RV7 Flight to Arizona: Part 1

Last Monday, we were slated to go to Arizona. We didn’t know if we could fly, or be forced to drive, but we hoped to fly. The weather reports had all been forecasting great weather for Monday, and when we got up that morning, the forecasts were correct. So instead of driving for three days, we hopped in the plane and began the 5.5 hour flight.  

The snow-capped Willowas looked lovely. Joseph and Enterprise, Oregon, at the foothills of the mountains, had a dusting of frost.

The weather was a bit unsettled, and we flew by lots of puffy cumulus clouds.

Here we’re crossing the Snake River and Hell’s Canyon. If you look closely, you can see a dam across the river.

About an hour after takeoff, we made our first stop in Nampa, Idaho, which is just a few miles outside of Boise.

With three scheduled stops before arriving in Wickenburg, Arizona, and with foreshortened daylight, we needed to make fast turnarounds or we wouldn’t get to Wickenburg before the sun set. In Nampa, between refueling, opening a new flight plan, and taking a potty break, we did it all in 40 minutes. That was a bit too long. After Nampa, we shaved off a few more minutes by paying a few cents more per gallon of fuel and having the FBO refill it instead of doing it ourselves. That left us free to complete the other necessities, and we saved 10 minutes at each stop.

Nevada is miles and miles of miles and miles. Our second stop was Elko, Nevada, another hour or so away. I was starting to get a little bored. The views outside were uninspiring, so I had fun taking pictures of views inside the cockpit.

Here’s a picture of my reflection in my IPad. I was trying to read, but it was too bouncy. The IPad got tucked away right after I snapped the picture. I heard new terminology over some radio communications. Normally I’m used to hearing unsettled air called turbulence. Crossing Utah and Nevada, I heard it being called “chop.” Oh yes. We experienced plenty of chop.

I love this picture of Mike’s reflection in his IPad. He uses his IPad and an app called KneeBoard, to navigate.

Here’s another navigational tool, the AvMap. We’re flying quite high here, about 11,500 feet, and we’re about to cross some mountains. All the red you see represents mountaintops that are higher than we are. Judging by the dotted lines showing our flight path, we need to climb a little higher. At one point we did get up to 12,300, but not because it was planned that way. After several of the more severe “chops,” which can bounce you higher, lower, and/or side-to-side, we had gained 750 feet of altitude. I was looking forward to getting my feet on solid ground again for a few minutes in Elko, Nevada!

We had to get over these mountains first.

The Elko airport has a very long runway for commercial airlines as well as a shorter one for general aviation (people like us). Although, had the winds deemed it, we would’ve landed on the other runway.

Elko has a real nice FBO where you can eat or sit and rest for a while in a pretty seating area (not pictured). Even the bathroom is lovely (nope, didn’t take pictures of that). Regrettably, we didn’t take time to eat lunch except for some mixed nuts and a couple pieces of dark chocolate after taking off again. Mike was fine when landing in Wickenburg a couple hours’ later. But now that I am diabetic, I’m discovering I need to eat something more substantial at regular intervals or suffer the consequences. Though I didn’t throw up, the rest of the journey was quite unpleasant for me. I’ll write about the rest of the journey in my next post.