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Looooong post! US Taylorcraft tour April 2017
Another trip to the States beckons, this time planning to visit Utah and California and New Mexico. Mike and I are to depart from just outside Chicago and meet up with Jim and Mark near Kansas City before heading south-west.
Below: Planned route
The thunderstorms in "Tornado Alley" put paid to that particular route, so all four of us took different routes and finally met up in Dalheart (KDHT) in the north of the Texas panhandle. On the way, Mike and I crossed the slightly inundated Mississippi where we spotted an interesting airpark set upon a peninsula:
Below: Guttenberg Air Park
Below: Four meet up in Texas (Mark's photo)
Continuing west, we overfly Shiprock (a rather solitary volcanic puy) and Four Corners (unsurprisingly so named because it's the only spot where four States meet).
Below: Flying around Shiprock...
...and Four Corners
Our planned stop is Moab (Canyonlands Airport), and en route we fly up Comb Ridge and over Canyonlands NP.
Below: Canyonlands NP....
...and Moab town.
Having landed at CNY, the 2-minute video below from my GoPro shows me backtracking the parallel taxyway, and parking up and chatting to ATC and the marshalling lads. When I now look back at that video clip, I have to confess that my speech and cognitive awareness was not as I would normally expect, but it did not seem so at the time.
The first voice on the video is from CNY: "Welcome, aircraft approaching the ramp, this is Redtail [FBO] at Canyonlands, how long are you planning on staying here?"
At the end of the video, the chap ahead is guiding in aeroplane #2, and I'm chatting to another chap off to my left, and he asks "Hi, where have you come from" and you do hear my response.
Within 10 seconds of the end of that video and having got out of the aeroplane, I didn't feel well, so I sat down on the ground. I ended up flat on my back under the aeroplane, in the shade, not feeling very well at all. I had had a stomach ache for a few days (which I thought: nothing too much to worry about, I've had a stomach ache before).
And then this: I vomit "coffee grounds" (this picture was taken later):
My flying friends and the line boys called the FBO Chief Mechanic, Gary (who happened to be the airfield Health & Safety man). He took one look at me and called 911. Gary drove me to the FBO building in a golf cart to await the ambulance. This is on a Sunday at about 5pm.
By this time I was excreting a lot of blood, not pleasant for those around, but at least it was in the lavatory and not the open public areas.
In short order, the ambulance arrived. I was loaded onto a stretcher and on the ambulance, already on a saline drip, with my blood type "finger jab" having already been taken
and my flying friends followed me in a car kindly lent by the airport.
Some time passed in the Moab hospital while further tests were done, so it's now about 7pm, sunset. This was a Sunday evening. The hospital doctor had took my blood type; so fairly quickly I'm on blood products infusion now. It was obvious to him that I needed evacuation to somewhere more equipped, so a helicopter was called.
The helicopter arrived from Grand Junction a few hours later; there had been a motor sport event in the area all weekend, and I assumed it had been busy. By this time it was dark, Sunday evening, probably 10pm or so. I was still fully compus mentis (as I had been throughout, although very aware that I was rather ill). I was insistent that my friends take pictures and video for the record.
In the dark car park, I was loaded on to this helicopter from my stretcher in to the space where left-hand seat would be, but in a horizontal position.
It piqued my mechanical interest: the flat fixed "trolley" of the helicopter slid aft and then hinged outboard, then engaged with my hospital stretcher, whereby I was lifted from one to the other, and then allowed me to be slid in and forward, yawing horizontally so my feet slid left into the nose cone of the helicopter, and then the door could be closed.
My friends were then left to make their own arrangements to go to pre-booked accommodation in Green River; fortunately the airport allowed them to keep the car overnight.
I don't know what helicopter it was, other than it was a single-engine, with me (the patient) in the Left; Joe the pilot in the right and Bill & Elizabeth the two nurses behind. We took off directly eastbound from Moab over unlit territory to Grand Junction. Joe was using night vision goggles, but I could see all the dimmed flight instruments. My eye line was about 3 inches above the glazing line, so I could see pretty much all the instruments but it was black as a witches tit outside. If I weren't bloody strapped in to the stretcher like a cadaver, I would have taken a picture of the panel!
We crossed the mountains at about 120 kts, and up to 12000 feet. Climbing through 9000 they made me breath 02 through a nasal canula (they had pre-warned me of this). The three flight crew (pilot & two medics) were brilliant. I would never undertake a single-engine helicopter flight, let alone at night and over dark mountains, but they were just brilliant. It was bloody noisy, though, and the whole helicopter vibrated like a dog shaking off water.
After 65 miles or so across some of the most empty territory in the lower 48, the landing was on the 12th storey helipad of the hospital in Grand Junction, at about 11 that Sunday evening. The Gastro-Enterology surgeon was waiting for me, having been called in, I later learned.
Within moments I was in theatre. The GE specialist explained that he would send a scope down my throat, and blew a spray down my mouth to prevent a gagging reflex. He then said he'd knock me out with anaesthetic, and that was the...last........thing........I...............rem e................
I recall being woken up about an hour later (because the GE surgeon had previously asked me for contact details of whom he should call, and my friends got the call at 1am or so).
Next morning I awoke in a hospital bed.
All in all, I had had four units of blood replacement products transfused. I stayed on a drip for two days, then was allowed up to walk around (with mobile drip stand in tow). Then on to pills for an extra night of monitoring before being discharged on the Wednesday. I'm still on some of those pills now, to reduce the chance of a recurrence.
The cause? My "stomach ache" was a duodenal ulcer, either caused by or exacerbated by the bacterium h.pylori, which ended up perforating a blood vessel in my small intestine, probably fairly shortly before I landed ay CNY. The surgery that night (through my aesophagus and stomach) cauterised the bleed.
The total cost for medical treatment was in the order of $54,000, of which $32,000 was the helicopter ride. All of it (less the £150 excess) was covered by my travel insurance. The best £23 I ever spent. The loss-adjusters have told me that they are contesting the extent of the bill, but that will not affect me.
The surgeon who operated on me was also a private pilot. It was he who suggested I stay an extra day (from the Tuesday to the Wednesday) for observation, knowing that I would be flying. My response to him was "You're the doctor; I'll do whatever you say".
So I was released on the Wednesday. I booked a taxi to drive me back to Moab CNY airport, but it was too late that day to fly. Gary (the H&S chap mentioned above) hugged me when I turned up, and we are firm friends now. I booked into a motel for the night.
The next day I flew to Tucson Arizona to meet up with my three Taylorcraft buddies who had in the meantime been to California. That next day's flight was a wonder, for all the best reasons.
Following my unexpected delay in Moab, I was able to fly again. As eager readers may recall, my fellow Taylorcraft companions had continued on to California in my absence, but we had now agreed to meet in Tucson Arizona to visit the Pima Air Museum and to tour the Davis Monthan "Boneyard".
I departed Canyonlands airport having made very firm friends with the crews there, and headed south-west-ish to see, from the air, more of the beautiful lands of southern Utah that I have visited many times by land.
The Colorado River as it passes through the Moab area has some stunning scenery, and I have previously hiked and canyoneered through many of the vaulting cracks and narrow canyons in this area.
There are several old mining airstrips in the southern desert areas of Utah which have been a little ambition of mine to land at. The first one is Mineral Canyon. It's on the Green River, somewhat west of Moab, which debauches into the Colorado in the well-known "confluence" in Canyonlands National Park.
Approaching Mineral Canyon airstrip:
The next one is Happy Canyon:
A short video of the two. My flying is a bit experimental here, because I only have 65hp with no mixture control, and I'm at approx 4500MSL, and these strip are only about 2000 feet long and rough! The cliffs are 1000' high. But I am familiar with these strips, having walked them before (always a good idea!). But on this trip, I decide on touch-and goes only, being on my own.
Next I try Dirty Devil and Sandthrax...again I know these by foot:
Fortunately the valleys are wide enough to allow sensible climb-outs, despite the density altitude.
Just south of the Sandthrax strip is the road from Hanksville to Hite, and all along the LHS are numerous very deep slot canyons worth exploring as I have done, hence the campers. I have camped here many times:
At Hite, I meet Lake Powell; this flight is becoming a delight!
I fly past Hole-in-the-Rock, where in 1880 Mormon migrants descended to cross the Colorado river (before the waters rose). When I went to the top of this liitle passage by road 3 years ago, it was a 7-hour drive each way from civilisation, on the old rough 4x4 track.
Hole-in-the-Rock:
Short video of flying down Lake Powell:
A few hours (!) later I bypass Page, where I landed last year, and head for Marble Canyon for lunch. This is technically within the Grand Canyon "no-fly" zone, but dispensation is allowed for arrivals and departures.
Marble Canyon runway looks like a road, straight ahead:
Short video of landing at Marble Canyon:
From there I head to Mesquite, Nevada, for an overnight with my old Taylorcraft friend Peter (I stayed with him in one of my previous trips last spring).
That was one helluva day's flight; one that will remain with me for all my sensible days.
The following day I route south past Las Vegas, heading for our meet-up at Tucson. In Arizona, great canals many hundreds of miles long deliver fresh water from Lake Havasu to Phoenix and other cities. I do actually fly into California, just past Needles, but I don't land.
Canals:
I refuel at Gila Bend, and it is very hot. They have a neat way of keeping aircraft cool:
The posts are wide enough to taxy through, there are tie-downs in the concrete and the roof is covered in solar cells to generate electricity.
Later that afternoon, the four meet up again (at last!) at Ryan Field, Tucson. We had planned to spend two nights here, to visit the Pima Air Museum, the "Boneyard" and the Titan ICBM silo near the Mexican border.
Tucson:
Short video of my arrival at Tucson, about 20 minutes before the others (you can hear me remind them to get the AFIS...I forgot!):
We had arranged a car hire (or so we thought...it never turned up). But some friendly local aviators lent us their SUV for the two days of our visit! Suche generosity amongst aviators. The Pima Air Museum was a great stop. They have six or seven big halls, and vast numbers of external exhibits.
and no less than five Taylorcraft, one of which is the glider training variant. Taylorcraft was one of the companies commissioned by the US Navy to develop a Glider Bomb (or Glomb as an unmanned but guided device to deliver a big bomb to a target; almost the predecessor to cruise missiles.
Even the car park had covers, again with solar panels on top:
The boneyard is just vast. It's astounding that so many military aircraft were ever built!
We had a great trip to the Titan II missile base. This is the only Titan II remaining; all the others were dismantled as part of the US/USSR disarmament treaties.
Next stop is Carlsbad NM to visit the caverns. Departing Tucson, we pass the Biosphere 2 complex, designed to establish the likelihood of self-contained living in outer space:
We overfly the Carlsbad cavern entrance...
...and spend many hours inside. Photos will never be able to do it justice; suffice to say that the formations and the size of the complex was stunning. Some of the "rooms" are large enough to inflate a hot air balloon; they've done it!
Last few legs home now; we pass over vast oil fields in New Mexico...
...and other areas of nothingness!
But we get some delightful photo opportunities:
As before, all in all a successful trip. The occasional bump along the way, but at least the weather was generally kind.
Rob
Postscript:
Here's the route that I flew (my three friends went further west to Riverside California)
Another trip to the States beckons, this time planning to visit Utah and California and New Mexico. Mike and I are to depart from just outside Chicago and meet up with Jim and Mark near Kansas City before heading south-west.
Below: Planned route
The thunderstorms in "Tornado Alley" put paid to that particular route, so all four of us took different routes and finally met up in Dalheart (KDHT) in the north of the Texas panhandle. On the way, Mike and I crossed the slightly inundated Mississippi where we spotted an interesting airpark set upon a peninsula:
Below: Guttenberg Air Park
Below: Four meet up in Texas (Mark's photo)
Continuing west, we overfly Shiprock (a rather solitary volcanic puy) and Four Corners (unsurprisingly so named because it's the only spot where four States meet).
Below: Flying around Shiprock...
...and Four Corners
Our planned stop is Moab (Canyonlands Airport), and en route we fly up Comb Ridge and over Canyonlands NP.
Below: Canyonlands NP....
...and Moab town.
Having landed at CNY, the 2-minute video below from my GoPro shows me backtracking the parallel taxyway, and parking up and chatting to ATC and the marshalling lads. When I now look back at that video clip, I have to confess that my speech and cognitive awareness was not as I would normally expect, but it did not seem so at the time.
The first voice on the video is from CNY: "Welcome, aircraft approaching the ramp, this is Redtail [FBO] at Canyonlands, how long are you planning on staying here?"
At the end of the video, the chap ahead is guiding in aeroplane #2, and I'm chatting to another chap off to my left, and he asks "Hi, where have you come from" and you do hear my response.
Within 10 seconds of the end of that video and having got out of the aeroplane, I didn't feel well, so I sat down on the ground. I ended up flat on my back under the aeroplane, in the shade, not feeling very well at all. I had had a stomach ache for a few days (which I thought: nothing too much to worry about, I've had a stomach ache before).
And then this: I vomit "coffee grounds" (this picture was taken later):
My flying friends and the line boys called the FBO Chief Mechanic, Gary (who happened to be the airfield Health & Safety man). He took one look at me and called 911. Gary drove me to the FBO building in a golf cart to await the ambulance. This is on a Sunday at about 5pm.
By this time I was excreting a lot of blood, not pleasant for those around, but at least it was in the lavatory and not the open public areas.
In short order, the ambulance arrived. I was loaded onto a stretcher and on the ambulance, already on a saline drip, with my blood type "finger jab" having already been taken
and my flying friends followed me in a car kindly lent by the airport.
Some time passed in the Moab hospital while further tests were done, so it's now about 7pm, sunset. This was a Sunday evening. The hospital doctor had took my blood type; so fairly quickly I'm on blood products infusion now. It was obvious to him that I needed evacuation to somewhere more equipped, so a helicopter was called.
The helicopter arrived from Grand Junction a few hours later; there had been a motor sport event in the area all weekend, and I assumed it had been busy. By this time it was dark, Sunday evening, probably 10pm or so. I was still fully compus mentis (as I had been throughout, although very aware that I was rather ill). I was insistent that my friends take pictures and video for the record.
In the dark car park, I was loaded on to this helicopter from my stretcher in to the space where left-hand seat would be, but in a horizontal position.
It piqued my mechanical interest: the flat fixed "trolley" of the helicopter slid aft and then hinged outboard, then engaged with my hospital stretcher, whereby I was lifted from one to the other, and then allowed me to be slid in and forward, yawing horizontally so my feet slid left into the nose cone of the helicopter, and then the door could be closed.
My friends were then left to make their own arrangements to go to pre-booked accommodation in Green River; fortunately the airport allowed them to keep the car overnight.
I don't know what helicopter it was, other than it was a single-engine, with me (the patient) in the Left; Joe the pilot in the right and Bill & Elizabeth the two nurses behind. We took off directly eastbound from Moab over unlit territory to Grand Junction. Joe was using night vision goggles, but I could see all the dimmed flight instruments. My eye line was about 3 inches above the glazing line, so I could see pretty much all the instruments but it was black as a witches tit outside. If I weren't bloody strapped in to the stretcher like a cadaver, I would have taken a picture of the panel!
We crossed the mountains at about 120 kts, and up to 12000 feet. Climbing through 9000 they made me breath 02 through a nasal canula (they had pre-warned me of this). The three flight crew (pilot & two medics) were brilliant. I would never undertake a single-engine helicopter flight, let alone at night and over dark mountains, but they were just brilliant. It was bloody noisy, though, and the whole helicopter vibrated like a dog shaking off water.
After 65 miles or so across some of the most empty territory in the lower 48, the landing was on the 12th storey helipad of the hospital in Grand Junction, at about 11 that Sunday evening. The Gastro-Enterology surgeon was waiting for me, having been called in, I later learned.
Within moments I was in theatre. The GE specialist explained that he would send a scope down my throat, and blew a spray down my mouth to prevent a gagging reflex. He then said he'd knock me out with anaesthetic, and that was the...last........thing........I...............rem e................
I recall being woken up about an hour later (because the GE surgeon had previously asked me for contact details of whom he should call, and my friends got the call at 1am or so).
Next morning I awoke in a hospital bed.
All in all, I had had four units of blood replacement products transfused. I stayed on a drip for two days, then was allowed up to walk around (with mobile drip stand in tow). Then on to pills for an extra night of monitoring before being discharged on the Wednesday. I'm still on some of those pills now, to reduce the chance of a recurrence.
The cause? My "stomach ache" was a duodenal ulcer, either caused by or exacerbated by the bacterium h.pylori, which ended up perforating a blood vessel in my small intestine, probably fairly shortly before I landed ay CNY. The surgery that night (through my aesophagus and stomach) cauterised the bleed.
The total cost for medical treatment was in the order of $54,000, of which $32,000 was the helicopter ride. All of it (less the £150 excess) was covered by my travel insurance. The best £23 I ever spent. The loss-adjusters have told me that they are contesting the extent of the bill, but that will not affect me.
The surgeon who operated on me was also a private pilot. It was he who suggested I stay an extra day (from the Tuesday to the Wednesday) for observation, knowing that I would be flying. My response to him was "You're the doctor; I'll do whatever you say".
So I was released on the Wednesday. I booked a taxi to drive me back to Moab CNY airport, but it was too late that day to fly. Gary (the H&S chap mentioned above) hugged me when I turned up, and we are firm friends now. I booked into a motel for the night.
The next day I flew to Tucson Arizona to meet up with my three Taylorcraft buddies who had in the meantime been to California. That next day's flight was a wonder, for all the best reasons.
Following my unexpected delay in Moab, I was able to fly again. As eager readers may recall, my fellow Taylorcraft companions had continued on to California in my absence, but we had now agreed to meet in Tucson Arizona to visit the Pima Air Museum and to tour the Davis Monthan "Boneyard".
I departed Canyonlands airport having made very firm friends with the crews there, and headed south-west-ish to see, from the air, more of the beautiful lands of southern Utah that I have visited many times by land.
The Colorado River as it passes through the Moab area has some stunning scenery, and I have previously hiked and canyoneered through many of the vaulting cracks and narrow canyons in this area.
There are several old mining airstrips in the southern desert areas of Utah which have been a little ambition of mine to land at. The first one is Mineral Canyon. It's on the Green River, somewhat west of Moab, which debauches into the Colorado in the well-known "confluence" in Canyonlands National Park.
Approaching Mineral Canyon airstrip:
The next one is Happy Canyon:
A short video of the two. My flying is a bit experimental here, because I only have 65hp with no mixture control, and I'm at approx 4500MSL, and these strip are only about 2000 feet long and rough! The cliffs are 1000' high. But I am familiar with these strips, having walked them before (always a good idea!). But on this trip, I decide on touch-and goes only, being on my own.
Next I try Dirty Devil and Sandthrax...again I know these by foot:
Fortunately the valleys are wide enough to allow sensible climb-outs, despite the density altitude.
Just south of the Sandthrax strip is the road from Hanksville to Hite, and all along the LHS are numerous very deep slot canyons worth exploring as I have done, hence the campers. I have camped here many times:
At Hite, I meet Lake Powell; this flight is becoming a delight!
I fly past Hole-in-the-Rock, where in 1880 Mormon migrants descended to cross the Colorado river (before the waters rose). When I went to the top of this liitle passage by road 3 years ago, it was a 7-hour drive each way from civilisation, on the old rough 4x4 track.
Hole-in-the-Rock:
Short video of flying down Lake Powell:
A few hours (!) later I bypass Page, where I landed last year, and head for Marble Canyon for lunch. This is technically within the Grand Canyon "no-fly" zone, but dispensation is allowed for arrivals and departures.
Marble Canyon runway looks like a road, straight ahead:
Short video of landing at Marble Canyon:
From there I head to Mesquite, Nevada, for an overnight with my old Taylorcraft friend Peter (I stayed with him in one of my previous trips last spring).
That was one helluva day's flight; one that will remain with me for all my sensible days.
The following day I route south past Las Vegas, heading for our meet-up at Tucson. In Arizona, great canals many hundreds of miles long deliver fresh water from Lake Havasu to Phoenix and other cities. I do actually fly into California, just past Needles, but I don't land.
Canals:
I refuel at Gila Bend, and it is very hot. They have a neat way of keeping aircraft cool:
The posts are wide enough to taxy through, there are tie-downs in the concrete and the roof is covered in solar cells to generate electricity.
Later that afternoon, the four meet up again (at last!) at Ryan Field, Tucson. We had planned to spend two nights here, to visit the Pima Air Museum, the "Boneyard" and the Titan ICBM silo near the Mexican border.
Tucson:
Short video of my arrival at Tucson, about 20 minutes before the others (you can hear me remind them to get the AFIS...I forgot!):
We had arranged a car hire (or so we thought...it never turned up). But some friendly local aviators lent us their SUV for the two days of our visit! Suche generosity amongst aviators. The Pima Air Museum was a great stop. They have six or seven big halls, and vast numbers of external exhibits.
and no less than five Taylorcraft, one of which is the glider training variant. Taylorcraft was one of the companies commissioned by the US Navy to develop a Glider Bomb (or Glomb as an unmanned but guided device to deliver a big bomb to a target; almost the predecessor to cruise missiles.
Even the car park had covers, again with solar panels on top:
The boneyard is just vast. It's astounding that so many military aircraft were ever built!
We had a great trip to the Titan II missile base. This is the only Titan II remaining; all the others were dismantled as part of the US/USSR disarmament treaties.
Next stop is Carlsbad NM to visit the caverns. Departing Tucson, we pass the Biosphere 2 complex, designed to establish the likelihood of self-contained living in outer space:
We overfly the Carlsbad cavern entrance...
...and spend many hours inside. Photos will never be able to do it justice; suffice to say that the formations and the size of the complex was stunning. Some of the "rooms" are large enough to inflate a hot air balloon; they've done it!
Last few legs home now; we pass over vast oil fields in New Mexico...
...and other areas of nothingness!
But we get some delightful photo opportunities:
As before, all in all a successful trip. The occasional bump along the way, but at least the weather was generally kind.
Rob
Postscript:
Here's the route that I flew (my three friends went further west to Riverside California)
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