Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

[astjp2]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

I live halfway between Ogden and Brigham city, if you come back through this way, give me a shout. 801*388*3768, I also have a butt load of tools and spare parts if you need any on your travels. Tim

[Stumpy]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

Glad to know your journey is proceeding...sure missed you guys at Hood River though. My T is at W16...about 20 miles due east of PAE. I also have a pile of A65 parts, so if you need anything for the project in Prineville let me know. I may be home late Wednesday evening if you're still in the Western Washington area....cell number is 509 348 0318. Safe travels!

[Robert Lees]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

Weds 16th Sept 2015

Today we enjoyed the hospitality of the Paine Field FBO, Castle & Cook, who not only drove us to & from our hotel, but also ferried us around the many Museums on Paine field.

We started with the obligatory Boeing Factory tour (no cameras allowed) which was quite mundane, in my opinion. The high-balcony viewpoint and lack of obvious activity made it appear to be looking upon a model train set.

But the Historic Flight Collection and the Flying Heritage Museum were both worth several hours of our time.

All the modest number of aircraft in the Historic Flight Collection are airworthy:












The aircraft in the Flying Heritage Museum are not all airworthy, but they did have some interesting exhibits:







Added to the general hubbub was the constant coming-and-going of Boeing aircraft on various test and delivery flights:







Later this afternoon, and to escape incoming weather, we crossed the Cascades to the lowlands between them & the Rockies (that's tomorrow's excitement).



This evening sees us at a former US training airfield in Ephrata. Not a soul around, but the crew room is open and the courtesy car has the keys in!

...to be continued.

[Dick Smith]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

Rob, Interesting to find you passed through Ephrata...I learned to fly there and got my Private ticket there in 1968, flying a 1959 straight tail Cessna 150..".N7711Echo". Operated out of a huge WW2 hangar. Would drive about 50 miles from the family farm over to Ephrata for flight lessons...in a 1962 Triumph TR3! With the ragtop off, that little car made me dream of flying an open cockpit Stearman! Forty-seven years in Alaska makes those days seem distant...but your mention made me go pull out my logbook.
In any case, you need to fix or repair that T-Craft and fly it to Alaska next season...those 47 years for me passed in a blink...you're "burning daylight"...! Hope to see you up here before time runs out...! Dick

[Stumpy]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

Ephrata doubled for "Flat-Rock, Colorado," the mythical air tanker training base in the movie "Always."(1989) Lots of PBY, A-26, and C-119 low-level shots in the movie were filmed in the coulee country around Ephrata. The tanker base shots in the film were done at Libby, Montana...which is another nice place to drop in, about 1.5 T-craft hours +/- due east of Ephrata. Did you park under the wing of the old PBY in front of the east hangar? :-)

[Robert Lees]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

Saturday 19th Sept 2015


The journey through the Rockies on Thursday was a pure delight. Perfect viz with high ceilings & a few very light showers combined with nil winds provided for a very easy journey.

The route chosen was from Coeur d'Alene, following the wide valley along highway 200 to St Ignatius for fuel, and then through the Rogers Pass to Great Falls, North Dakota.











St Ignatius:






Rogers Pass:



We barely had to climb above 7500'.





Mermaids entertained us in the local eatery at Great Falls:





Friday saw us average over 100mph with good tailwinds all the way from Great Falls to Glasgow, Tioga and then Minot for the night (only 50 miles from Canada). We were graciously entertained & given a guided tour of the various facilities by Warren Pietsch.



More to follow.....

[Robert Lees]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

Mon 21st

From Saturday morning, we're on the home stretch to Iowa now. A brief breakfast fly-in at Beulah was in order before heading to a private strip near Aberdeen, SD, where a friend lives in a converted five-storey 19th century wooden grain elevator. His grandfather bought it in the early 1930's at auction, and hauled it 20 miles (complete, on a bed of wagons). Our host's father then spent many decades converting it to a home by chainsawing out holes in the fifteen "bins" that made up the grain storage.









Sunday early o'clock sees us take off over shallow mist to Aberdeen for fuel,




and then to Iowa, dodging 2000' AGL towers (and the support wires!). The flat lands are quite boring:



Back at Jim's field, we put the planes to bed (temporarily) to await an oil change and further instructions...east back to Dacy or south to Texas.





More to follow.....

[M Towsley]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

Great shots, thanks for sharing.

Ah, yes, the boring flat-lands.....home of the land-anywhere-in-an-emergency, land. About the only plus to it.

[mikerice]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

Hows the Aeronca handoff proceeding? Anything the Central Texas Tcrafters can do to help? I have a couple Aeronca Chief hours and could help move it.

[N96337]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

You were about 15 minutes from here when you stopped at StIgnatius.
JH

[Robert Lees]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

Sat 26th.

This week saw a few flying hours pass. The three of us met up with Mark, son of the late Lee (and now owner of Lee's green Taylorcraft):




We flew north to spend a day at the Fagen Fighter Collection in Granite Falls, MN. The standard of restoration was exemplary, as were the superb buildings & infrastructure:






Of particular interest was a full-scale replica of a Waco glider:




From there, Mark, Mike & I headed south to start the delivery flight to Texas. One half-day of storms delayed us in Dennison, but later we passed over some 737 fuselages being delivered from Wichita to Seattle:





and stopped for fuel at the Cessna factory in Independence, KS:



Once in Oklahome & Texas, we noted a prevalence of oil fields (even in the lakes) and, surprisingly, windfarms:






and we eventually reached Boarland Field to deliver the Aeronca.

For the last legs to Dacy (11.5 hours away), Mike's Taylorcraft felt somewhat crowded, having been used to sole occupancy to date:




Huge numbers of boats are kept in covered storage at the myriad waterways:




Someone had a Taylorcraft-shaped lake!




A fuel stop en route took us to the Zenith assembly factory in Mexico, MS:




before crossing the Mississippi into Illinois for the last leg:




and back to Mike's home strip at Dacy, landing at sunset yesterday:





Total approximate tally:

Aircraft flown: 3
Hours flown: 85 appx
Miles: 6500 appx



...END...

[Robert Lees]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

Edit:

Here's our initial planned route, and the as-flown route.

The original route was largely flown as intended, missing out the San Juan islands in Washington to catch up time after the delay in Oregon.

[john reinert]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

So enjoyed the journey! I've been flying my taylorcraft locally for nearly twenty years, and, after following your adventure I really want to take some time next summer and see the country from N95142! I'm thinking Dacy to Phoenix. Thanks for the great job of sharing your trip!

[RCFC]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

You guys are having way to much fun. I'm jealous.

[Robert Lees]

Re: Taylorcraft Tour Pacific North West

The fun starts again next week .

I fly to Portland Oregon on 4th May 2016 to collect the formerly-stranded but now-airworthy Taylorcraft, with the intention of flying it back to Illinois via the southern route....California, Nevada, Southern Utah, Arizona and any other points of interest that catch my attention.

I'll post that trip report separately.

Rob