Day 17 – Hot & Cold

The warm afterglow of our Grand Canyon flight from the day before was still there in the morning when we drove out to Valle airport. Larry had already opened the gate for us to drive on at 5:30 am, and the hangar door was open, too. On entering the hangar, I could see him move about in the kitchen. When he noticed us pulling out our gyros, he came down to say good bye and wish as a safe journey.

Early morning temperature was in the low 40ies and I was again wearing every thread of clothing I had (T-shirt, two sweat shirts, a sweater and a wind breaker with fleece lining as well as two long pants on top each other). Our next leg was going to take us to Lake Havasu (KHII) with a quick fuel stop at Kingman (KIGM). This flight was going to take us through several climates and I also expected a change of scenery. Here is the landscape around Valle, showing a river bed and quite a bit of green:





Again on this flight I found myself amazed at the inherent beauty of the desert. Actually, the word “desert” encompasses a wide variety of different landscapes, as I once again learned on this flight.

En route to Kingman I noticed those twin peaks just south of our route. A welcome distraction from flying straight and level, we decided to skim the bottom between them and pretend we were flying a narrow mountain pass.



It wasn´t a huge challenge to fly between them but it was a welcome bit of fun. Here is the right hand peak just as we were passing between them.



So, after another 30 minutes of flying, just when we were ready for some other fun little distraction, Robert noticed this train underneath us and suggested we play “train robbery”. So we descended like a pair of hawks on this unsuspecting little train and flew at a level that we could look the train driver in the eyes. I wasn´t able to take a picture just then because of all the excitement and concentration necessary. But here is one as I was breaking off and started to descend again:



Of course, we had made sure that there weren´t any obstacles in our way. We had scouted ahead of the train, and one of us was always flying a bit higher and forward, ready to relay any obstacles to the other.

Time went flying by and soon we reached Kingman, our stop-over for fuel. There was some traffic in the pattern but our “flight of two” fit in nicely and we landed on runway 21. When taxiing to the ramp for fuel we thought that this must be the place where the big planes go to breed. There were literally hundreds of jets parked there. Apparently it is used as a hub by some airlines. The picture only shows a small section. Just imagine the same density of parked jets but over a much larger area.



After refuelling we set course to Lake Havasu, an airport right at the border of Arizona and California. The elevations kept getting lower and lower and the temperatures were now significantly higher than in Valle, when we took off. Lake Havasu was sporting a 104 °C, which made us strip any excess clothing very quickly after landing. The marshaller cart that directed us to our parking position had an ice chest with water in the back, which speaks for itself. It is strange seeing a big lake smack in the middle of the desert with a sprawling city abutting it.



In the air conditioned pilots´ lounge we checked our watches and decided that we wanted to make use of the good weather and press on. We called up Scott Heger and notified him of our intentions to continue further. He suggested a slight alteration to our route which now would take us into Corona (KAJO) via Twentynine Palms (KTNP) and Banning (KBNG). The Pacific was pulling us and we decided to fly as far as Corona today.

The desert now became more barren and burnt. An unrelenting sun was beating down on it, which showed in a complete lack of any kind of greenery. Rocks and sand were the dominating features.



It took my eye a bit of getting used to this, and then I discovered a lot of interesting features. There were variations of brown. Here is one shot showing a light brown shading reminiscent of dried grass, although I don´t think a shoot of grass ever set roots on this spot:



Here is a picture of a point where several things convened: there is a railroad, a street, a water canal, the shadow of the contrail of a jet and a gyro, that all came together to make this spot special.



Unsuspected by Robert I also took a couple of photos of him flying his gyro. Here is a selection of three that I kind of liked:







Just before Twentynine Palms we spotted some snow in the desert, which turned out to be a salt lake.



Finally we got into Twentynine Palms, where the temperature was even a few degrees hotter than at Lake Havasu – if that´s even possible. We each drank some water to prevent dehydration, filled our tanks and emptied our bladders before departing for our last leg of the day, to Corona.

As we approached Banning pass, the headwind became quite strong due to the funnel effect of the high mountains on either side of it. It´s no big surprise that the area in and around the pass is littered with hundreds of windmills.



Right after the pass the wind died down again, and the air turned hazy with the moisture from the near Pacific ocean. I imagined that I could already smell the salty twang of the sea water. Its moisture certainly restricted our visibility to about 6 miles. In the Los Angeles basin the population density rose sharply, as did the traffic in the air. I called up March Approach, whose airspace we would cross on the way to Corona. They gave us a squawk and I relaxed a little bit, knowing that now another set of eyes was watching out for us, too. Perry´s Reservoir is a landmark for March Airforce Base and also a pretty spot to live at.



Just a couple of miles onward, here is another shot of a body of water. This time the population density has gone up markedly as we are nearing the big, confluent cities around Los Angeles.



After a good 6 hours in the air, we finally reached Corona. Taxiing off the runway we could already see Scott guiding us to his hangar. Sunburned, tired and happy we peeled out of our gyros and shook hands with Scott. He had offered to give us a grand tour of Los Angeles and surroundings in his Bell Long Ranger helicopter. And he made good on his promise only minutes after we had pushed our gyros into the hanger, which he shares with a big Sikorsky chopper being in a stage of restoration, his Bell Long Ranger, his Sportcopter gyro and a huge RV.



Here is Scott getting the Bell out to the heli pad.



I wanted to shoot a photo of Scott whileflying with a lollipop in his mouth, but he noticed it and quickly took it out.



I thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of being a passenger and being able to hold my camera with both hands. Scott took us on a round trip heading west, passing downtown LA just to the north. Visibility was murky, but that added to the mystique of the flight as we saw LA´s skyline magically appear out of the haze and gradually solidifying before our eyes as we flew by.





We passed LAX so close that we could almost touch it. Then we were cleared through LAX´s class Bravo airspace, and I couldn´t believe my ears when the controller said, “... maintain 150 or below.” We actually flew below the runways, right along the beach.



I can´t remember all the place names, but Scott makes an excellent tour guide. I took about 100 photos on the trip of which I can only show you a small selection. Here are some very expensive houses on some very expensive property:



That´s the Queen Mary, which was the successor to the infamous Titanic and carried the rich and famous across the Atlantic in great luxury.



When we got back to Corona, Robert and I were on overload from the impressions which the day had left in our minds. We went to dinner with Scott and each had a couple of beers, which contributed their share to our exhaustion. A long, successful, and exciting day saw us happily snoozing away at 9 o´clock.

We didn´t have any plans for the next day, and liked it that way.

– Robert & Chris.