San Francisco and Chicago. Without the slight quartering tail wind, it would've taken a full hour. I adjust my heading over the VOR station, and then track 20 degrees to Casper, another 100 miles or so on the horizon.

There's no mistaking the land below me. No longer in mountainous Colorado, I'm in arid Wyoming ranching country, where cowboys and branding-irons once took the place of fences, and before then, the buffalo roamed on one huge, gigantic, unbroken pasture, which spanned from Canada to Mexico and included the western portion of Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, all of New Mexico and part of Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.

Just because there's a lot of ranching in these parts doesn't mean they have more cows than anywhere else. Back in the more fertile East, it's "how many cows can an acre support". Out here it's more like "how many acres does it take to support a cow". The land below me is desolate prairie, with hills and valleys, many deep, and timberless, except where water flows or where there are buttes that lift the air and cause precipitation, and then only producing dwarfed and gnarled growth. What the land lacks in fertility and richness, it makes up for with vastness and abundance.

It's sparsely populated around here. In fact, Wyoming, I think, is the state with the least number of people — about a half million. And they live far-and-few-between, not because it is their nature, but because the land is arid. If it were more fertile, it would not only support more cattle, but more agriculture, too, with the end result meaning more people dwellers. Indeed, nature dictates the lives of all of us, and around here it dictates just how far away a neighbor lives.

It's taken me less than three hours from GJT to reach the Casper VOR, and now a course of 7 degrees will put me into Gillette in about 40 minutes, thanks to a little quartering tail wind. The skies have cleared, the sun is shinning, and I'm totally relaxed as I steal my way over these high plains. The Big Horn Mountains loom on the distant horizon at my 10 o'clock, bulging with snow from one end to the other.

The Wyoming country below me is vast, and appears as untrodden as it must have been before the old explorers and fur traders arrived in the early part of the last century — soon to be 200 years now, folks. As then, there remains today trackless wastes of plain, plateau, and river-bottom.

Later in that century, river boats were the only major form of public transportation to and from these parts, and when the rail roads finally came along, the people then must have reacted to the faster train travel the same as later generations reacted to the even faster air travel. The difference remaining today, however, is that the coming of the railroads was death to riverboat travel, but the airplane didn't spell death to its forerunner, the train.

I imagine going back in time, taking this airplane with me, and appearing on the horizon for an earlier generation see. Wouldn't that be a blast? How would General Custer view my presence, flying machine and all? Knowing him, would he be in denial, the same as when he lost the battle to the Indians at the Little Big Horn in Montana? Or would he enlist me as a gun-ship pilot sporting Winchester-equipped soldiers to do battle? That'd open the eyes of any enemy then. The thought is entertaining, as is pretending I'm flying over 19th-century territory with covered wagons bound for Oregon, huge cattle drives with rawhide-tough cowboys on horseback, tribes of native Americans residing in teepee villages, hunting parties chasing huge buffalo herds across the tractless, endless prairie, or more exciting, a shoot-out on main street. I'm pretty certain that the land below me today doesn't look any different than it did 200 years ago. If I suddenly found myself in a time two centuries earlier, how would I know I was in an earlier generation? By just looking at the land, there'd be no clue. It's easy to imagine those frontier days.

Devils Tower National Monument is 50 miles on the other side of Gillette, but it's clearly discernible on the distant horizon more than 80 miles away. A circular granite monolith with a girth larger than a football field, it rises more than 1,200 feet above the Bell Fourche River at its base. It's world-famous among rock climbers, and about a month ago, my climbing partner, Jim Tucker, and I climbed to the summit twice. It's an awesome place, and you don't have to be a rock climber to believe in it. Somehow, Devils Tower captures everyone's imagination.

Finally, here I am, at last, on the ground in beautiful Gillette, Wyoming. It's not even 9 AM, and only Monday morning. The whole week is mine. If I don't accomplish what I came here for, it'll be my own fault.

Gillette, Wyoming
Thursday Morning, June 18, 1998

U p until about 4 AM this morning, it had been raining off-and-on ever since I arrived in Gillette on Monday. The sun never did come out yesterday. But at 8 o'clock now, that's all history. I've got a VFR window all the way to Arizona, only I can't exactly get to Grand Junction. VFR flight on a direct route is not recommended, as El Niño hasn't quite dragged its butt eastward all the way across the Rockies. But if I fly to Rock Springs, Wyoming, near Utah, I'll be able to enjoy a nice high-pressure weather system and fly all the way to Arizona.

My airplane is already fueled, my bill is paid, and my pre-flight inspection is complete. All of my gear is on board, my seat belt is fastened and the doors and windows are closed. The only thing left is to start the engine, and then I'm out of here. Only the starter won't catch. Its little motor turns, but nothing else. Now what?

After I rotate the propeller a few times by hand, the starter catches and the engine starts. Hmm. Maybe all the rain had something to do with the problem. Oh well, the motors running now. Hopefully, it won't do that again.

I was a bit surprised to discover that av-gas costs $2.20 in Wyoming. With all the oil wells and refineries I've seen around this state, you'd think petrol be cheaper than in Arizona where we have maybe one oil well and exactly zero refineries. There are places in Arizona to buy fuel for $1.65. I don't know what goes here, but $2.20 is a lot of shekels for av-gas.

So far on this journey I've been pretty lucky. Sure, I've had a few problems, but my luck has now run out. While I was able to do a good two miles a minute on the way to Wyoming, now I'm barely able to move 1.5 miles during the same time. I've got one hell of a quartering head wind. Unless I get some reprieve, its going to add three hours to my air time. Talk about throwing money to the wind. I'm doing it right now.

It's taking me forever to get to Rock Springs, and without much to do when going this slow. I can only take my mind off the dilemma by thinking about other things. When I was in these parts about a month ago, my daughter's great uncle passed away, only I didn't know it at the time. She, Dawn, purposefully withheld the news of his death, knowing my fondness for him and knowing I might well have been on the side of Devils Tower when the cell phone rang. Warren died in Phoenix after a long illness, and was survived by Edith, his wife of 42 years.

Warren was a great aviator and WWII B-26 bomber pilot, having survived 42 combat missions. He had his close calls. Besides the Nazis trying to jam his navigation radio to force a South Atlantic ditch when flying from Acension Island, there were mechanical problems, too. Once, his landing gear malfunctioned and one of his wheels would not come down. After retracting his remaining gear, Warren bellied onto the field with his bomber, which then skidded and disappeared into the forest at the end of the runway, striking trees and brush along the way before coming to a full stop. Luckily, no one was injured.

His wife, Edith, said that Warren was always a very lucky person. When he ran out of fuel, it was always in front of a gas station rather than in the middle of nowhere.

I have many fond memories of Warren. When we first moved to Arizona in the mid-seventies, he had been spending the weekends roaming the state alone. Like me, he had wanderlust, and it was only natural that we began to roam Arizona together. He even bought his first motorcycle so he would not be left behind whenever I cruised the state on mine, never mind that he was already over sixty years in age.

After Warren retired, I was no longer a match for his fondness to travel. While I was shackled to the business of earning a living, he went about making travel a full-time affair. I was slugging rats, and Warren was hitching rides on military aircraft and traveling to every nook and cranny on earth. He kept that pace up until only a few years ago.

The fondest memories I have are when we visited Warren at his home. As soon as we rang his doorbell, Skeeter, the proud short-haired terrier, always barked once or twice, only he didn't come running to the front door as all dogs do. Instead, he silently ran out his dogie door into the back yard, up a make-shift ramp to the top of the house, across the roof and right smack above our heads — only to start barking and scare hell out of any unsuspecting visitor. Dawn, my 4-year old daughter at the time, always wanted to visit Warren's house. She'd forgo a trip to Disneyland just to see Skeeter in action.

You didn't have to visit Warren's house to meet Skeeter. If you were lucky enough to have Warren driving his car in front of you on the freeway, Skeeter would make a guest appearance by sticking his head out of a hole in the trunk lid. If, instead, Warren was on his motorcycle, well, so was Skeeter. Warren had a milk carton bolted to the back of the motorcycle. Skeeter sat nose-to-the-wind and as calm and collected as the RCA dog listening to the phonograph.

Last February I lost another friend. Pete Garrett was killed while on take-off from the Homer, Alaska airport on his way to Nanwalek. He was flying a single-engine cargo plane when a jug separated from the crankcase at 200 feet of elevation. Loaded with 1,000 pounds of supplies, the plane veered left and nosed in.

Pete was, not only a fellow pilot, but a rock-climbing partner of mine, too. We had many great times on the rock in Arizona, and my memories will always be fond. The ability to plan ahead is one of the most important skills of any pilot, and it's a skill that Pete carried over to rock climbing. Whenever we spent a day pulling on basalt in Arizona, Pete always had an ice cold cooler with a six-pack waiting for our parched tongues at the end of the day. He was not only a great aviator and rock climber, but a great friend, too.

Another thing I think about is my adventure with the Dakota Skytrooper I mentioned earlier. Last year, five of us flew it from Mesa, Arizona across the North Atlantic via Greenland and Iceland, and finally to its destination, the Wings of Liberation museum in The Netherlands. What a blast is was, and bar none, it has gone as one of the most adventurous undertakings of my life. Some of the details of our experience can be found at the Dakota Squadron Internet home.

Thinking of that beautiful Dakota airplane in The Netherlands reminds me that my meeting in Irvine on Saturday has been canceled. Roland Korst will not travel from Europe this week after all, and so my trip to Southern California is off. I was able learn that by reading my email while I was in Gillette.

(Dakota Skytrooper photo courtesy of Tom Dorsey, Salina Journal, Salina, Kansas.)

Finally, after three long hours of flying into head winds, I'm safe but not so sound on the ground in Rock Springs, Wyoming. The wind is blowing so hard here, I can only find safe haven by parking the airplane in front of the huge hanger with the wind behind it. Unless the wind changes by 90 degrees, I'll be safe here. The attendant tells me the wind blows like this all the time. I think they must have to replace the winsocks monthly and bury every now and then an airplane or two mangled by the wind.

After refueling ($2.05/gal), adding a quart of oil, downing a couple of cans of jolt soda, and buying a few candy bars for the cockpit, I'm all set to turn the ignition key. Only again, the engine won't turn over. Not even after several attempts of rotating the prop by hand. Unless I want to hang around here while an A&P mechanic fixes the problem (might take three days), I'd best find someone to help me hand-prop this monster.

Luckily, the airport manager, Gary Valentine, is a C-72 pilot, and he agrees to operate the magnetos while I do the arm work. His staff of three join in to watch, and I'm left with the impression that my airplane problem may well be the most exciting thing that has happened around here in a while. (The local newspaper reporter could be on his way to do a story.)

When I'm certain Gary has the breaks set, the throttle cracked, and knows what he's doing, I'm ready and in position.

"Contact!" I yell to Gary.

As soon as my arm motion causes a piston to compresses enough air/gas mixture and a magneto fires, the engine instantly starts running on its own. Beautiful! Way to go, Gary.

Don't ever try this at home! Unless you've been trained and know exactly what you're doing, a spinning propeller on the old noggin will certifiably ruin your day. Too, never attempt to hand-prop an engine unless the person in the cockpit is a pilot and familiar with the controls. You'd be better off chaining the airplane to the ground without anyone inside, than have a neophyte in the cockpit.

I don't know what happened to the starter, but some thingamajig somewhere must have worn all the way out, and now it's kaput. I may not need it anymore, if I can fly all the way to Chandler non-stop. My course is a lot more southerly from here, so at worst I'll have a west cross wind.

Vernal, Utah is about 95 miles south, and a course of 184 degrees will get me there — only I'm flying 210 degrees to stay on course. Not only that, but I've got 9- and 10-thousand-foot mountains and a ceiling ahead of me. Unless the clouds are high enough, I may not be able to get through this way. I'm giving it a shot though. Things always look differently close-up.

I'm right under the ceiling trying to get as much elevation as possible to clear the mountain peaks, which are only 1,000 feet below me. It's not too much of a struggle in the bumpy air, and as soon as I travel over the higher terrain, the uplift begins. I need to power back a bit and nose her down to stay out of the clouds. As I proceed, the down-drafts arrive, so it's full power and back into a climb. Within minutes, the ceiling and mountain range are behind me, and now I'm staring at the great Southwestern USA. The sun is on full power, and the air is clear and the visibility south and west is unlimited. Hooray! I love the Southwest.

Within minutes I'm over the Vernal VOR station, and then on a new heading direct to Chandler. It's possible I can fly all the way without a fuel stop, though it does appear it may be a skosh close for comfort. If so, I'll drop into Flagstaff's high-altitude airport for fuel.

There's so much beautiful country in these parts. I can never get enough by just staring at the interesting terrain, and my impulse is to descend and fly close-ground maneuvers all the way home. Of course, the rugged terrain would demand endless climbing and descending, and it'd be certain I'd run out of fuel before reaching Arizona. Better to leave that idea for another time.

I'm approaching one of the most majestic areas on the entire face of the world. No where else on earth can you find the concentration of geographical wonders that can be found here. Besides the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, and Monument Valley, there's Capital Reef National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Arches National Park, and Canyonlands National Park — all of 'em close by. It'd take a one-year sabbatical to do justice to all of them.

Lake Powell

Rainbow Bridge

I'm flying over Lake Powell now. It's a huge reservoir on the Colorado River at the entrance to the Grand Canyon. Constructed in the early sixties, its 187 miles long with almost 100 side canyons. Its shoreline — almost 2,000 miles — exceeds the length of the entire US West Coast. Houseboats abound, and I can see that many have already moored in side canyons to bed down for the evening.

Eastward a ways in a canyon on the shores of Lake Powell is Rainbow Bridge National Monument. It's the world's largest natural bridge, standing 290 feet tall. The entrance to the Grand Canyon is off to my right.

As I approach Flagstaff, Arizona, the San Francisco Peaks are just ahead. Since departing Rock Springs, Wyoming, two states and a long time ago — 4 hours and 15 minutes to be exact — I decide it's re-fuel time. My total capacity is 54 gallons, but some of that is reserve, so I calculate that I've got about another hour of fuel remaining. It's still 150 miles to Chandler, so I'd be into my reserve supply before I get there. If the winds worsen or I'm delayed in some other way, it'd be too close for comfort for me, not to mention I'd feel really, really stupid if I'd run out of fuel and ruin someone's game with a forced-landing on a golf course.

It isn't long before I depart Flagstaff heading south in clear skies. I only took on 10 gallons of petrol, just enough to get me to Chandler where Venture Aviation can refuel at $1.65/gallon — not $2.20 as I just paid. The starter was still kaput, and a friendly A&P mechanic insisted he do the arm work to get the engine going, even though I only wanted him to operate the magneto switch.

It isn't long before I can look to the west a little and see Sedona with its trademark terra cota rock. One can imagine that the 500 foot mesa, which Sedona's airport is situated upon, looks much like an aircraft carrier in the middle of the community.

I had to begin my descent over Horseshoe Lake in order to get under the Phoenix Class B Airspace by the time I get to the McDowell Mountains. Falcon Tower lets me transition their control zone at 3,000 feet, and when I reach the Superstition Freeway, Chandler Tower clears me for a straight-in on Runway 22-R.

It's a peaceful drive as I make my way back to the house. What a day of flying it has been. All totaled from Gillette, it was about 8 hours aloft. Not bad, considering I had to go out of my way and had hellish head winds at times. But it was all worth it, and I'm glad I didn't give United Airlines all that money. It was money better spent, and a lot more fun, as well. I'd do it all over again next week.