More on the Adventure Flight

I'm still on a total high from the ferry flight from Oklahoma to California. All four of us had an amazing time and shared some pretty awesome experiences.

So, why did we do this? My friend Dan Dyer recently opened a new flying club/school called San Carlos Flight Center and these three planes are a part of his fleet. They needed to be picked up from Tulsa and moved to their new home in San Carlos, and Dan loves group flying outings as much as I do. None of us needed convincing to drop everything for three days and fly airplanes.

Looking through photos, I found a few more that struck my interest for various reasons. This one was taken by Dan in El Paso as Marc and I were doing the pre-flight inspections. One of the more important and less glamorous parts of flying. We're sampling fuel, which we all did three times a day - once after each refueling. Checking for fuel quality, quantity, type (100 low-lead, not jet fuel), and making sure those fuel caps are on tight.



Jonathan was our most reliable photographer on the trip, and this was a familiar sight. Makes me think of the Jack Johnson song lyric, "pictures of people, taking pictures of people..."

Endless flight planning... we couldn't just eat our breakfast, we broke out the iPads and finalized the plans for the next route. Weather was changing rapidly and we had to continue making adjustments.

Frequent phone calls home to check in that we just landed/were taking off/would check in again later. You can never have too many people know where you are, where you're going, and your route to get there.

Who's flying what plane this leg? I don't care. What do you want to fly? I don't care. How about you? Oh just pick one.

What trip to Tucson would be complete without a flyover of the airplane graveyard and corresponding photo? Check!

Adventure Flight Day Four: the final stretch

Good news: we made it back to San Carlos safely.

Bad news: no pictures. Why not? Some of the worst turbulence I've flown in. Okay, not "some of" the worst but THE worst. No taking your hands of the yoke or attention away from flying today.

We departed Palm Springs with moderate winds. The plan was to fly east through the Banning Pass and into the Los Angeles basin. But standing on the ground and looking toward the pass, we couldn't tell whether the entire pass was socked in with clouds or just a portion. So we launched, climbed a little for a better look, and determined that there was plenty of clear space to fly through. But with the strong winds, we knew the ride would be unpleasant. Staying low kept the headwinds to a minimum and we popped out a few minutes later.

Flying up the coast was the best bet for clouds and turbulence. Passing by Santa Barbara airport, we saw on the ground and heard on the radio a pilot who blew a tire upon landing and was sitting disabled on the runway. That's a good way to ruin your Sunday. And a good reminder of why we land coordinated.

From there we flew to Camarillo (KCMA) for a fuel and food stop. Incredibly, the weather at the time of landing was winds calm - a welcome change from the 1.5 hours of being beat up. But an hour later the winds picked up to a whopping 24 knots when we were ready to depart. Even though winds were strong, the ride was tolerable.

A quick fuel stop in Paso Robles, and we were on our way again flying the final leg to San Carlos (KSQL.) That airport almost always has a little tumbler wind on short final, and today was no exception. But we are all used to it and were practically giddy as we parked the new additions to the fleet of the San Carlos Flight Center in their tiedown spots.

Three days, three planes, four pilots 18.1 flight hours, several good stories and countless bad jokes. I can't describe how amazing it feels to have done this.

But I will close with my favorite personal moment of the day - use your mind's movie screen for this one... cruising along above a broken layer of puffy clouds, descending gently between a couple, looking over and wanting to reach out the window and drag my hand through the edge just to see what would happen.