June 30, 2011 - Sedona, Mesa, Grand Canyon & Hoover Dam | ||||||
Lynnette is ready for her last flight of this vacation in the RV. Her next flight will be in a Southwest 737. What fun is that? | ||||||
The FBO Building at
Sedona. | ||||||
Lynnette liked this windmill at the airport. I told her I'd make one for her using my new welding skills. | ||||||
Taking off, you can see the new
restaurant building under construction. | ||||||
Sedona from the air. | ||||||
We flew south to Falcon Field Airport (FFZ) in Mesa, Arizona -- east side of Phoenix -- to visit my aunt and cousins who live there. Falcon is a towered airport. | ||||||
My aunt Merrilyn, cousins Doug and Rick, and Doug's wife Charlotte. We had a nice breakfast at IHOP and then a nice visit at Aunt Merrilyn's house. | ||||||
They took me back to the airport and
watched me take off, then Doug dropped Lynnette off at the big Phoenix
airport. By the time I took off at Falcon, it was hot -- over
100 degrees. I could only climb to about 5000 feet before I had to
throttle back to keep my engine oil from getting too hot. There were
mountains ahead of me higher than that. Fortunately, the desert
thermals were strong and I climbed easily to over 10,000 feet despite
being throttled back. At one point I even racked the RV around in a
360 degree turn trying to stay in a thermal!
I was heading to the Grand Canyon and
my route took me right back over Sedona. It really is an aircraft
carrier in the sky. | ||||||
Looking down on the river where Lynnette and I had lunch the day before. | ||||||
I took another picture of Sedona and my camera
told me the memory chip was full. Bad pre-flighting on my part! Well,
there was no way I was going to fly over the Grand Canyon without
being able to take pictures. I flew over the east side of the
canyon and headed north to Page Airport. There, in the nice Classic
Aviation FBO pilot's lounge, I downloaded the pictures from my camera to
the laptop computer. Then it was back into the air to fly the Grand
Canyon!
Here is Page Airport. | ||||||
Lake Powell is just to the north. I hear houseboating on Lake Powell is a lot of fun; I'm trying to talk family and friends into a houseboating trip some day. | ||||||
The dam that created Lake Powell, and the only bridge across the Colorado River that I saw the rest of the way. | ||||||
I hadn't reached the Grand Canyon proper yet but the view was still pretty spectacular. | ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
Approaching the Grand Canyon from the north over a sea of trees. It looks like I'm low but actually I'm at 10,500 feet! | ||||||
But there were a few areas you could land in an emergency. | ||||||
The Grand Canyon opens up before
me. | ||||||
Since they have so many rules concerning flying over the Grand Canyon there is a special chart. There are corridors you have to stay in at certain altitudes. Prior to the flight, I had plugged in the lat/long of the cooridor endpoints in my GPS. | ||||||
Flying up to Page I had crossed the
Zuni correidor at 11,500
feet. Now, I was coming
south through the Dragon corridor at 10,500 feet. | ||||||
While transfersing Dragon corridor, I slow
overtook a tour airplane below me at 10,000 feet. | ||||||
There is the Colorado River, way down there. | ||||||
Just about to cross the south rim. | ||||||
The mid-afternoon air was a little
bumpy. | ||||||
This wasn't the best time to be taking pictures. First thing in the morning or maybe an hour before sunset. | ||||||
| ||||||
NOw I'm heading north again through the Fossil corridor. | ||||||
I'd like to go on the seven-day
rafting trips someday but wonder if I'd be able to hike out. | ||||||
| ||||||
The Grand Canyon West airport (1G4). The famous Grand Canyon Skywalk is a seven minute busride from this airport but I can't see it in this picture. | ||||||
Where the brown water turns blue
is where the muddy Colorado River meets Lake Mead. | ||||||
I'm out of the Grand Canyon and flying over Lake Mead. | ||||||
| ||||||
Hoover Dam and the new Hoover Dam bridge. | ||||||
| ||||||
My destination for the night was Boulder Airport which is very close to Hoover Dam. I had made arrangements with the FBO to rent a car and it was waiting for me when I landed. | ||||||
I had a reservation at the Haciena Hotel & Casino which was
very inexpensive and close to Hoover Dam -- but this was more than
offset by having to rent a car to get there. I arrived too late to take a
tour, but I did drive across the dam and across the new bridge. The
bridge is a pretty impressive engineering feat in and of itself.
This picture doesn't capture how massive it is. | ||||||
I couldn't get a good picture of the Dam from the ground. | ||||||