Low Pass

Driving Vacations

I remember that vacation trip especially, because I was a fairly new pilot myself, and had several flying adventures on that vacation. I was in San Diego on my birthday during that trip, having driven from Dayton Ohio on one of several big driving vacations I took back then. That day was memorable, not because it was my birthday, but because that day was when a Boeing 727 owned by Pacific Southwest Airlines ran into a Cessna 150 above San Diego! Both planes crashed, killing 144 folks that day. Not a good birthday memory.

I was leaving town when I heard of the crash on the radio. I elected not to try to go anywhere near the crash site, since there was nothing I could do to help. The day before I had been at San Diego's Lindbergh Field, where the PSA flight was to land, and the Cessna 150 was making practice approaches as the student on board was working on an Instrument Rating. I had visited Boom Trenchard's Flare Path, a restaurant at the airport that was a favorite of pilots in that area.

The restaurant is on the right side of the runway in this view, right where planes touch down.

The restaurant was decorated in World War I style, and several WWI aircraft were either inside the building, or on the ramp outside. You could even park a plane on the ramp and have dinner there! The bar in that restaurant had a spectacular view of the end of the runway at that major airport.

Flying into San Diego is tough. The approach into the field is steep, and the runways are short, so sitting at that bar was always interesting. You got to watch pilots attempting to get into that field. I have flown in there several times, traveling to visit the Sand Diego Supercomputer Center as part of my work in computational fluid dynamics back then. I had some experience flying into such fields while I was training for my commercial pilot's license.

One of the fields I flew into a lot was "Sunken Lunken" an airport on the Ohio River just East of Cincinnati, Ohio.

That field had a runway aimed right at Kentucky on the other side of the river. On a hot day, taking off to the south and trying to climb was tense. Ohio had been scraped flat by a glacier in ancient times, and that glacier stopped right where the Ohio River was formed. On the other side of the river were the rolling hills of Kentucky, and those hills looked mighty big as I was trying to climb up high enough to clear them. I was never that close to not making it, but it sure felt close when aimed right at them and seeing nothing but trees in my windshield!

Another favorite field was the airport at Charleston, West Virginia. That airport had a runway right on the edge of a cliff! Taking off toward the cliff was no big deal, but landing toward that cliff was. You had to constantly watch your altitude, and aim for a spot on the runway. The problem was that you were several hundred feet in the air at one moment, then right above the runway a few feet in the air in the next moment. Misjudge that and you would have serious problems.

An old pilot's saying goes like this. "Don't worry about flying into a mountain, you will have plenty of warning. The windshield will break!" I know that is not funny, especially for those poor souls lost today, but I always remembered that saying when flying into situations like this.

Low Passes

Actually, I like flying close to the ground. The ground below me, that is, not the ground in front of me!

I learned to fly at Wright-Patterson AFB, near Dayton, Ohio. The field were the Aero Club was located was part of Huffman Prairie, where the Wright Brother's flew their first airplanes while in Ohio. I always thought is was kind of neat, learning to fly in the same airspace those brothers had flown in many years before me!

I have made many flights into and out of that field. The runway is over 12,000 feet long! The Aero Club was in an old alert hanger at one end of the runway. If we were taking off with the wind blowing the right way, all we had to do was taxi out from our hanger a few dozen yards, and we were on the runway ready to go. That was great, but it was not always great!

The problem with that location was simple. If the wind was blowing the wrong way, you had to taxi 12,000 feet to the other end of the runway before you could take off. On takeoff, we had no choice, and the clock ticked away as we moseyed to the other end of the runway. (We were paying for the airplane by the hour!)

On landing, we had fun. We would approach the far end of the runway for a normal landing, and if nothing else was behind us, we would request permission to fly "low" down the runway before touching down in time to make the turnoff at the far end.

This was always fun, cruising along a few feet in the air. It was especially fun if the wind was blowing across the runway, since then we had some real flying to do to keep the airplane lined up with the center of the runway! I almost wished for this every time I landed on the far end of the runway!

Fast Low Passes

Low passes are a tradition in the fighter pilot community. You have probably seen Tom Cruise making a low pass (well, probably not him, exactly) by the tower in Top Gun:

I fully intend to do something similar when I take my F4 ride, as soon as they get the ejection seats back in shape. Sheesh, it has been grounded for over a year, now! They better get that bird flying soon, I am getting anxious!

Boy, you can find images of just about anything on the web, these days! I probably should be annotating all of these images I find while "googling" (when will that word make it into the Oxford Dictionary?)

My Grand Canyon Flight

Back to 1978. On my vacation trip that year, I had stopped at the Air force Academy in Colorado Springs, before starting my planned adventure through the Rocky Mountains. When I woke up the next morning, there was three inches on snow on the ground. Any thought of driving through the mountains went poof! Instead, I headed south, driving over Royal Gorge, and stopping at Mesa Verde, before heading to the Grand Canyon. I spent the night on the South Rim of the canyon, and the next morning decided to walk down Bright Angel Trail a bit. What I did not expect was to meet a German graduate student who was also walking down the trail. We started talking about all kinds of stuff. He was exploring the USA before looking for a job. We talked for quite a while while walking, and before you knew it, we were standing on the side of the river at the bottom of the canyon. Shoot, it was only about nine miles of walking. No big deal, right?

Well, actually it was a big deal. Those signs at the top of the trail that said "Warning, Hiking these trails is like mountain climbing in reverse. It will take you three times as long to climb out as it does to climb down!" now made sense!

My new German friend had a backpack, and plans to spend the night in the canyon. I, on the other hand, had not thought this through at all! I was at the bottom of the canyon, and my car was at the top, over 5000 feet higher. We sat on the river bank for a while, fighting off squirrels who thought his backpack was full of food. (They had no fear of us, and were really after that food!)

Finally, we said our good byes, and he started down the trail to the lodge he was to spend the night in. I started back up the trail to the rim. It was around noon, so I was pretty sure I could get to the top.

The walk down was easy. Up, not so much! I was in pretty good shape, but climbing up the trail took its toll. Eventually, I got so tired, I would walk one switchback to the next, then sit and recover. I was not alone in this, many other walkers were doing the same thing.

A group of about six of us pressed on, switchback after switchback, sweating up a storm, and fearing we would never make it. The switchbacks were messy. It seems the mules, who carry tourists into the canyon, like to relieve themselves as they stack up to make the sharp turn. So the ground was always wet, and smelly there.

As the sun got lower and lower, several of us started making plans to sleep in the canyon and finish the trip the next morning. We were so tired we could hardly make one more switch back.

Finally, we had had enough. Most of the group was ready to thrown in the towel. (Not a good idea, that would litter that grand canyon!) We were lying up against the side of a hill, looking back down into the canyon, and cursing our stupidity. Looking up, we could see nothing to tell us how far we had to go. Looked like a night in the canyon was going to happen.

At the last moment, we decided to try one more switchback. We all stood up, walked around the corner, and there was the lodge at the top of the trail. That would have been hilarious, six grown men (most from foreign lands, by the way) sleeping outside on the trail mere feet from a nice lodge! Sheesh!

I was so tired, I got in my car and drove to Williams Arizona, at the end of the road to the canyon. I never wanted to see that ditch again! If they filled it in and paved it over, I was fine with that!

After a nice meal, and a good night's sleep, I headed off to my next stop, Las Vegas! The road from Kingman, Arizona to Las Vegas, takes you over Hoover Dam, which I wanted to see again. I got to the dam, and had a nice stop. Then I started driving through Boulder City on the other side of the dam, and passed a sign at the entrance to the airport there.

"Canyon Flights"

What the heck, I pulled into the airport, and saw a nice little Piper Cherokee 6, siting there with the doors open and a bunch of people standing around.

(Not this one, by the way!)

I parked my car, and walked up to the plane. I asked how much the flights were, and I remember it was steep, but not so much I was not willing to spring for the ride. I asked when they were taking off. "In a few minutes" was the reply. "Got any room left", I asked. "Well, you would have to sit in the co-pilot's seat", he said. Oh, yeah, hurt me! "Sure", I replied, and I was booked for the flight. The back of the plane was filled with a family from I cannot remember where. We pretty much ignored them for the rest of the day. The pilot and I had a nice conversation as we flew along.

The flight flew right over Hoover Dam, which was cool to see from the air, then traveled across Lake Mead toward the river entrance, right where it left the canyon. The pilot kept the plane fairly low, so we got a good look at the mountains where we were headed.

As we approached the river as it dumped into Lake Mead, he climbed up and sailed over the grasslands toward the canyon. We were only a few hundred feet above the grass. Then I saw a kind of notch in the land, and saw that he was aiming for it. We flew right up to that notch, then he nosed the plane over and we dove into the Grand Canyon. Yikes!

In those days, planes could still fly into the canyon. And that is exactly what he did. He leveled off a few feet above the river, and we flew along, looking at the walls of the canyon on both sides. The view was spectacular.

The company that owned the plane also offered raft trips through the canyon, and the pilot was on a mission to check on one of those trips. We flew over the river for several miles, turning back and forth as the river wound along, and we spotted the rafts. We buzzed over them as they waved at us. I thought we would now climb out of the canyon and head back, and waited for that to happen.

Nope!

Instead, the pilot made a steep right turn into a box canyon. We are toast, was my thought! Now, all I saw was canyon walls on both sides, and a big canyon wall right in front of us. I seem to remember the folks in the back screaming about now, I do not remember if I did, but I do remember the sight!

Just when I was sure we were goners, the pilot again turned to the right, into an opening to another box canyon. Well, I guess we will be a splotch on a different wall now! Then he made still another right turn, and we could again see the river. He knew exactly where he was going, and I am sure he had done this before, just to give his passengers a thrill! We reached the river, and flew to the left, and again we were sailing along just above the river.

We were also trying to get out heart rates back to normal! That took a bit longer to do! The pilot? Well, he just had a stupid grin on his face!

The flight back, again over the rafts, was fairly calm. Except for one more adventure.

Picnic Time

The pilot pointed out the many islands in the middle of the lake.

One pretty big one was coming up right in front of us. The pilot told me that other flyers liked to land on those islands and have picnics there. Right! Those islands were not that big. "What happens if they cannot get the plane stopped?" I asked. "No problem" was his reply. "Let me show you."

He throttled back and slowed the plane down as though he was actually going to land on that silly island. He got so low, I was sure the wheels were dragging in the grass. We were still flying along, and it was clear he was not going to actually land. So we approached the other side of the island, and sailed off the edge. We were a couple of hundred feet above the lake! "If you don't quite get stopped, just shove in the throttle, dive toward the lake, and you will be flying again in time to pull out over the water."

This guy is nuts!

When we finally landed, I had had enough of an adventure to last me for a while! It was a memorable flight, and I am almost sorry to say, I spent the better part of today remembering that day, and the crash in San Diego a few days later. Then I found myself thinking about those tourists whose days came to an end yesterday.

Still!

We have only one life to live. If you are not willing to live that life, and too afraid to have an adventure, what is the point of living anyway! Sure, taking care of your loved ones is important. But so is being alive, really alive. You do not get there by sitting in a safe chair watching "reality" TV!

Tomorrow is Cheryl's birthday. I am taking her out to dinner some place nice. She told me the other day that she is glad to see that I am living life in a positive way, in spite of the cancer adventure. I am sure trying to do just that!