Having twelve pilots was again an asset on this day. We flew approximately 9 hours from Texas all the way back to Steinbach, arriving at 21:30 local. We were happy to be home, but none of us would hesitate to do it all over again if given the chance. We flew a total of 214 hours between the four planes, flew into eighteen airports and covered a distance of about 3500 miles.

Poor visibility and thundershowers along our proposed route gave us an excuse to spend time at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson. This was right next door to the Air Force Base we had flown over a few days earlier. The museum consisted of 270 planes spread throughout 750 acres. It took us a good three hours to just walk past all of them, never mind spending time to really look at them. F-16’s and A10’s continued their circuits right beside us as we walked.

Getting into Las Vegas was one thing. Getting out was quite another. Especially when you have one controller who is clearance delivery, ground, and tower. It took us twenty minutes after start up to just make initial contact. Someone always beat us to the mic to ask for clearance. It was only when the cavalry (the controllers own words for his coworkers) showed up that we were actually able to get our taxi clearance. We departed 30L, got handed off to McCarran approach and before long we were cleared en route.

The Grand Canyon! We headed back out the Banning Pass and then northeast to Kingman, Arizona. We had lunch and rechecked the weather, which was clear all the way to Las Vegas. Once airborne the first veins of the canyon appeared almost right away, leading us on. The Dragon Corridor was our first route over the canyon. The start of the corridor took us past the Grand Canyon Airport and then over the edge. Seeing the canyon from the ground is awesome. Seeing it from the air is indescribable. You can see every little canyon and have an unparalleled perspective of the surrounding ground drop away into layer after layer that goes down, down, down. You can watch the Colorado River as it winds its way around and through the glowing red rock formations cut out of the earth. Essentially, you can just see so much more. The 45 minutes that we were over the canyon were not nearly enough to soak it all in.

We had another day off from flying. We spent the morning with MAF learning more about their goals and visions as well as entry requirements. In the afternoon we met up with some of the pilots friends and relatives who volunteered to be our chauffeurs for the day. We headed out on I10 straight past downtown LA and the Hollywood hills and on to Venice beach. Only one of us was brave/crazy enough to go swimming. It might be warmer than Winnipeg, but the water was still frigid. The rest of us were content to enjoy the view of the ocean with the sand between our toes. From there we headed to Hollywood Boulevard and walked the length of it. Wasn’t all that impressive but we can at least say we’ve been there. Far better things were to come the next day.

Despite all our efforts to be airborne as soon as possible we were delayed due to a nice layer of frost covering three of our planes. The sun should have melted it off soon enough, but it was hiding behind a thin cloud layer. We were ready for liftoff at 7:45 but didn’t actually do so until 9:00. Our destination today was Redlands, California, just 40 miles east of L.A. Our track took us over Tucson, directly over Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and the B-52 graveyard. Looking below us we could see quite a few A-10’s doing circuits.

This day marked the beginning of what we came for. It was our first encounter with terrain, and the first encounter with the associated turbulence. The headwind coming over the first serious ridge we encountered gave us a groundspeed of 40 kt. At times it was even lower as we climbed or at least tried to climb back to altitude after being carried lower by a downdraft. It gave us some concern in regards to our fuel situation, but on passing over the ridge the groudspeed picked up once again. Picked up all the way to 70 knots! The contrast of ridge upon ridge and different shapes and sizes of the hills was incredible. We flew directly over Roswell Air Center, beside the Sacramento Mountains, and skirted the edge of Area 51. To remain clear of that restricted airspace we headed south through El Paso’s Class C airspace, the highest class for many of the pilots so far, before proceeding west.

The many shades of brown and the round fields of Kansas and Nebraska were our companions on this leg. We stopped in Hugoton, Kansas, for fuel and the warmest weather we were to encounter the whole trip. Those who weren’t flight planning for the next leg took the time to lounge on the apron and enjoy the warmth. We ran into a slight problem in Hugoton when the pumps ran out of fuel after filling only two of our planes. We planned for another fuel stop and were again on our way. Unfortunately, even this destination proved too far as the headwind was stronger than expected. Two planes had to divert while the others continued on. Our final stop that night was Portales, New Mexico, where we experienced true southern hospitality. We arrived at 20:00 local and our hostess for the night came to meet us and fuel up our planes. She allowed us to spend the night in the FBO and even provided us two courtesy cars to head into town for something to eat.

Departure was planned for 8:30 local on February 26 from Steinbach South airport. Low ceilings and chance of freezing precipitation changed our plans for us, and by the time we actually departed we had flight planned to three different possible destinations. The final decision was to clear customs in Piney, with the thought that once border crossing was taken care of we could at least land at the nearest airport if we ran into worse weather.

The story: