NASCAR's Jets and a trip to Peoria

Flight Info
Date:	6/7/07	Route of Flight:	KSLC - KPIA
Legs:	1	Total Duration:	4.6 Hours	Type:	IFR

The parking area at AVP (This airport is NOT usually littered with private jets, I just happened to be in town for the Pocono 500 NASCAR race. These are the jets of NASCAR teams, drivers and owners.)

Dale Jr's and a Roush Racing's planes.

I have has my instrument rating for a while now, but still get a kick out of flying though clouds.

Breakin' the Law! (See that red circle? Your not suppose to fly inside that circle. Unless, of course you are on an IFR fligth plan!)

That "Red Circle" (mentioned above) is there to protect this stadium.

I though The Woman would like to live here, so I posted it.

Sunset 30 minutes east of Peoria. (Note the rain falling.)

Lobby of the German themed Raddison hotel in Peoria. (I spent the night here.)

Restaurant area. (Varrrry Germanish!)

Short Trip to Scranton

Flight Info
Date:	6/9/07	KYNG - KAVP
Legs:	1	Total Duration:	1.5 Hours	Type:	IFR

This was my final leg to Scranton-Wilkes Barre, PA (KAVP) I was looking forward to landing at Wilkes Barre because this is the airport where I learn to fly about 15 years ago in a 1980 Piper Warrior (N8085A). It was really cool to say the words over the radio: "Wilkes Barre Tower, Cirrus, four five six, sierra sierra, Landing Wilkes Barre...", from the left seat of my own airplane. I was even welcomed back to AVP with the same old gusty crosswinds.

A C-130 was taxing in front of me on the way out of Youngstown.

Lil' Mountains (Aren't they cute?)

Harvey's Lake (I used to practice maneuvers over this lake when I was learning to fly in high school.)

Salt Lake to Youngstown and not much else...

Flight Info
Date:	6/8/07	Route of Flight:	KSLC - OGD - BFF - KSUX - JOT - KYNG
Legs:	2	Total Duration:	9.9 Hours	Type:	IFR

This was the first leg of my trip to Scranton, PA. Everything went well, I picked up some fuel and lunch in Sioux City and made it as far as Youngstown, OH. As I got closer to Youngstown the visbitly was decreasing to under 3 miles. I was prepared for an ILS approach but I was able to land visually. I decided to spend the night in Youngstown because of thunderstorms all across PA and the fact that I was getting tired. That left me with only 1.5 hours of flight time remainging for the next day.

Started this Flight at 11,000 ft becasue of the high terrain east of Salt Lake City.

Outside of Fort Bridger, WY (You can see that even at 11k I am not that far from the ground.)

The terrain started droping about an hour outside of Sioux City. (Note the map going from tan to green.)

After some lunch and fuel in Sioux City I saw a whole lot of... this! (This was the view out the window for the next 3 hours.)

Southwest of Chicago (More of the same...)

Clinton, Iowa (Out of nowhere, came this city I never heard of. I posted this picture because there was nothing else to post for most of this flight.)

A Southwest jet headed north, on its way to Chicago.

Storms east of Youngstown (I decided i would spend the night in Youngstown, OH. XM weather makes cross-crounty flying much easier.)

Sunset on Lake Erie

Avalon Inn's Lobby (I spent the night here in Youngstown, OH)

Some Friends and Some Flying

Flight Info
Date:	4/21/07	Route of Flight:	KSLC - KTVY - KSLC
Legs:	1	Total Duration:	1.8 Hours	Type:	VFR

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I haven’t abandoned this blog just yet. I have only been getting out to fly every three weeks or so just to practice approaches and keep current, so I don't have a lot to report. A few weeks ago I did take Justi and Kent (a friend from work and her husband) for a ride, so here are some pictures from that trip...

(Thanks to Justi for the great picts!)

Kent and Yours Truly

Larry Miller's (owner of the Utah Jazz) new race track

There were some pretty cool lookin' clouds...

That's Utah Lake on the other side of the mountain in the foreground.

Wow, that was a long airplane ride, Daddy.

Flight Info
Date:	02/10/07	Route of Flight:	KSLC - OGD
Legs:	1	Total Duration:	0.3 Hours	Type:	VFR

I took the family for a Hundred Dollar Hamburger, a few weeks ago. We flew to Ogden Airport to eat at the New Kemp Jet Center. It is, the nicest facility I have ever seen at a general aviation airport, they also happen to have the nicest restaurant inside an FBO I have ever seen. The food was great.
When we landed in Ogden, which is literally a 10 minute trip (the "Total Duration" listed in the box above is not a typo), my son said to me, "Wow, that was a long airplane ride, Daddy." Ok, so I have this airplane, it can travel 1000 miles (~700 nautical miles) without refueling, however it would seem we are currently limited to 30 mile trips, as the kids don't seem to like flying in the airplane all that much. I think part of it has to do with the fact that they don't get the immediate attention they are used to when we are in the air. And the other part is, that our first trip took place mid-summer when it was 90+ degrees on takeoff so they were hot and miserable until we reached cruising altitude (then they were just miserable), but that's a different story... We ended up spending the night in Ogden because the weather was bad, the kids (and the Woman) thought spending the night in a hotel was cool. The flight back the next morning was uneventful and every one did fine. Maybe next time we'll see if we can make it 20 minutes...

Here are a few pictures...

The Frozen'ish Salt Lake

The Kids
(And they look happy!)

The Boy
(Looking slightly annoyed)

The Woman
(Lookin' Good!)

Grand Opening

I just finished my first flight blog below. The flight took place a while ago but I had quite a few pictures so I started with that one. My first post took way too long to create, hopefully I'll get faster at this...

The what is on fire?

Flight Info
Date:	09/03/06	Route of Flight:	SLC-ENV-TUY-SLC
Legs:	3	Total Duration:	2.9 Hours	Type:	VFR

This was a short flight to Wendover NV, thanks to my passenger Kurt for taking all the pictures. I have posted some pictures of the sites we saw along the way. Sites include; the Great Salt Lake, Bonneville Salt Flats and Wendover airport. Wendover is an old air force base where they loaded one of “the” bombs dropped on Hiroshima; they have a cool little museum there. On the way back to SLC we encountered a problem, not with our airplane, but with Salt Lake International’s tower. It would seem they had a fire and had to evacuate the control tower. So they were not letting any VFR traffic land until the tower was manned. Approach control is in a different building so they were able to tell us to go away. After circling outside of the SLC class B airspace for a while, we landed at Tooele and waited it out.

National Guard base at SLC

SLC's Parking and Terminal Area

Following Interstate 80
(VFR Transition Route out of class B)

Great Salt Lake
(Beyond the mountains are the Salt Flats.)

Bonneville Salt Flats
(If you enlarge this picture you can see a quite a few cars preparing to "go fast".)

Landing at Wendover
(This has to be one of the longest runways at an uncontrolled airport in the country.)

My Ride and The Old Control Tower

The Old Control Tower

One of the Displays at the Museum

Old Hangers and Cargo Plane

Refueling at Tooele
(That's your's truly on the phone trying to explain to The Woman that I was going to be late... she didn't buy the "control tower fire" story.)

Salt Lake City

Turning Final
(I thought this was a cool picture because, as a pilot, I am never starring at the ground just below me when setting up to land.)