May Grey

Yesterday, I checked off another new airport -- this time in Pasco, Washington. The picture at right is a view of the Columbia River while descending toward the field. Having only seen the airport, I have no idea what Pasco itself is like. Perhaps someday I will be overnight there. This would be my second time to Washington state and I have not yet walked more than 10 feet away from the plane. Someday. . .
Throughout the entire day, the San Francisco bay area was entirely clear. As surprising as this was, it did not hold true for the central coast, where we shot an instrument approach to Santa Maria.


Santa Maria is part of California's wine country and Tripadvisor didn't offer up any things to do in Santa Maria that didn't involve wine, except one thing that was walkable from the airport hotel. That thing was a small aviation museum. I opened the creaking doors to the museum and three elderly gentlemen stopped their conversation and stared at me. This is exactly the scenario I saw playing out. They offered to do a tour, but I told them I'd walk around on my own. I was wearing a t-shirt with a big gold star I purchased in Vietnam, which in hindsight may have been viewed in poor taste as the workers were likely Vietnam vets.

The museum, as expected, was rather small, but one of the buildings was the hangar used in the movie, Rocketeer. I understand that most people probably haven't seen this movie, and you are missing out if you haven't. It is a highly underrated film. Anyway, there were a few aircraft parked outside, but most of the displays were scale aircraft models or other random artifacts that had no explanation. One wall had about 10 ejector seats lined up together. On the floor were a few panes of glass labeled things like, "B-17 side window." If I acquired a piece of glass from a B-17, I wouldn't display it unless I had the airplane to go with it, but to each their own.

Then they had things like this piano with various avionics and instrument gauges placed on it. Why you ask? I have no idea. There wasn't even a sign saying, "Donated by X." Perhaps the creator did not want to be associated with such an abomination. Why would someone create such a monster? For some things, there are simply no answer. Today is another day with five legs, three of them going into San Francisco where there is currently an overcast layer. Hopefully, we are not severely delayed on the last day of the trip. Here's to hoping for clear skies and favorable winds.

First Flights out of LAX

My very first flight out of LAX as a pilot based there was delayed. Weather? Excessive flow you might ask? Nope. A dog on the loose on the tarmac. For 30 minutes airport police tried to corral the four-legged antagonist to no avail. The ground controller was very busy directing planes to stop and go on taxiways based on the dog's present position. Eventually we were able to get a word in to push from the gate. I didn't hear anything else further about the dog, so I guess they were able to capture it. Either that, or it met an untimely demise being sucked into the engine of a 777.

After a flight over to Phoenix and back, we headed back to Guanajuato in Mexico. We wouldn't arrive until evening, so we simply had dinner at a taco place and called it a night. My only flight the following day was the return leg to LAX, which took over three hours. The next day, however, I would be doing five flights, all short hops within the state of California.

The last leg of the day involved a flight from San Francisco to Bakersfield. It was about a 45 minute flight that went smoothly until about the last few miles when the air traffic controller stated that the long runway was closed which conflicted with any other reports we had. We calculated that it was still possible to land on the short runway, and proceeded inbound. Only one of the runways was lit at night. We assumed this was the open runway, but as we got closer, it didn't look right. This was the long runway that was lit up, aka the one that was supposedly closed. For the first time in my airline career, I initiated a go-around.

We talked to the controller, our dispatcher, the local police, and anyone that could confirm that the runway was in fact open. 5 sources said it was and one source said it wasn't. We did another approach and went around again after looking for any obstructions, big X's on the runway etc. Nothing. On our third pass, we landed without incident and immediately filed a report about the ridiculousness of it all. I don't need such stress late at night. After waking up in Bakersfield, I was welcomed by 100 degree weather and sun. I grabbed some breakfast at McDonalds and went for a run by the Kern River.

The only issue with this bike/run path by the river was that there was no river. I should have expected as much given the drought plaguing the state. Nevertheless, I appreciated having a dedicated path for activities as opposed to running down city streets even if the scenery was limited to oil derricks, dust, and overpasses. I didn't have my camera with, but I did find this picture from the news. The brown dirt you see at right is the "river." I am hopeful that today's flying will be easier than yesterday.