July 11, 2019 - Flight West - Day Sixteen Part I - To Dallas
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I got a very early start this morning, to beat the heat. I arrived at Benson Airport at 5:45 AM I think. Roy the FBO owner was already here and topped me off. Nice guy.
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Another look at the FBO building and courtesy cars.
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| Taxiing for takeoff. |
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Heading east, unfortunately into the sun.
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| Not much east of Tucson. |
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| Soon I'm over some serious desert. That's the Mexican border down there. |
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| A big rail yard west of El Paso. |
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A close-up of the rail yard.
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| Dona Ana County International Jetport Airport (KDNA) which is home to the War Eagles Air Museum. |
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El Paso, Texas
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| This mountain sort of bifurcates El Paso into two sections. |
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| Looking south at the east side of El Paso. Juarez, Mexico is at the top of the picture. |
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| El Paso International Airport with Biggs Army Airfield at Fort Bliss in the foreground. |
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Highway 54 heads north-northeast towards Alamogordo, New Mexico and the White Sands.
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| Heading east towards Dallas now. |
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A ranch literally in the middle of nowhere.
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| Passing by a big butte. |
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| Passing by Guadalupe Peak to the south. |
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| The Brokeoff Mountains are in the lower left corner with the Guadalupe Mountains running from left to right. |
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I think that is Carlsbad Caverns down there.
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| Some crazy terrain around here. |
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| Oil rigs, just like I saw in North Dakota. |
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Big salt flat.
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| Wow, look at all those oil rigs. |
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| Overhead Gaines County Airport (GNC) near Seminole, Texas (at top). I stopped here after almost 3 hours in the air to take advantage of their very low AvGas price. |
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| A closer look. There was no FBO but they had a very nice pilots lounge with cold drinks and cookies. |
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| The pilot's lounge. |
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| They even had an acquarium for pilots to look at and relax, perhaps after just landing from a harrowing flight. |
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Continuing east, things start to get green.
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| Abeleine and Dyess Air Force Base to the south. |
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I was surprised to see all this water approaching Dallas. This is Hubbard Creek Lake.
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| Further east I encountered Possom Kingdom Lake. |
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Just south of Possum Kingdom Lake is Sportsman's World Airport (TA65) in Palo Pinto County, Texas. It's a private airport community.
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| On the east side of the lake is Possum Kingdom Airport (F35). |
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On ASDB-In, I saw something overtaking me. I looked up and saw this jet passing by. An F-35?
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| Starting to see more signs of civilization as I approach the Dallas-Fort Worth area. |
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Passing by Kenneth Copeland Airport (4T2) on the west side of Eagle Mountain Lake.
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Passing Fort Worth Alliance Airport (KAFW)
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| In this area I was flying through, there are a ton of private airfields. This is Propwash Airport (16X). |
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I saw this from the air and didn't know what it was. But later when I was able to zoom in on the picture I identified it as Texas Motor Speedway.
I flew right by Northwest Regional Airport (52R). Bad planning on my part. Now I know it is the home airport of Doug Reeves who runs the Vans Air Force website.
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| I-35E heads across part of Lake Lewisville towards Big D in the distance. |
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That's the Lake Lewisville Toll Bridge and Lakeview Airport (30F) at lower left.
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Plano, where I have been a few times for work.
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| And there is my destination for today: Aero Country Airport (T31) in McKinney, Texas |
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Tied down at Aero Country. I was staying with my friend Ken. He had come over to this airport a few days earlier and talked to "some guy" who said it was OK to tie down here.
A guy was sitting on the ramp in front of the fuel pump. I recognized him immediately as Kevin Lacey, one of the starts of "Airplane Repo", a TV reality show I enjoyed watching for the two years it was on. I said "You're not going to repo my plane are you". He laughed. Then I said "I'm too tired to resist, go ahead and take it." He laughed again. Kevin was telling me about a bunch of young adults who had restored a Cessna 150 under his supervision when another guy approached. Kevin asked "You know who that is?" "Nope." "That's Gene Soucy". I turned to Ken and asked him if that was the guy he had talked to early, and it yeah. I told Ken "that's Gene Soucy! He's one of the giants in aviation world!" So we talked to them for awhile which was very cool. Both Kevin and Gene were interested in my RV and my long cross-country.
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| Gene getting his big ShowCat ready for AirVenture which is in a few weeks. |
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Kevin was instructing a young man in this Cessna 150 which a bunch of young people had completely restored and did a great job.
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