Finally Some Fun

The last few days, I've actually been able to get to the airport and do some plain old VFR flying. On Thursday, I had to go to Wickenburg to do some work and decided to fly up. My 6 year old had been asking me about flying for weeks and he tagged along.

We headed over to Falcon Field (FFZ), grabbed my favorite little Diamond DA20 Katana and headed out. The trip to Wickenburg was smooth and fast. With the tailwind, our ground speed was 155 knots and it didn't take long to get there.

We wrapped things up in just a few hours and my son informed me that he was hungry. Hmmm...same crappy Wickenburg fast food or something else? We decided to go to Prescott for lunch. They have good greasy food with a nice big window to watch the traffic come and go. Prescott has a pretty busy airport.

The flight from Wickenburg to Prescott was also quick and easy. We did hit some heavy turbulence over the Bradshaws approaching Prescott. As usual, it was WINDY. Winds 280 at 16 gusting to 25. No big deal, the Katana eats crosswinds for breakfast. A little extra speed to compensate for the density altitude and we were on the ground taxiing to transient parking.

After lunch, we headed back to FFZ. Other than some mountain wave turbulence, it was an uneventful flight home.

We witnessed a forest fire that ignited just as we were taking off. When we landed at Falcon, one of the guys that worked at the FBO asked if we saw the fire. He said his house was less than one quarter mile from it. The good news is that no structures were lost and the fire was contained quickly, thanks to USFS aerial tankers that are stationed on call all across Arizona.

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Yesterday, my friend Kevin called me. He's had his private license since the late 80's. He is a CPA who does our company's books and used to take me flying on occasion. We've been talking about going flying together for about a year now and last night it finally worked out...sort of. He isn't current and asked if I would arrange for a plane. I obliged and made a reservation while I was at Circuit City with my 3 children, who just happened to be very rambunctious last night. I made a reservation for a G1000 172 at 7 a.m.

We met at Angel Air this morning at 7 a.m. to head to points north for cooler temperatures and some $100 pancakes. When I arrived the check out the plane, the dispatcher mispronounced my last name, something that happens about 100 times a week. No big deal. He gave me the keys and we were off. We both decided on Prescott. Cooler temperatures, control tower for busy Saturday morning breakfast traffic and a good restaurant.

We did the West Transition over Sky Harbor and then went GPS direct to Prescott. Nice, smooth and enjoyable flight. I called Prescott tower about 10 miles out and he said to report a 2 mile 45 for the downwind to 21 left. No problem. We descended to traffic pattern altitude (6,000 feet MSL) and then heard "Cessna N20984, you're number two behind an Archer, altitude 8,000 feet. Report the Archer in sight and follow him. Umm, ok. Why the heck is he 2,000 feet above TPA?

Finally we made visual contact and tower reported him at 7,000 feet when he was mid-field downwind. OK. We follow him past the approach numbers, he finally starts descending, but is 1,000 feet too high. Then he keeps flying downwind, nearly 3 miles. Finally, I call tower and ask if the Archer plans on landing today. The tower say's "HE'S LANDING" and the guy finally gets the message and turns base.

Meanwhile, a King Air is approaching from the opposite direction. Tower instructs him to report a 6 mile base. The King Air pilot acknowledges it and just as we're turning base at 3 miles, there's the King Air 1,500 feet away from us turning final. Is it just me, or is it pretty easy to visually tell the difference between 3 and 6 miles when you're 1,000' AGL? I query the tower and they tell the King Air to do a right 270 for spacing. We turn final, airspeed 65 knots just a little above the PAPI. When we're on short, short final we hear the tower call the King Air and tell them they are not cleared to land and are about on top of us. The King Air pilot says "they landed". Um, no we haven't. Tower issues them a go-around. I couldn't believe the pilot wasn't asked to copy a phone number.

When we landed, we parked next to the Archer. It was some scared European kid on his first supervised cross country. I can understand his altitude issue, even though his instructor pilot should have had a little better situational awareness. What I can't understand is the behavior of the King Air pilot. WTH?

All that matters is we landed safely and enjoyed a nice breakfast and a good flight back. Stellar was very busy this morning and the pattern was a little crazy, but that's all in good fun.

Now the funny part.

When we turned the plane back in, we found out there was a scheduling issue. The plane had actually been scheduled for a guy who's last name is very close to mine. When I checked in this morning, the dispatcher said his last name, which sounded like the way my last name is always mispronounced. I corrected him and he dispatched the plane to me.

Right after we departed, the guy who was actually scheduled for the aircraft showed up...for his first solo. No plane. They started panicking and actually thought a terrorist might have gotten the plane. It's amazing how the human mind thinks sometimes. Anyway, they did a little research and figured out what had happened. Our last names are off by just a few letters! I really felt bad for the guy since it was to be his first solo flight. They gave me his phone number and I called him to apologize. He was a good sport about it and realized how everyone involved made an honest mistake. Thanks Darrel.