The Great Northwest Air Race and Vacation - Santa Catalina IslandSojourn

Waking in the morning, we got a weather briefing and the fog pretty much had settled into the Los Angeles Basin. Something that is normal for a June morning. It usually burns off around Noon so we planned to depart Bakersfield Meadows Field (KBFL) and head south over Gorman VOR and then on towards Van Nuys to pick up the Shoreline Route through the Class B airspace over KLAX. These routes have been added to, taken away from and modified so many times over the years that sometimes they are barely recognizable to those of us who've been away from the area for quite some time. That said it was time to do a little review and once done, we were ready to depart.

Over Los Angeles International heading southbound
along the Shoreline Route enroute to KAVX

The best way I can of obtaining clearance through the class B airspace is to be in contact with ATC early. We decide flight following from Bakersfield Approach was the best way to go since they would hand us off to Los Angeles Center for a short time then SoCal Approach would pick us up. As we crossed the ridge where Gorman VOR sits, we were switched to SoCal Approach and made our request for the Shoreline Route and direct to KAVX on Santa Catalina Island. We we waited until we were just south of Van Nuys before the controller switched us to the next sector and we hear the words "Cleared into Class B" maybe a couple miles north of the boundary. We acknowledged and proceeded over the top of Santa Monica and I looked to see if anything remained of the old Hughes Airport in Culver City as we flew along the short at about 5,500 feet. The route turns inland a bit towards Long Beach once you clear KLAX but the controller cleared us direct to KAVX.

Santa Catalina Island is only 21 miles off the California coast, not the 26 miles you hear in the song. Airport-In-The-Sky sits about midway between the far ends of the island at an elevation of 1,602 feet MSL. When I was flight instructor at Airflite in Long Beach (When they were a Cessna Dealer before the big new FBO was built) I gave Catalina checkouts to renter pilots as it was required by the company's insurance.





Over the isthmus on a 45 for the downwind

to Runway 22

Many a time I have sat on the veranda munching on a burger and fries but I haven't landed here in 20 years. This was like the prodigal son coming home. We entered the traffic pattern from over the isthmus between the big southeastern part of the island and the smaller northwestern part. That put us on a 45 for the right downwind to runway 22. The conditions were calm and when we turned final that same illusion was there that throws unfamiliar pilots off. The airport looks like and aircraft carrier and the first two thirds of the 3,200 feet long runway slop up hill. The last third is level and disappears from view on short final.

Right Base to Final Runway 22

A good reason to always use the radio in the pattern because if someone decides to takeoff in the opposite direction you won't know until they come over the top of you as they cross that swell in the runway. Normally this is not a problem when on approach to the runway, just when taking the runway for takeoff. Especially if you decide to depart runway 4 when the normal departure runway is 22. There is a building that looks like a control tower but it is not.

That landing was uneventful and we got in and tied down just in time to catch the next van down the Avalon. Its about a 25 to 30 minute drive covering only 10 miles, much of it switchbacks. In all the times I've been here the road has remained in this state of semi-repair and you can always catch a glimpse of a Bison or even rarer the island fox. Many times in the past I would simply ate and then headed back out again. Or we would go backpacking on the island. This can be done in designated campgrounds only which are to my understanding, are being increased from the four or five they previously had. Hiking in the island's interior requires a permit which I believe can be obtained at the airport and the overnight camping permits are only available from the Catalina Island Conservancy office in Avalon. This time we didn't plan on doing either as the van wound switchback after switchback down the into the city limits of Avalon.

While we had not really planned to stay it was such a nice day and early it seems early enough in the season that we decided an overnight would be good if we could find a place to stay. The place I have always wanted to stay was Zane Grey's Pueblo Hotel with its million dollar views from the north ridge overlooking the town. It faced the Wrigley Manor on the opposite side of the amphitheater-like canyon where Avalon sits facing out across the Channel north towards the mainland. There was room at the Pueblo and it was well worth the price for the view. And if you are interested I understand the place is for sale for the measly sum of $11 Million or so. Don't know if it has sold by now or not.



Overlooking the harbor in Avalon

View of the "Casino" from the main beach

The Great Northwest Air Race and Vacation – Part 4 Down the Left Coast

Departing Arlington we flew west of Paine Field and Boeing Field picking up advisories from Seattle Approach and later Center as we made our way south toward the Columbia River, Portland and finally Salem, Oregon. As we passed by Mount St. Helens we didn’t see much of it since its lofty summit was shrouded in mystery. Rarely have I been here to see it. However, I did once fly around it in a Learjet once at 20,000 feet probably 17 or 18 years ago while enroute from Boeing Field to Portland. While I did photograph it at the time, the pictures never can do justice to what the eye actually sees.

 

 

We spent a few days in Salem visiting with my mom and sister. I didn’t have much chance this time to visit with my cousins on their farm or my younger brother who now lives over in the Bend area. I wish we lived closer so we could visit more often and since we were this close we were not going to miss the opportunity. Mom is getting up there in years and slowing down quite a bit and I enjoyed all the time we were able to spend together. We spent almost four days here and had to start heading back. We were going to continue down the coast and then turn left at San Diego…



 

We had an open invite to spend some time with fellow racers Red Hamilton and Marilyn Boese had invited us to visit and stay at their place in Ft. Bragg right on the coast. So we headed that way. All the way down the Willamette River Valley I pointed out mountain peaks I knew in the Cascades and landmarks on the ground as we approached the Rouge River. Crossing the coastal range out to the coast I was able to point out Mt. Shasta in the distance. One place I’ve always wanted to land but never have is Weed right near the base of that mountain. But that’ll have to be another trip.

Once we hit the coast we crossed over Arcata, the airport I landed so long ago just as I broke my first 100 hours. Now 16,000 hours later, it doesn’t seem to have changed all that much. I just hope I’m not too jaded in my age to appreciate it. We were on descent into a little airpark near Ft. Bragg called Virgin Creek. With the marine layer moving in from offshore I did a pass down the runway determining if I felt comfortable with putting the plan onto a 1,900’ X 12’ strip. This time I opted to for the little River Airport (KLLR) 12 miles south.

Marilyn met us at the airport as Red had an engagement to go to that night. We toured Mendocino on our way back to Ft. Bragg. This is the town that was used as the fictitious town of Cabot Cove, Maine in the Murder She Wrote series. It has been used in a number of movies as well. Then she drove us out to the airpark and we had a wonderful dinner when Red showed up after his engagement.

The next morning we enjoyed the morning mist as we walked along the rocky shore that is less than a half mile from the airstrip. It is a really neat place and Red gave us a tour of his parts warehouse since he specializes in specialty car parts. He’s been in the machine shop business almost his entire life and now they run a mail order business so they can live anywhere and what a lovely place to live.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After lunch we headed back to Little River Airport as the marine layer was once again coming on shore. Luckily it still had a high enough ceiling and good visibility underneath that we could depart VFR and head toward the east.

Bidding goodbye to Red and Marilyn we headed off on another adventure, the ceiling rising the further east into the coastal range that we flew. Eventually the clouds gave way to a beautiful blue sky and we headed on south towards Porterville and Bakersfield where we spent the night.

 

 

The Great Northwest Air Race and Vacation – Part 3 Onward to Bellingham

Once a race is finished, the lunch served and the awards ceremony completed the airport generally becomes a ghost town. Ephrata still had a couple hundred gliders around with the last day of glider competition still ahead. But even that was tapering off.

While we were getting ready to leave I took a stroll out onto the ramp. There was a big PBY Catalina out there, painted all grey. I wandered around it, looked at is cracked Plexiglas, the flat tires and oil stained ground under its cowlings. It had not moved in a long time. This was the PBY used in the filming of Steven Spielberg’s 1989 movie Always. That movie took the script from the Spencer Tracy movie A Guy Named Joe and adapted it to the fire bomber industry.

 

The PBY has changed ownership a few times but really hasn’t flown since the movie. It was in IMHO, one of the best opening scenes for a movie in which airplanes took a leading role. I think it is kind of ironic that I saw this here since less than a month before I was climbing through it cast-mate, the Fire Eaters A-26 used in the movie. That was in a hangar at Houston’s Hobby Airport where it is now based. That plane is the only two-seater version of an A-26 still flying in the world today.

I finished walking around the airplane, saddened by its forlorn condition and headed back to the terminal building to collect our stuff. We would be crossing the Cascades on our way to Bellingham and the weather wasn’t looking so good over there.

Several of the pilots elected to head south to fly through the Columbia Gorge to get west of the Cascades. They are VFR only pilots and while Linda and I hold instrument ratings and the airplane is certified and capable, I’m not too enthusiastic about taking it into what might be turbulent conditions over mountainous terrain. We have been to about the Stampede Pass route which is the way many were going as well. I’m not so familiar with this and in mountainous terrain and marginal weather, current local knowledge and experience is a must. We had three options, go south to the Columbia Gorge adding a couple hours to the trip, go to Stampede Pass or fly IFR. I filed but wasn’t going to pick it up unless it was really necessary. That became the case.

As soon as we crossed over Ellensburg and headed up the valley toward Stampede Pass we looked at the weather and felt that while we might be able to get through, it was definitely marginal and with no room to turn around later, we did so right away. We picked up the IFR clearance over Ellensburg and it was a rough ride over the mountains. I can only imagine being down there in those passes with the wind coursing through them. There were a lot of planes on that airway in both directions so I assume we were not the only ones to judge the situation accordingly. As soon as we crossed the divide we got lower and the turbulence smoothed out a bit. We got direct to Whidbey Island and then lower still. Once we were out over the sound the weather began to break up a bit. Near Eliza Island we had a beautiful view of the Bellingham harbor, downtown and airport.

We entered a right downwind for runway 16 at Bellingham and were cleared to land. We discovered once we taxied in that we had forgot our towbar in Ephrata. So putting the airplane in the hangar we acquired took a little bit of working it in and out. But once it was housed away safely from the weather we were on our way to see the sights of Bellingham with Linda’s sister and Bo whom had arrived only a little while after we did driving 4 hours from Ephrata.

 

We enjoyed the rest of Saturday in Bellingham and Sunday was a tour day. We enjoyed the fish hatchery and all the waterfalls in the area. We walked and over course looked in antique shops like you are supposed to do on vacation. We ate at a couple nice places but like always, finding things that fit into our diet (Organic Vegan) can be a challenge. Less so I think in the Northwest than in the south though. We always manage though.

Monday morning came early and we had some things to do. One was a stop off in Arlington to meet Ken Blackman, a Grumman guru and discuss with him more speed mods. Ken is the one who put Don Otis’ airplane together so naturally we wanted to see what he could do for us. He was very pleasant and we had a good productive meeting ending with us ordering a Sensenich Prop. Then it was off again southwest bound across the sound and around Seattle’s airspace. More places to go and not so much time to go there.

The Great Northwest Air Race and Vacation – Part 2 RACE DAY

Once we had landed and taxied past the hundreds of gliders on the northeast side of the airport, we made our way down the line to find and open spot on the tie-downs next to the other racers. One airplane in particular caught our eyes, Don Otis’s Grumman AA-1A. His little airplane had a lot of similar STCs installed on it and while not as streamlined looking as the Elyminator, it was a lot lighter. So we wondered whether there was actually someone who could beat us. Don is a local from the Seattle area so he hadn’t raced much. Linda and I contemplated that perhaps ours would be the edge we needed to win.

As we scrubbed down the airplane, folks began to gather after having been to the eateries in town. Linda’s Sister Dianne and Bo Willey from Bellingham met us and helped us prepare the airplane for the next day’s festivities. One particular person took notice of our airplane, wandered about asking questions. A pleasant but reserved man whom I thought I had seen someplace before. He eventually departed in his pickup truck and we packed our stuff into Willey’s car and off to the hotel we went.

Race Day

The next morning early, we met Don Otis, one heck of a nice guy, and other racers at the airport. The race brief completed, we climbed into our trusty steeds and headed off along the 150 mile or so race course which spanned much of northeastern Washington’s arid area east of the Cascades. As we sped around the course, we noted the competitor’s call-outs and time differences over each turn and detected that Don was actually gaining on us. He had departed 30 seconds behind us and was working hard to close the gap. Since it’s a cross-country race we normally depart fastest airplane first with 30 second intervals to avoid passing and reduce the risk factor in that area. This isn’t Reno.

Approach a ridge between the second to last and final turn, Don was in our 4 O’Clock position maybe a half a mile behind. The final turn was to the left and he was close to our wingtip then. We had each other insight and were in constant contact. We made the turn much tighter than Don but he was still hanging in there. We crossed the finish line and broke the SARL record for our factory class that we had set two weeks before. That lasted about 15 seconds…

Don crossed the finish line right behind and when he did it, broke our record speed by a mere 7/100ths of a mile-per-hour. Ooooooooh!!!  For someone who has never raced before, he did very well. And a more gracious winner there never was. We had been tickling up against the 160 mph mark for some time. We didn’t quite do it. We clocked in at 159.78 mph. Don’t speed 159.85 mph. (That record would be broken again a month later during the AirVenture Cup 2012 when Linda flew the 495 mile race at an average speed of 172.71 mph (150.08 knots) with Yasmina Platt, AOPA’s Central Southwest Regional Manager. More on that race in a later blog entry)

After the race came the eating and the awards ceremony. With nearly 10 entries in the FAC5 class, our coming in second still earned us some good points, but not as much as if we had been first. Still, we have held the points lead for the league so far. Weather was moving in from over the mountains and we needed to get a move on as we had to cross the Cascades to get to Bellingham to spend the rest of the weekend with Linda’s Sister.

As we were preparing to leave John Smutney asked what Van’s had talked to us about the night before. Huh? Who? “Richard VanGrunsven! That was who you were speaking with at your airplane last night. Didn’t you know?” Well John, no we didn’t. But since his picture was on the cover of Sport Aviation magazine the previous month, that’s probably why I thought the face was familiar.