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Robert E. Fry |
I'd purchased a 1995 American Champion Super Decathalon, and before
shipping it home to Japan it seemed almost sacrilegious not to fly it to
Oshkosh. So I departed Chino, California (CNO) on July 26th at 1300 local,
with my camping gear in the back and full tanks. After skirting the Las Vegas
Class B and deviating around the north side of the Grand Canyon special-use
airspace, my first fuel stop was Page, Arizona (PGA, elevation 4,310'). After
topping off at Page, I headed for Grand Junction, Colorado (GJT, 4,860')
where I fueled up again and stayed the night.
Crossing the Rockies
Bright and early on the 27th, I headed for the high pass
along route I-70 (elevation 11,990'). But I ran into some serious precipitation
and had to zoom down into the valley and land at Eagle County Regional, Colorado
(EGE, 6,540') where I hung out for three hours hoping for a break in the
rain. I talked to Flight Service and they reckoned it should be okay to the
east towards Denver, so I saddled up and took a look. Sure enough, all the
rain was on the mountains around Eagle and towards the west, so I skimmed
along under a 14,000 foot ceiling and headed for the pass. I slipped over
the pass, descended to 7,500 MSL to avoid the Denver Class B Airspace, and
proceeded on to a little airport in Ogallala, Nebraska (OGA, 3,280').
While refueling at Ogallala, the man at the FBO told me that some fellows
from a Cessna 180 parked on the ramp have been talking to the weather man,
and there is a huge line of thunderstorms lined up between Sioux City and
Oshkosh. These guys were talking about staying the night and then after another
call to Flight Service decided to head north to Pierre, South Dakota and
then over to Oshkosh in the morning. The radar showed the stuff heading
east-southeast so — not being one for wasting miles in the wrong direction
— I decided to head a little north and try to skirt around the stuff when
I find it. This turns out to be a good plan: head on-course until the windscreen
starts getting wet, then divert north until the rain stops. I flew halfway
to Fairmont, Minnesota with on-and-off rain as I repeatedly zigzagged to
the north and then back on course.
By the time I reached Fairmont, Minnesota (FRM, elevation 1,160'), it had
gotten too late to hit Oshkosh, so I tied down the Decathalon and called
for a nearby motel to come pick me up. I arranged with the local FBO to fuel
me up at 0630 so I could try and beat the arrival rush into Mecca.
Oshkosh Arrival
The 28th dawned clear and with some scattered cloud, and I headed off on
the direct route to the Oshkosh initial approach point at Ripon. While cruising
at 5,500 feet for a couple of hours, I kept reviewing the special Oshkosh
arrival procedures that I had downloaded from the EAA home page. I had pre-loaded
the lat/lon for Ripon and Fisk into my Garmin GPSMAP-195 so navigating the
arrival was a piece of cake. Approaching Ripon, I descended to the prescribed
1,800 MSL and 90 knots IAS, and followed the railroad tracks (and GPS) to
Fisk.
When I got to Fisk, the controller at "Oshkosh Approach" (a trailer in a
field at Fisk) asked which runway I wanted (they weren't very busy), and
since I was planning to camp I requested runway 27. Approaching downwind
abeam, Oshkosh tower called me by color and type: "red Decathalon on downwind
north of the airport, rock your wings." At this point, the tower normally
tells you where they want you to touch down on the runway, short or long,
left side or right, on colored spots painted on the runway for that purpose.
But when I arrived there were only a couple of airplanes in the pattern,
so I had the runway to myself.
On later days, though, the arrival and departure traffic was just amazing.
There were frequently four or five airplanes lined up on final for hours
on end, and a steady stream of departures from the same runway slotted in
between the landings. The tower was using three runways simultaneously, and
frequently clearing several aircraft to land at different points on each
runway. The controllers handling departures stand on the side of the runway
with flags and handheld radios, and when it is your turn and there is a gap
in the arrivals you had better be ready to roll onto your side of the runway
and firewall the throttle because they alternate departures from alternate
sides of the runway and there is no time for messing around.
I botched my turn to final when I failed to take the strong crosswind into
account, but I slipped to a reasonable touchdown and expedited off the runway
following very explicit instructions from the tower. Once on the ground,
flagmen guide you to parking depending on where you want to go, so it helps
a lot if you have a sign in the window of your airplane saying "CAMP" or
"SHOW" or "TRANSIENT". I had my "CAMP" sign displayed so after a bit of taxiing
around on the grass I ended up in row #19 sandwiched between a Christen Husky
(who turned out to be from EGE where I had landed in the rain) and a Cessna
172 from Vancouver, Canada.
I had covered 1,493 nautical miles and had put 15.4 hours on the tach.
Setting Up Camp
I tied down, pitched my new
tent, and inflated my air bed. Then it was off to the building by row #1
to register and pay for my camping space ($14/day). It was hard not to be
impressed by how well organized everything was, and this impression grew
as time went by.
I had arrived a day and a half before the official start of the EAA Fly-In
deliberately because of the forewarning that the camp area would be full
before opening day. Sure enough, the airport filled up quickly as the
every-increasing procession of arrivals continued, including every imaginable
kind of general aviation and warbird aircraft.
While walking around and talking to a few fellow campers, I came across some
guys camped right next to the runway at about row #3. Their campsite included
every thing but the kitchen sink. They even had an elaborate "living/dining
room" set up in a mesh-sided stand-up tent. I asked them how they came about
such a prime piece of real estate and they said when they got there on
Saturday (4 days before official start date) the parking area was
empty and they could take their pick. I guess it's like getting decent seats
at a rock concert: the trick is to get there early.
I commented on their mesh lounge, and they replied that the state bird of
Wisconsin is the mosquito! They went on to explain that the OSH mosquitoes
were big and plentiful, whereupon I realized that I had no defenses to deal
with these predators. My new acquaintances saw my fear, and kindly advised
that I walk over to the Wal-Mart at the end of runway 27 and pick up some
repellent spray. I didn't need any more convincing, and headed there and
stocked up on mosquito coils and spray and a few other items which I didn't
really need.
Airplanes and More Airplanes
The EAA Fly-In was all it
is made out to be. This year the attendance is posted as 840,000 and the
number of planes at 12,000. They say that 10 percent of all the general aviation
aircraft in the U.S. fly in at some point.
During the airshow time between 1500 and 1900 the airport is closed to traffic,
and it is also closed at night between 2030 and 0530. The rest of the time
it is just constant airplanes. The sightseeing helicopters fly a fixed route
as does the Ford Trimotor and the Fuji blimp. The airplane noise is constant,
with continual takeoffs and landings by everything from the WW2 bombers,
and fighters to the J3 cubs and ultralights. Nearly every morning, I was
awakened by the roar of P51s as they went for an early morning sortie. The
day before show opening (the 29th) I counted twenty-one P51s lined up. I
gave up trying to count the T6s and T28s. There was just so much to see that
I never even made it to the Ultralight area. The fly-by of the B2 and the
SR71 was a sight. A U2 spyplane was also on display, looking just like a
huge motorglider.
The acrobatic flights were something else. For me, the pick of this year's
crop was Sean Tucker in his Pitts — one crazy bloke for sure. The finale
of his airshow performance is to cut three ribbons on the same pass, the
first with the tail while inverted, the second with a wing in one knife-edge
position, and the third with the other wing in the other knife-edge! My other
airshow favorite was the Gee Bee replica. I had read all about the pilot
and his plane and aerobatic routine, but to see the plane up close on the
ground and then flying the routine was quite something.
Where's Are Those Guys?
A bunch of friends were due to arrive from Chino in a Beech Queen Air on
the 30th with a valuable bit of "cargo" of mine. They didn't make it by the
2030 cut off time, and I started getting worried. The history of this plane
is that it was an aerial survey workhorse in Japan — it even has bubble
side windows in the cockpit and a sliding hatch in the belly for cameras
— and my Japanese instructor friend bought it for $10,000 because the engines
were run out and the Japanese don't allow flying past TBO. He then put some
very large ferry tanks in it and flew it across the Pacific via the Islands
to Chino, California. That was three years ago. Two trips to Oshkosh and
it still flies on the original engines which are a little past TBO now. It
does use a fair amount of oil though!
Anyway, a quick phone call to California confirmed that the Queen Air was
on the ground in Nebraska, delayed due to some of the same sort of weather
I had seen in the Colorado mountains. Their departure had been delayed when
a coin slipped off the glareshield when they were taxing out and fell into
the empty cigarette lighter socket unobserved, and with dire consequences
for the electrical system. Finding the reason for the electrical failure,
getting the coin out of the socket, and locating the poppedcircuit breaker
was apparently not as easy as one might have thought, even for a veteran
of a transpacific flight.
ATIS...What ATIS?
Next morning the arrival ATIS was saying the camping areas were full and
they were not accepting arrivals from twins. What the ATIS didn't know was
that there had been a lot of departures and there was in fact a lot of vacant
real estate in the aircraft camping area. I hoped my friends in the Queen
Air would be as smart as the guys I talked to that rolled in a light twin
and got a parking space. When I asked them if the ATIS was saying that all
twin parking was full, they just mumbled something about how the ATIS didn't
seem to be working when they arrived. So apparently the trick is not to pay
attention to the ATIS — just land and look for a space.
About midday I was starting to give up on my friends in the Queen Air and
was having a nap in my tent with the handheld on tower frequency when the
phrase "...Air, rock your wings" woke me up. Sure enough, it was my friends
and they had ignored the ATIS, so I headed for the runway and eventually
guided them into a vacant twin slot just a couple of rows down from me that
I had been watching all morning.
They stepped down with a chilly bin (that's Kiwi for "cooler") of beer, and
there was a lot of "where the hell have you been" and excuses like "we were
flying along at 10,500 feet and didn't realize we had got here until the
VOR flipped from TO to FROM, and then we had to make a 180 and go back to
Ripon, etc., etc." Apparently, no one had thought to bring a GPS because
each thought someone else would bring one, and the Queen Air's DME doesn't
work and only one VOR works, etc., etc. — more confirmation of my early
fears about the safe arrival of my "cargo". Thank goodness the "cargo" was
going back in the Decathlon. Even though I only have one engine, at least
I have two GPSs and a VOR!
Shopper's Paradise
It would seem that all the manufacturers of all the equipment made for GA
aircraft and homebuilders come to the show to peddle their wares. All the
discount houses (like Aircraft Spruce) have booths set up making sales at
special Oshkosh prices. I shopped around for a headset for the "cargo" and
found price variations of 15+ percent for the same item. Another thing I
picked up at a 20% show discount was a two-person Aerox oxygen system with
oxygen-conserving cannulas. I decided for the trip back over the Colorado
Rockies, I would go in style at 14,000 feet (level with the peaks) instead
of staying legal at 12,500 without supplemental oxygen in the passes and
valleys.
You can buy anything from an AN3 bolt to a business jet at Oshkosh. All the
certified plane builders are there as are all the kit manufacturers. If you
just want to look at planes they are all there: antiques, classics, amphibians,
warbirds, ultralights, military iron from F16s to C17s, certificated "spam
cans" of every description, mass quantities of LongEzes, Lancairs, Glasairs,
and RVs, and every kitplane ever built.
I was at the G202 acro plane tent talking to one of the salespersons and
was just starting to ask if he happened to know a fellow Kiwi who was supposed
to be getting one of the neat little numbers, when who should walk up but
Doug Brooker himself! It took a while to convince Doug that it was really
me and it is really a small world. He spotted Kazuyo and came out with his
standard "anata wa utsukushi desu" (you are very beautiful) which I'm sure
that is the only Japanese phrase he ever learned from his trips to the orient.
Still, it was great to see someone I knew from New Zealand.
Time to Go Home
After six days of hiking all over Wittman Field, I still hadn't seen everything.
But the Fly-In was over and it was time to tear down the tent, join the departure
queue, and "head for the hills" — literally.
I loaded all my excess gear into the Queen Air in exchange for you-know-who
and headed to the weather briefing tent. The night before, we had had a decent
thunderstorm and plenty of rain just to keep things interesting and mess
up the going-home party. The radar and satellites showed more out there
strategically placed between where we were and where we wanted to go. Just
to make things interesting there was a front there, too. The people going
in our direction were debating on going north or south to avoid it, but I
figured I would go back to my proven strategy of heading straight down the
rhumbline and going around whatever I found (or make a 180 and come back
if I couldn't).
Good plan again! I went straight through a "gap in the crap" and escaped
to the sunny side with just a few 20-degree avoidance maneuvers, and just
enough light rain to wash the windows.
We flew over mile after mile of flat green American countryside interspersed
with rivers, lakes and interstate highways, and subdivided by the very neatly
arranged grid of north-south and east-west roads (you would have to be pretty
dumb to get disorientated out here). Three hours and three hundred miles
later and it was time for a pit stop and I chose a little airport called
Storm Lake, Iowa (SLB, 1,490') because it was right on my track and the GPS
database said it had avgas.
Earlier, I had planned on a little airport called Pocahontas (also right
on-track) because the name was reminiscent of my childhood cowboy-and-indian
comics and movies, but it turned out to be 30 miles too soon. A lot of the
names in this area such as Sioux City, Sioux Falls, etc., had me thinking
of the history of the area, how hard it must have been to travel all that
way by horse and covered wagon, how rail travel must have changed everything,
followed by automobiles and then air travel. As you move further west and
get to the mountains, then the deserts and canyonlands, and finally California,
the whole expanse and variety of the landscape is awe-inspiring, especially
for a bloke like me from a small island nation.
FBO Repartee
Another good reason to land at Storm Lake was that the windscreen was getting
opaque from the encrustation of splattered of bugs. It was as if someone
had loaded a shotgun full of insects and fired it at the plane from about
ten feet. So Storm Lake it was. Final approach was over endless expanses
of green Iowa cornfields. We touched town and taxied up to the fuel pump.
"Fill er up please, mate," I said to the fellow from the FBO, which elicited
the usual "Long way from Australia aren't you?" which led to the usual "No,
New Zealand," which led to the usual "Yep always wanted to visit Noo Zealand,
they say it's real nice down there," which evoked the usual "And where is
the men's room?" I still have a lot of trouble figuring out why every American
I meet wants to go to New Zealand when they have it all and a lot more in
their own country — it must be the people.
After the men's room, we realize hunger is setting in and the next stop will
be another three hours. I ask if there is food nearby and the man says a
couple of miles down the road which certainly is discouraging as the temperature
is around 38C (100F). "Any taxis?" No. "Any chance of a lift?" Sure. An old
bloke appears out of the back and says "come on" so we jump into his old
bomb and off we go. On the way I ask him why the place is called Storm Lake
and he says the lake is shallow and the winter northerly kicks up some big
waves not to mention the snow that hits the town from across the lake. Hard
to imagine in the sweltering heat with the air conditioner going full tilt
trying to catch up. We grab some food and head back to the airport. The bloke
won't take any money for the trip.
While we are eating our lunch in the airconditioned FBO office I notice some
tee-shirts in a glass case with a picture of an ag biplane with "Barts Flying
Service, Storm Lake, Iowa." I decide this has got to be a fairly unique tee-shirt
— not too many floating around and the perfect conversation piece for the
bar at Waitemata. It turns out Bart is the old bloke that ran us into town
and has three ag planes and does pretty much all the spraying in the area.
I mentioned Pocahontas and he tells me there is no gas or FBO there any longer
— just goes to prove you can't believe everything the GPS tells you. Bart
tells me his middle son is away at Oshkosh — wanted to borrow a plane but
Bart says he didn't like the idea of his plane getting bent by a thunderstorm
so he made him drive over — hmm, food for thought.
Westward Ho
It's time to get back in the saddle and head west again. Next stop was to
be the closest airport with avgas on the rhumbline at about 350 miles or
so. Many miles of green fields later, the ground starts to rise and get a
bit browner, and the appropriate place turns out to be Sterling, Colorado
(STK, 4,040') and the gas turns out to be the cheapest of the trip so far:
$1.75 per gallon.
(The most expensive was $2.20 but there, this guy rushed up to the side of
the plane and threw down a piece of red carpet. Only trouble was he was on
the wrong side of the plane and when I opened the door and started to get
out on the other side he picked up the carpet and rushed around to the door
side. He was obviously embarrased so I just said "fill er up, mate" which
lead to "long way from Australia, eh" which lead to...)
After Sterling, we have to skirt around and under
the Denver Class B at 7,500 feet and then make the big climb to 14,000 while
turning on the new O2 system. This works for the first few miles of mountains
while we aim for Grand Junction. Further into the hills and we have to start
coming down bit by bit to stay out of the clouds and a little further we
are back to valley soaring in the rain. We manage to get past Eagle where
I'd parked in the rain on the way eastbound, and we push on another forty
miles before calling it quits at Garfield County Regional Airport in Rifle,
Colorado (RIL, 5,540').
The rain had washed all the bugs off the windscreen, and the bloke I had
been talking to on UNICOM off and on for the last 20 miles (to make sure
the viz was still okay) drove out in the now light rain (funny how it eases
off as you land) started describing how to get to the town and motel. I replied
that it looked a bit far, and he said "no, you go in this van I have brought
out for you, and what time do you want your airplane fueled in the morning?"
Now this was fairly typical of everything outside of the cities. Here we
are, no intros, no nothing and he tells me to take his wagon for the night.
Sure, the Decathlon is worth a heap more than his van, but even so.
The girl at the motel in Rifle told us where the best food in town was, so
we headed straight there in our borrowed wagon and ate too much. This must
have been a knee-jerk reaction, since we had been on a diet of freeze-dried
cup noodles and beer at Oshkosh.
More Weather Problems
The morning in the mountains turned out to be not much better than last night,
but our friendly FBO man reckoned we should be able to at least get down
Interstate 70 to Grand Junction. The weather service was pretty pessimistic
and there was supposed to be a lot of junk moving northeast right in the
area we want to traverse. We flew right over the top of Grand Junction, but
sure enough ran into a wall of water twenty miles beyond. Okay, Plan B was
to skirt to the south because the stuff is supposed to be going northeast.
This seems to work for awhile, but eventually we found ourselves heading
south up a valley with Option C looming rapidly (land or go back).
Knowing there was an airport ten miles up the highway we were following made
the "land" option an obvious choice. Having been tuned to UNICOM for this
airport for a while, I picked up another plane landing and asked him what
is in store. He said there was rain at the field but the visibility was okay,
so I told him we would be there in a few minutes. We landed at Monticello,
Utah (U43, 7,000') in worsening rain. The UNICOM operator came out and told
me he had already spoken to Flight Service, that the weather was expected
to be lousy all day, and that he had a pick up from a nearby motel coming
and do we want a lift in?
It sounded pretty convincing that we would have to hang out here maybe till
tomorrow, so we hitched a ride with him and his wife and kid in the motel
van. It turned out he was headed northwest as opposed to our southwest route,
and the likelihood of bad weather in his direction was much greater than
in ours. I immediately regretted my hasty decision because it was still only
10 am, but checked into the same motel anyway. I sat down on the bed and
looked at the charts, and decided that my latest decision time was 1400 to
be in the air and on the way by 1500 to get into the L.A. area at a reasonable
hour.
Rain came and went for the next couple of hours, but by 1330 the sky in our
direction of flight was looking much better. I called FSS and the weatherman
looked at his radar and confirmed my suspicions. The goo had moved off, but
when I suggested going south to avoid anything that might be still around
he said no — there is now a line of thunderstorms to the south over the
Grand Canyon so don't go south — go west first until close to Las Vegas
and then head for L.A. That was enough for me so it was down to the front
desk, check out and get a lift back to the airport. The motel said they would
pick us up again and give the room back if we had to come back.
Montecello was the highest field I had departed from so far, and the temperature
had the density altitude at over 8,000 feet. I leaned the engine and stood
on the brakes right at the start of the runway for a short field take off
but we still only used half of the strip getting off.
We climbed out to 10,500 around the big hill in the way and out over the
canyons and red rock mesas of southern Utah towards Kanab, which was to be
the next stop for gas. There were nothing but nice fluffy white clouds around
to weave around, and nothing but smooth picturesque flying for about
an hour. Not many places to land in an emergency but I guess you have to
grin and trust in your luck sometimes. Soon we were crossing the Colorado
River north of where it is dammed to form Lake Powell before it goes through
the Grand Canyon and comes out at the other end south of Las Vegas. Here
the Hoover dam keeps the water back to form another big manmade lake, Lake
Mead.
After the upper reaches of Lake Powell, we started to see the northern edges
of the stuff the weatherman was seeing earlier on his radar. We encountered
a bit of light rain here and there with lower clouds to cruise under and
cumulonimbus distant south. About twenty miles out of Kanab, Utah (KNB, 4,860')
just before the Arizona border, I made contact with UNICOM and was told the
wind was favoring runway 01. Ten miles out, and now they were saying runway
19 was in use and there was a rain squall moving in. Here we go again! I
lined up on final with the far end of the runway all wet and shiny and my
end still relatively dry. A bit of a gust together with heavy rain messed
up my planned grease-job landing, and I taxi to the gas pump and shut down.
I radioed the man not to bother to come out until the squall eases off, and
we sat for ten minutes with the rain pelting down. Kanab is in the desert,
by the way.
Home Stretch
After a while we got filled up and the fueler told me that it had been like
this off and on most of the day. The south and east still looked black, so
I elect to hightail it out of there to the west and south before the next
rainstorm arrived. The wind was back to favoring runway 01 now, so we made
a climbing left turn and headed straight for Las Vegas weaving around a couple
of fairly large soon-to-be-thundercloud formations.
There is a corridor of tourist plane traffic heading back and forth between
Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, and the chart warns you to announce yourself
on a special frequency. I dutifully listened in as we approached the area
but could make no sense of the abbreviated calls these local Grand Canyon
tour operators are making. They were all calling in at "55" and "65". I made
the assumption that this must altitude, and since I am cruising at 10,500
feet I figure they would be no factor. I looked around down below and sure
enough there are twins trekking back and forth a few thousand feet below.
I looked up again and suddenly a 727 (supposedly full of gamblers) went whistling
by on approach to Las Vegas. It looked closer than it was, but just seeing
a jet from my little cockpit always gives me a fright anyway.
Soon we are flying along over Interstate 15 that goes from Las Vegas to Los
Angeles, and also the main trunk railway that goes all the way over those
same mountains we have just crossed. You can see the trains and they seem
to be a mile or two long.
The GPS was now saying one hour to go and suddenly my cargo came to life
— having been quietly reading a book, sleeping or quietly gazing at half
of the USA for the last 14 hours in the air. "How long to go?" was the question.
"58 minutes and 40 seconds or thereabouts" was my reply. "Any airports around
here?" "Well yeah, but why?" The last thing I wanted to do now was land for
a pee stop, so I agreed to expedite the arrival. Previously, Plan A was to
skirt around the various bits of nuisance airspace between us and Chino,
but since a direct route is now of pressing concern I called SoCal Approach
at 10,500 feet over the hills northeast of the Los Angeles basin. They gave
me a squawk and clearance for a rapid descent straight to Chino. Four frequency
changes and one "turn to a heading of 180" and then "resume own navigation"
later, we were on a two-mile final for runway 26R at Chino. A final three-point
landing finished off the 3,000 nautical mile adventure to Mecca and back.
Tower greeded me with "Decathlon 3 Romeo Yankee, taxi to parking, monitor
ground point 6." I replied "thanks mate, 3RomeoYankee," and taxied post haste
for the nearest loo.
The next week was spent dismantling the Decathalon and packing it in a container,
and she is now headed for Japan. Now I wonder what it would be like to fly
it down to New Zealand … .
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