My good friend Terry Davis, who works for Bombardier's FlexJet division (in Information
Technology, not as a pilot, though I know he'd rather be flying the jets!) owns
a beautiful 1964 Cherokee 235 that he bases at Denton, TX (KDTO).
We had a goal last year to get together on the last Wednesday of each month after
work to shoot (practice) instrument approaches. We probably did that 5 or
6 times; you know how schedules go!
To be "legal" with the FAA to fly instruments (and we all know there's a difference
between "legal" and "safe", you have to log six instrument approaches and fly holding
procedures every six months. It was my turn to reset my currency.
Terry's been on the road a lot lately, visiting some of FlexJet's bases of operation,
and his bird was in for it's annual, too, so it's been a couple of months since
we last went up. Time to fly again! We met Sunday morning, early, at
his hangar. When I pulled up at 7:50, he had the plane out and was preflighting
it. I love this shot!
A thorough preflight was done (both by him and me, at his request) since this would
be the first post-annual flight. Terry's plane has had the old original "shot-gun"
panel that had a non-standard instrument layout replaced under a field approval
with a metal panel with a fully modern avionics stack (Garmin GNS430, etc.).
It's useful load is in the 1400# range... can carry full fuel and 4 adults and their
bags. Not many planes can do that.
We first flew across the north end of Lake Lewisville (under the north end of the
DFW Class B shelf) to McKinney (TKI)
on vectors for a practice ILS to 17. I've never seen more planes in the pattern
at an airport in my entire life. That tower controller was busy. I had
to pull off the hood inside the FAF to help watch for traffic and maintain visual
separation, which included making S-turns down final to increase spacing between
us and a Cessna the tower turned in a little too close to us. With one airplane
on the runway, 2 on downwind, he had the plane in front of us break off, missed
approach to the left, and had us break off missed approach to the right. We
climbed up to 4000' per his instructions, got back with Regional Approach (who had
vectored us for the ILS) and went direct to the eastern-most initial approach fix
for the GPS approach and shot that to a touch and go (Terry did all the landings
from the left seat, I flew all the approaches this time). It was busy there,
so I didn't get any pictures at McKinney.
I put this flight together a few months ago as a plan to go to some airports I'd
never been to before. I'd not been to McKinney, and neither had I been to
Sulphur Springs, which is about
50 miles due east of McKinney. Sulphur Springs' airport is just south of a
small lake, so the approach (if you're landing to the south, which we were due to
winds blowing to the north) takes you right over the water. Here's a few pictures
enroute to and arriving at Sulphur Springs, and a short video of the arrival and
landing over the water.
Arriving overhead the airport in Sulphur Springs...
This photo is of the highway that runs along the east side of the airport.
We parked the plane in the area marked in the lower right side of this picture,
by the new airport terminal building (which is closed on Sundays, so we couldn't
get in to see the new facilities). We walked across the street for breakfast
at the Red Barn cafe, which I had first read about on
Bo Boggs' Musketeer blog.
Turning downwind to set up for the landing...
And here's a video of the arrival:
Can't see the video above? Download it (2.6 MB).
We parked on the ramp so we could walk across the street for breakfast. There
weren't many planes on the ramp when we got there...
But there was this beautiful Cirrus SR-22 G2. The owner was coming out from
breakfast while we were still on the ramp, and we got to chat with him for a bit.
He told us about this great place for breakfast in Granbury, where you take the
courtesy car from the airport to a bakery that has a menu that says "Breakfast -
$5" on one side and "Lunch - $7" on the other side. You pick what you want
off the menu, doesn't matter what you take, it is $5. You want hot cakes?
$5. You want eggs, bacon, and sausage with a side of toast? $5.
You want hotcakes and grits and eggs/bacon/sausage with a side of hashbrowns?
$5. Going to have to fly in and check that out!
There was a really nice RV-4 (I'm building an RV-7) on the ramp. The RV-4
is smaller, and has tandem seating (the passenger sits behind the pilot,
fighter-jet style, instead of sitting side-by-side with the pilot). Three-blade
Whirwind
composite prop, great paint job, fantastic construction.
This guy had a Garmin 396 in the front seat area, and a Garmin 296 in the backseat.
Decadence! Check out the rear-view mirror so he can "check his six" or make
sure he's making the rear passenger turn green.
Customized wing walk... he cut out the letters "RV-4" so the paint would show through.
This is the new terminal building the city of Sulphur Springs built. I wish
it wasn't all locked up on Sundays. Pilots fly at all times, and having access
to at least the public areas of the building for access to restrooms, water, and
a phone would be nice.
And across the street for breakfast at the Red Barn Cafe... truly a "greasy spoon".
Cheap, good food in a small country town. But bring cash... they don't accept
checks or credit cards. It's a good thing Terry had some cash on him.
Thanks, Terry.
Blurry inside shot.
Many more planes on the ramp as we came out to leave. I think there was a
Bonanza group coming in for breakfast. You can't see it in this picture, but
to the left there was several V-tail Bonanzas parked, with people standing around
jabbering, and a couple more Bos in the pattern>
The American Legend Aircraft Company is based
at Sulphur Springs, and is manufacturing and selling brand-new Cubs, with a base
price of about $85,000. We saw one in an open T-hangar area and snapped a
few pictures of this beautiful bird. This would be great for Saturday morning
flights, perhaps 4 owners in a little club. Affordable flying...
I think this head-on shot would make great wallpaper on my computer.... click
the image for a full-size downloadable version that you can use for wallpaper.
An RV-6A on the ramp. This guy had great little gust locks that he had fabricated
himself. A thin sheet of aluminum about 1" x 3", with two holes drilled in
it and a flag attached. Through the two holes he had slid a surgical-tubing-covered
threaded bolt or dowel. The two covered bolts were spaced just enough apart,
and were just long enough, to securly hold the movable tail or aileron in place
against non-moveable aircraft structure. He just slides them in from the gap
on the end. Very nice. Lightweight, cheap, and effective. He had
riveted big red streamers to them as a "remove before flight" reminder.
We were having too much fun looking at all the airplanes on the ramp; didn't
want to leave!
But eventually it's time to get going. This is Terry about to "mount up" and
go!
We took off and flew the VOR-A approach at Sulphur Springs (that's approach #3,
if you're counting), then headed GPS direct to AROSE, the IAF (Initial Approach
Fix) for the GPS Rwy 17 approach into Gainesville (KGLE).
We picked up flight following from Fort Worth Center.
This picture is of Grayson County (Sherman/Dennison)
airport in North NORTH Central Texas. How far north? The lake you can
see behind the airfield is Lake Texoma, which sits on the Red River that forms the
border between Texas and Oklahoma. There is an airport at the Lake, where
you can land then go camping or stay in the hotel there. I've not had the
opportunity to go there yet, but hope to someday. Anyway, in the winter the
grass goes dormant (brown) in Texas, unless you plant winter rye... which Grayson
County Airport must have done, because it's the only patch of green out there!
Perhaps they did this for fire control reasons. Green grass doesn't burn very
well, and we've had quite a warm dry winter, and the fire danger has been high.
Lots of wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma, as you've probably seen on the news.
Gainesville has cheap gas (relatively speaking). I have friends in California
excited to find fuel for less than $3.50 per gallon. We flew the GPS approach
twice at Gainesville (that's approaches 4 and 5, if you're still with me) and then
stopped for fuel. We didn't NEED to take on any gas, as Terry's plane holds
a full 84 gallons, but this price is much better than what he would pay at his home
field in Denton, and Gainesville is just a few miles north of Denton, so why not?
Let's top off here.
While we were taxiing in for fuel, I saw and heard a Yak enter the pattern. The
Yak is a Russian-built warbird trainer popular in the United States because you
can buy one for well under $100K--this example I'm about to show you was purchased
for about $45K, though maintenance costs a lot more! I asked the pilot if
he was Mike, and he said "YES!"; I thought it was Mike Bruno, an American Airlines
757 pilot who owns a Yak and was introduced to me by Stan, my AA 777 pilot friend.
Mike B. is moving his Yak to my old home field (Hicks) from Arkansas, and promised
me and Stan a ride in it when he gets it here. So I thought maybe this was
Mike B. finally arriving... might I get my ride today?!
Nope. It wasn't Mike B. It was Mike Cavanaugh (not of the Cavanaugh
Flight Museum) and his wonderful Yak. He spent some time with Terry and I,
explained the plane and the "joys" of ownership of a foreign warbird, and even let
us sit in it. I'll et the pictures tell the story. You'll like his "nose
art"; Mike was very fond of Looney Tunes growing up.
As we were getting ready to leave, this GORGEOUS homebuilt pulled up. It's
a Falco F.8, an all-wood retractable gear two-place first designed in 1955.
This thing was WAY ahead of its time... the engine on this example purred... it
had to be the smoothest sounding engine I've ever heard. More details:
http://www.cafefoundation.org/aprs/falco.pdf
From Gainesville, we flew back to Denton and shot the ILS approach into Runway 17
to a full stop landing (approach #6). We burned 4.5 gallons from Gainesville
to Denton. Another pilot based at Denton (my boss's boss) told me he carries
a 5-gallon fuel container in his baggage area so he can ferry that 4.5 back to Denton
with him and REALLY top off the tanks to full fuel after filling up at Gainesville,
replacing the fuel burned in the trip back to Denton.
We put the plane in the hangar, grabbed a couple of cold waters out of the fridge,
and sat in his "camp chairs" facing the runway and watched the airplanes and chatted
for a bit. Got 3.4 hours of time, 2.5 of it under the hood.