December 2008 Archives

My friend Scott and I flew up to Ada Municipal Airport in Ada, OK (KADH) for the $100 Hamburger. Why Ada? Well, it was the right distance away (about an hour) and was a place I had never landed before.

We took off from McKinney (KTKI) and were able to fly directly there. Once again, I had an interesting interface with regional approach when I called them up to ask for flight following. I asked for flight following and was never responded to again. Rather than bother with repeated contact with them and being stepped on by other pilots, I decided to fore go the request since I was on an active flight plan anyway. I wish I could say that the trip up was exciting, however, it's North Texas and Southern Oklahoma. It's pretty flat with a slight upslope in the terrain as you fly north.

Scott was interested to see Lake Texoma from the sky, he commented that he didn't realize how huge the lake is. I hadn't thought about it before, but I did note that on the way back, we could see Texoma from 5500 feet pretty quickly after taking off from KADH.

We ate at Bob's "world famous" BBQ. It always amazes me how many world famous eateries I've never heard of in these little tiny towns. Anyway, the BBQ place was walkable, but we decide to take the courtesy car from the FBO just to see what the courtesy car was like....

I'm getting ahead of myself. We landed the plane and entered the FBO and were greeted by an interior with low ceilings, wood paneled walls, and long shag carpet. We got the key to the courtesy car, which happened to be a Chevy Suburban with wood paneled interior and long shag carpet. It also came with a complimentary (plastic) can of Lay's Stax potato chips. We rolled up to Bob's, parked and enjoyed an above average lunch. During lunch, I got a call from the 1970's, the 70's were very angry, they wanted their decor back from the restaurant, the car, and the FBO. I told them I would see what I could do.

After a hardy meal, we headed back the 1/8 of a mile to the airport and returned the car and disembarked to the south. We made a landing at Sherman Airport (KSWI) for some cheap fuel from their self-serve pump, then returned to McKinney. I was a bit disturbed by the happenings at KSWI. I made my radio calls on their CTAF (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency) and neither heard nor saw any other KSWI traffic, and I landed without incident. However, after re-fueling, I taxied to the end of the runway and did my pre-flight engine run up, the entire time with the Frequency set to the KSWI CTAF. I completed the run up, then turned the plane toward the approach end of the runway to watch for incoming traffic prior to entering the runway. I wasn't expecting to see anything since I had been monitoring the radio. So, I look up and much to my surprise, there's a Cessna 172 on short final for the runway I was about to enter. I waited until the Cessna exited the runway and looked up again and saw a Bonanza on short final. None had made any radio calls. I checked my radio, made sure I was on the correct Comm and made sure the Freq was correct... everything looked right. I was a little upset, not one, but two aircraft were not observing proper safety protocol while landing at a non-towered airport. What it did do was reinforce my paranoia about staying alert and checking and re-checking for traffic around a non-towered airport.

We were able to take off without any trouble and lined ourselves up for a straight in a approach to KTKI. Scott wanted to see what it looked like to intercept an ILS and what it looked like, so showed him how to capture the localizer and even punched up the RNAV approach on the GPS in the aircraft. We contacted KTKI tower at about 12 miles out and were told to come straight in. We landed and parked without any problems called it an end to our fun afternoon.

A filmmaker by the name of Brian Terwilliger made the video embedded below. Most of you probably haven't ever heard of Brian, but he is the producer and director of one of the best aviation documentaries ever made. One Six Right is movie that captures the romance of flight in a way that most of us who love flying cannot express in words. It features what we "airplane geeks" consider a magical place, the local airport. If you haven't gotten a chance to see it, it's a very well made documentary whether you're into flying or not.

Enjoy the short, entitled, "Flying Full Circle"...