Date flight

With business being slow in December & January, getting out and having "fun" has not been that much of a priority. While some couples have a "date night" My wife Georgia & I had a "date flight"! A variation on the traditional weekend "$100.00 hamburger" that many aviators and their friends enjoy.

For us, it was a quick getaway to Camarillo (KCMA) where they offer a pretty good burger! In fact the restaurant on the field, the "Waypoint Cafe" is renown for excellent food, good company and the best view of the field.
Overall, CMA is a very friendly airport. Even the tower staff are polite! (I hope the FAA doesn't read this, they might get fired).
The interesting thing was the weather however. As the photos show, looking north to Bakersfield, they were socked in. Everything south of the foothills & "Gorman pass" was severe clear! This is why I love flying and instructing in the mountains. My students get to see and fly in for themselves what others only read about until after they get their licence.
For example: the mini-cumulus cloud forming over the power station. As you can see it is formed by the heat from the evaporators, and the conditions were just right to show this phenomenon in a very visible way.
Yes indeed, I have the best deal going. And I get paid to do it!

Great Week!

After a lot of gloom, wet and cold we are finally enjoying some sunshine! The poor folks at Bakersfield ar clouded in, but the mountains are great. Good flying weather. Speaking of which, the monthly :Plane Crazy Day" at Mohave (KMHV) was great! Barry Schiff form AOPA magazine was guest speaker, Lots of unique aircraft equally unique pilots.

With the sunny skies now my once frozen students are thawing out and getting back into the swing of it. Looks like a busy flight schedule for the next few weeks. One new one starting Saturday. One is so hyped up that he is in the process of buying his airplane already!

Now that I am getting the hang of loading photos on the blog, you can expect to see more of the action. Weather permitting this Monday we will be flying out to Camarillo (KCMA) for the day, and a "photo safari" There are a lot of restored classic and WW-II aircraft there. Hope to be able to share some with you.

Mountain Hawk is taking on some good changes too, watch for some new things on the website: http://www.mountainhawkaviation.com/ in the coming month.

An odd occurance to one of my clients, after he "assisted" in putting the end plug in his crankshaft,
the first itme he went to "full power" it blew itself out! Fortunatly he was on his take-off roll and not airborne when it happend. the poor gut lost two quarts of oil and made one terrible mess! The picture at the top shows what I found when I pulled the spinner off the propeller.

Fresh in the New Year!

Today, January 4th is special! No I am not making a "new year's resolution", but I am following up on some things that have been in the planning stages for the past six months. Expect this blog to have something new every Tuesday from now on.



As you look down the approach end of Runway "two niner" at Tehachapi Muni (KTSP) you will see what has to be the most familiar thing I see in a day of instructing. Sometimes seven to eight times an hour! I am planing on doing a lot of this in the new year!



This year, Mountain Hawk Aviation will be changing a bit. The "ultimate off road adventure" is still in slow but steady progress. Preparation of "Winston" is underway piece by piece. A VHF/DF to be installed this month, and some air photo ops prep work in progress.



Since most of my instruction work is being done in aircraft that the students own, wear and tear on Winston is down. As the price of avgas goes from absurd to insane, I am shopping for a Cessna 150 or 152 "Aerobat"! I hope to use this for primary and emergency maneuver and spin training, reserving the 172 for instrument training and personal and business usage rather than "rental". I don't care if most people see the little "buck-and-a-half" as a "toy" airplane, it is still one of the best airmanship trainers ever built, and has operating costs that are hard to beat! If I can latch on to one of the Aerobatic versions, I will have a low cost, multi role trainer that is cheap, fun and effective! Mostly cheap fun for all concerned.



I will be getting out of the "heavy maintenance" business this year. At nearly 62 I find it harder and harder to keep up the production rate. I will be doing mostly inspection and compliance work, now that my clientele is getting better established. I will continue to serve a select clientele of airplane owners, but be very selective about new accounts. The "big" project about did me in.

Next, getting inviolved in EAA and more fly outs to events. No more being stuck in the hangar or office. This weekend I will be getting out and gettng more photos of neat places to post. Keep looking!