Winter wierdness

This morning in Tehachapi it was cold and wet, "Soggy, Foggy, and Cold"! A bit of ice in the mix, NOT a good day to fly. However at the sky clears we get some really interesting cloud formations.

This week promises to be busy and exciting. Lots of work to get done and some new adventures to fly. who could ask for more?

Update 02/10/2012

Just a quick update to share that a lot of changes are in the wind from the FAA regarding aircraft certification and comopliance issues. There are a lot of fast moving policy changes that will affect how airworthiness certificates will be issued. Not all is bad, but it will make the work of the DAR more important then ever.

Happenings

Since the last report a lot has transpired. The runway you see is that of Furnace Creek, in Death Valley, the lowest public use airport in the country. This fall we went there, and at a cool 107 degrees F the place lived up to it's name. A word of warning, don't even thnk about it in the sumertime! The food is "OK" but the experiance is quite delightfull. Just remember, they dont call it "Death Valley" for nothing. Pack a lot of water.

At the other end of the specrum, the King Air was parked at Tromso Norway! I had the task of going there to issue a "Ferry Permit" to allow it to be flown to Manila. As a DAR I can issue a Ferry Permit on any US regitered aircraft anywhere in the world! What fun! Tromso is above the arctic circle by the way, even further north than Bodo!

The food in Norway is great (but pricy) the country beautiful. I would love to see more of the place.

We have been doing a fair bit of Aerial Photo support flying, and working that angle a bit. Student flying is down, but some "special project" aircraft are cluttering up the hangar here, waiting for either the owners to cough up some cash, or jsut make up their minds as to what they want!

Just put on a part time helper, a young A&P fresh out of school, lots of enthusiasim but shy on experiance. Work gets done a bit quicker and I have time to market and fly, not to mention take care of the mountain of paperwork that all the work generates.

Coming up soon

By the first week of January, a new re-designed website will be up and running!

Effective today

Mountain Hawk Aviation is now Mountain Hawk Aviation Inc.
Our incorporation paperwork is now in and a done deal.

MUSTANG!

On the 18th (every third Thursday of each month) the folks at Mojave Spaceport (KMHV) hold a "plane crazy" day. People fly in from all over, there is often a presentation of some kind, and there are interesting airplanes on display.

OK, this is not the first P-51 I have ever seen, nor is it the best restoration per se. It does however evoke a lot of feeling.

A lot of our young men went to war in one of these. Often with less then 21 years old with barely 100 hours in their logbook, little in the way of air-to-air tactical or gunnery training, and they were charged with managing nearly 1500 horsepower, and protecting our bomber formations against some of the most experienced fighter pilots in the world! This was accomplished more by sheer guts and "Yankee ingenuity" than anything else.

There are less and less of these veterans, both human and mechanical left. Be thankful some "rich fat cat" spends his very hard earned money to keep a few flying for us to remember the sacrifice of our fathers.

ALL TIME LOW

On Monday the 13th we hit an all time low here with the "ultimate off road adventure" ,211 feet below sea level that is. That is the field elevation of "Furnace Creek" airport, (L06) in Death Valley. As you can see from the Photos, there is not much there! Not much Humidity, not much shade. There is a lot of heat, 110 at the least, some fuel and a "Pilot's lounge" complete with a bathroom, a chair, and two "phoneless cords" (cell service is OK).

A call to (760) 786-2345 gets you the front desk the the Furnace Creek Hotel, and a courtesy car will gladly pick you up, and the lunch buffet is not too bad. If you need fuel, they can arrange someone from the gas station to go out and pump some expensive 100 octane for you, but I suggest you plan on landing with return fuel.

Flying over from KTSP required threading the dreaded "Trona Gap" which is a narrow and not easy to define corridor between R-2505 (China Lake NAWS) and R-2524 (Edwards AFB), then hanging a hard right over Trona.

Dropping into Death Valley itself is visual overload. It is as the same time incredibly bleak, and otherworldly. Impossible for a camera to do it juistice. To think that this was once a giant lake is hard to picture. About thirty nautical miles south of L06 is the lowest point in the USA, Minus 282 feet below sea level, and to think it is less than 70 NM due west from the highest point in the Continental US, Mt. Whitney, at a plus 14,491 feet above sea level.

There are jeeps to rent, tours, visitor's centers, a museum, lots of rocks, a gift shop or two. Bring LOTS of water, and good comfortable shoes, sunscreen (the Rangers reccomend lightweight LONGSLEEVE shirts and LONG pants rather than shorts to avoid rapid dehydration and sunburn).

It is worth the flight, and seeing your altimeter read "backwards" on short final is a bit odd, but anyone who has not flown out here is missin a real treat.