Aviation – Air Prayer

Every two years a pilot must complete a flight review with a certified flight instructor. Now, there are many different kinds of these reviews or proficiency checks but for an old private pilot like me, I just get my 2 year review and call it good. I called the instructor who did it 2 years ago and he told me he is still doing them and would be happy to go fly with me. I won’t name him but the nice thing about him is that he knows I don’t want to be a professional pilot when I grow up. I’m just trying to fly to Los Banos and back for breakfast so that’s how he conducts his training for me. We don’t do flying on instruments or unusual attitude recovery. The Champ I fly doesn’t have instruments and it would be VERY hard to get it into an unusual attitude so no point.

He showed up at Oakdale at 8am and I had the airplane pre-flighted and ready to go at 8:30. Pilot and instructor were all loaded up so off we went. My friend Tommy was gracious enough to give me a prop so we could just go. That means he swung the prop until the engine started, by the way. My CFI guided me southward towards Turlock until we found a road that was straight, long, and the (fairly stiff) wind was blowing across it. He had me do some S turns across that road while we chatted about flying, fly-ins, and which one of those we would and would not go to. Finally he have me a heading to fly (straight toward the Purina Feed Mill, and keep going) so I rolled out on-course.

He guided me toward his family’s ranch airstrip and talked me through the approach and what to expect on landing. We shot two landings. Even in the wind both of them were greasers. He must have been pleased with both my airmanship and my landmanship because he invited me to their yearly fly-in. Even sent my a web link via text while I was climbing out after the second landing.

I was too busy to take pictures but here is a Google earth image of the strip. It is a beauty. Grass strips make even bad tailwheel pilots look good.

He then had me fly over to the east side of Turlock near Denair. He told me that next we were going to practice some cross-wind landings at his home strip. Told me about all the rotors I could expect coming off the almond trees upwind of the runway, and the redwood trees on the downwind side of the runway. I asked if the redwood trees were in the runway, he said no. So I said, “What redwood trees?” It was a pretty sporty approach and I would lie and tell you I wasn’t worried because I’m a steely-eyed flyin’ man. The rotors were right where he said they would be so I landed a little long so I would be just above the runway when I encountered them. I still set down in the first 1/3 of the runway and was stopped well before the last 2/3. I taxied back and took off again and expected him to tell me to go around the pattern and do it again. To my relief he told me, “Alright, let’s head back to Oakdale.” He either didn’t want me balling up James’ airplane at his home runway or he thought I had a pretty good handle on this flying stuff. Turned out to be the latter.

That building with the blue roof is his home. The white roofed building is his hangar. That dirt road right about where the Google marker is, is his crosswind runway. Must be nice. Oakdale doesn’t even have a crosswind runway. I suspect we landed at his runway so he can just tell me to come pick him up next time I need a BFR.

We headed back to Oakdale, landed and filled out our paperwork. His paperwork largely involved writing in my logbook. My paperwork involved writing a check. All in all it was really a great BFR. It stretched me just enough to show me that I can still land at unfamiliar runways, that are not paved, in sporty conditions. Good to go for another two years!

Ten years ago my friend Joey Myers and I were sitting in the living room of our dear friends Jack and Myrna Moyle. They have a 110 acre ranch near Jamestown in the Red Hills Area of Environmental Concern which is managed by the BLM. Joey and I had flown in to say hello. After a bit I mentioned that his ranch would be a beautiful place to host a fly-in and campout. Without hesitation Jack said, “Well you should put something like that together.” So I did.

But before I tell that story, I need to tell the story of this ranch. Jack and his wife Myrna bouth the ranch over 50 years ago. There was one small shack on the property, no trees, no electricity, no utilities of any kind. Jack and Myrna were raising their family of 7 in a one room shack. When they weren’t working Jack and Myrna disassembled some chicken houses on another property they had purchased. Myrna pulled the nails out of the wood and straightened them while Jack was hammering those same nails back into those same boards to expand their small home. They added on three more rooms, a barn, some other makeshift outbuildings and planted a bunch of trees to keep their house cool in the summer. No utilities remember?

One day a mutual friend named Jim Hembree landed on a dirt road that ran through Jack’s property to stop for a visit. Jack was enthralled and wanted to learn to fly too. He firgured that dirt road would make a great runway to fly from. Being a heavy equipment operator by trade he expanded that dirt road and graded it and then had a runway! He bought a Piper Cub up at Columbia Airport and began getting flight training in it. He had the instructor fly him down to his runway on his ranch and teach him how to land there. After that Jack completed his pilot training by taking off from his runway, flying up to Columbia, taking his lessons, then flying back home to his runway.

Fast forward a few years and a few months and we had our first annual Red Hills Fly-in on Memorial Day weekend. This past weekend was our 10th annual and likely last fly-in. So much could be written about it but I like pictures so I will let the pictures tell the story.