Vegas, 2005

Las Vegas or Bust!

 It was a typical foggy morning over the Livermore airport.  Kristle had somehow talked Katherine Ramos into flying with her and her sister to Vegas for a conference.  Of course, there wasn’t a lot of arm twisting since I let Kristle and Katherine fly my 172SP.  Katerine is an experienced pilot with 78 hours who has landed the 172SP at least twice, and has been a passenger in class B airspace once, so she felt completely confident (ha ha).  They had their weather, flight plan, plenty of fuel and munchies.  They left Livermore through the sliver of sky to the south side, and began their exciting journey.

Kristle's Sister

Intense navigational skills were required to find their way, considering they only had a multifunction display with GPS, and autopilot equipped with a heading and altitude management.  They performed numerous checklists along the way (we can only hope) and everything was running smoothly.  Their passenger was asleep which was a good sign, and both of the pilots were wide awake throughout the trip (which is an even better sign). They tracked from VOR to VOR, over the Tahachapies and past Edwards Air force Base to North Las Vegas via Palmdale.  The plane was getting a little low on fuel, so both pilots decided to stop somewhere along the way before reaching Las Vegas.  When your passenger starts vomiting in the back seat, it’s as good a time as any to get fuel (Oh my beautiful plane!).  Low and behold there isn’t a single airport with fuel from Barstow to Las Vegas.  At that point the pilots cut out a lot of their scenic VOR destinations and took a more direct route hoping someone would give them clearance into class B airspace no matter which direction they came from. 

Over the mountains to Las Vegas

It turned out getting into Class B airspace wasn’t too difficult using flight following.  The pilots just had to look for Henderson airport, then fly north to the numbers for 25R at McCarran airport at or below 4,500 feet.  Then fly a heading of 010 towards North Las Vegas and contact the tower.  They understood EXACTLY what to do (after the twelfth read-back).  Both pilots learned that you are supposed to write clearances down and avoid just using your memory. 

They got to see a lot of 747’s up close and personal, then were told to just come straight in for 12R, although they were headed for 30L - North Las Vegas.  They weren’t sure what this meant, so they just started flying downwind hoping the controller would stop them if he had a problem.  Kristle performed an awesome landing with stealth like grace, after which they promptly asked for progressive taxi to fuel. 

A little tired there Kristle?

They left the airport via shuttle to the hotel in 103 degree weather (which they were told was pretty cool for this time of year), and true to form Katherine left her cell phone on the shuttle bus.  This would normally not be a big deal accept for the fact that, as with all new pilots, the shock of not closing one's flight plan hit about 45 minutes after landing.  That’s why they have your cell phone number, right??!!! Rancho FSS wasn’t sure how the pilots reached them by phone, but they said they would notify the appropriate FSS that they landed. They were 3 hot women in Vegas, and were ready to rock sin city!  They hit the pool where drinks were a bargain basement $11 a piece.  The three of them got all dressed up, ate dinner and pretty much couldn’t stand without help for the rest of the night.  Note to self: if you’re going to fly a general aviation aircraft for 5 hours, you might need a night to recover. 

View from their room in 'Paris'.  New York-New York is straight ahead, The Belagio is to the right

The next morning the pilots planned out their flight, got important NOTAMS from 1-800-wx-brief:  "Watch out for the unmanned drone below 6,000 ft in Apple Valley"  (interesting).  The pilots were off the ground by 2pm.  This time they forgot to even open the flight plan so it was ok if they were going to forget to close it.  They taxied to runway 7, this time wrote down their clearance, and were off.  Katherine daftly avoided the Stratosphere, and was trying to get to 10,500 but was told by ATC to remain at 3,500 at their present heading to avoid traffic.  At this point it became apparent they were not going to get to 10,500 at their present heading with a 5,100 ft density altitude, and still avoid terrain.  After the third time they were passed off to another controller, Katherine requested to do some 360’s, and climbed as quickly as possible.  At 6,000 ft they heard a little engine roughness, and realized with all of the commotion that they had skipped the climb checklist, so they started leaning (at 6,000 feet MSL with 5,100 feet density altitude - leaning basically began at 11,100 feet MSL - not good).  The pilots got scolded for not staying at or below 8,000 ft by the fourth frequency controller.  The terrain just looks so high, even to an experienced, then of course the controller waits until they descended back down to 8,000 ft. to tell us resume intended heading, and altitude.  Katherine seriously thinks they do that on purpose.....

They were finally clear of class B airspace, and trying to tackle the crazy updrafts and downdrafts.  They were getting so many alerts from the autopilot that they decided to just fly the damn airplane without it.  They would shoot up in altitude by 700 at times and 1,000 feet in just a few seconds.  Kristle was getting a little sick, and tingly.  She started asking if her lips were blue, and she wanted to take a nap which was a big time negative (Hypoxia?).  They decided they had been at 10,500 long enough and once over the mountains, dropped down to 8,500.  The turbulence had completely subsided and Kristle graciously offered to sing backup on "Oh Happy Day" for Katherine (let's hope the mic wasn't stuck in the transmit possition).  Kristle was obviously feeling better.  Everything was going so great, until they hit Fresno.  The engine started making noises, causing their hearts to skip a few beats.  As Kristle put it, God decided to strike us down during our moment of joy (well, let's hope not).  They flew from airport to airport and stayed high just in case they had to make an emergency landing - High is better, gives you more time to make decisions).  After 3 airports went by, Katherine decided they had had enough of this and decided to land in Madera. 

They figured out they were entering on a left 45 for runway 30.  Katherine was pretty nervous, and just to allay my fears, another pilot gets on frequency and says he is entering on a right 45 for 30.  Katherine said, “understand right pattern traffic for 30?”  He said that’s correct.  Then another pilot gets on, and says, “Madera is left pattern traffic”, after which the first pilot started arguing and quoting page numbers (Ahhhh, Male Testosterone).  This was really not what the pilots needed.  During the first pilot’s ranting's Katherine and Kristle realized he was a helicopter, so Katherine promptly stated, “well, I’m not a helicopter so I’m going to set up for a left 45”, after which the second pilot said, “good decision.”   They landed safely, got fuel, used a sprite bottle for a funnel to put oil in the plane (we can only assume the bottles were empty).  Katherine left her prescription glasses in some guy’s hangar bathroom - good move.  They tried to rev up the engine really good, lean the mixture, and do their magneto check.  Everything looked good, but they could still hear the engine roughness, and when they put your feet on the rudders, they could feel it too. 

Kristle decided it was their imaginations (uhu...), so they started to taxi to the runway, and then started hearing thumping, and clunking in the engine which is never good.  At that point, they decided they were going to check out the night life in Madera.  They taxied back, and began their search for civilization, like a vending machine or something.  The airport was rather interesting.  The outside was infested with long worms, and when they found the terminal building it was infested with tiny toads.  God had now sent a plague!!!  They tried to lay on the tables since the toads were climbing the walls, and waited for James Hubbard to come rescue them. 

It was now 11:30 at night, and out of the darkness came the strobe light of hope.  Katherine had had 3 hours of night flight so was completely prepared to fly this unfamiliar aircraft back to Livermore.  James said he could hear what they were talking about in the sounds of the engine, then he switched frequencies without telling them.  “James”, “James, where are you.” Katherine felt like they were in a really cheesy horror film.  “James, we’re turning back.”  Three minutes later, “Oh I’m here, I was just turning lights on at other airports just in case.”  They took on the challenge of navigating without their multifunction display and asked James to turn his strobe light on an off every now and then so they knew who they were following.  Everyone landed in Livermore at 1:30am.  James wouldn’t stop talking to the two of them while they were on final and there was just no going around, so I expertly maximized runway usage to make the landing as pleasant as possible.  That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. 

Yes, the spark plugs were fouled.  Although they were only at 6,000ft when they started leaning the fuel/air mixture,  due to the density altitude, the airplane was actually at 11,000 ft., and of course you are supposed to start leaning at 3,000ft. Hangar dude sent Katherine her glasses back UPS one day mail, which was so incredibly nice. 

As a thank-you, the two pilots washed the plane for me.  If you are wondering if you should buy a plane, buy a new one and lend it to two good and beautiful pilots.  The benefits are unbelievable!!!

N21483, Livermore Tower, there are bikini's at the Northeast Wash Rack!

Page last updated on 12/03/2006