Sun Apr 12, 2020 5:06 pm
#1760650
This is a report from a trip in September 2019
Training in America, Or "In the foothills of the Rockies"
After flying across the pond (again), I & my flying buddy Mike took our two little Taylorcraft from our base just west of Chicago on a five-hour flight to north-west Iowa to meet up with Jim at his home field close to Sioux Falls, South Dakota (although Jim is actually in Iowa). 5011M is mine and Mike is in 29624.
We had arranged to meet up to go to Colorado to the "Front Range", i.e. just before you get to the really high bits! (Actually we had been planing to land at Leadville, at just shy of 10,000 msl and the highest public-use airport in the US, but it was closed for runway resurfacing. [Edit July 2020: Runway at Leadville is now available again! Leadville reopens July 2020]
10,000 msl airport in a non-mixture 65hp Taylorcraft?; that would be a challenge for another day, although Jim did it once.)
Anyway:
The three of us were delayed departing Jim's airpark due to low fog
but we were ready to go by 1pm
And we got 3 miles before turning back! Beware sucker's gap! (I daren't say how low we got). The three of us have thousands of hours on type, and are familiar with flying in very poor weather, but it was dreadful!
Later that day the weather improved properly.
Approaching the Mississippi, we saw lots of flooded farms and roads. Many were cut off completely.
Further on, aiming for the Black Hills of South Dakota, we crossed the Badlands of South Dakota
I have been to the Black Hills before in 2015, but we chose a different airport base this time...Custer KCUT, where we landed in a hooley-howley crosswind. We made sure we were tied down good & proper!
We were welcomed with open arms, and offerred the use of the pilot's lounge as a place to stay for however long we needed. The Black Hills is a wonderful place to be stranded, and stranded we were due to the winds. Fortunately for us, the airport car was available for us to use as we wished!
But we had planned to be here anyway, for the coal-fired Black Hills Central Railroad, upon which we rode from Hill City to Keystone.
The Black Hills is a lovely area to visit. It's in the middle of nowhere, and if you stay away from Mount Rushmore (but please see the film "North by Northwest"), it's as quiet as a mouse. It's a volcanic anomoly in the middle of the praries. But despite ourselves, we did do the touristy thing again!
We did have dinner one evening in Rapid City (about an hour's drive north) and took the opportunity to visit the South Dakota Air & Space Museum at Ellsworth AFB. The whole museum is constructed from cold-war fast-response jet aircraft blast shelters relocated from elsewhere.
Outside:
Inside:
They have a B52 parked outside, with the classic skin "wrinkles"; compare them with the one at Duxford and you will see the similarity. It's just how they were made, apparently
When the winds subsided in the wonderful Black Hills, we headed south. We had a destination (and a Training purpose) in mind. We knew about Big Boy 4014. And we knew it was being restored in Cheyenne Wyoming. And we weren't very far away. We also knew that they didn't entertain visitors, certainly unannounced ones. At all.
More to follow.
Training in America, Or "In the foothills of the Rockies"
After flying across the pond (again), I & my flying buddy Mike took our two little Taylorcraft from our base just west of Chicago on a five-hour flight to north-west Iowa to meet up with Jim at his home field close to Sioux Falls, South Dakota (although Jim is actually in Iowa). 5011M is mine and Mike is in 29624.
We had arranged to meet up to go to Colorado to the "Front Range", i.e. just before you get to the really high bits! (Actually we had been planing to land at Leadville, at just shy of 10,000 msl and the highest public-use airport in the US, but it was closed for runway resurfacing. [Edit July 2020: Runway at Leadville is now available again! Leadville reopens July 2020]
10,000 msl airport in a non-mixture 65hp Taylorcraft?; that would be a challenge for another day, although Jim did it once.)
Anyway:
The three of us were delayed departing Jim's airpark due to low fog
but we were ready to go by 1pm
And we got 3 miles before turning back! Beware sucker's gap! (I daren't say how low we got). The three of us have thousands of hours on type, and are familiar with flying in very poor weather, but it was dreadful!
Later that day the weather improved properly.
Approaching the Mississippi, we saw lots of flooded farms and roads. Many were cut off completely.
Further on, aiming for the Black Hills of South Dakota, we crossed the Badlands of South Dakota
I have been to the Black Hills before in 2015, but we chose a different airport base this time...Custer KCUT, where we landed in a hooley-howley crosswind. We made sure we were tied down good & proper!
We were welcomed with open arms, and offerred the use of the pilot's lounge as a place to stay for however long we needed. The Black Hills is a wonderful place to be stranded, and stranded we were due to the winds. Fortunately for us, the airport car was available for us to use as we wished!
But we had planned to be here anyway, for the coal-fired Black Hills Central Railroad, upon which we rode from Hill City to Keystone.
The Black Hills is a lovely area to visit. It's in the middle of nowhere, and if you stay away from Mount Rushmore (but please see the film "North by Northwest"), it's as quiet as a mouse. It's a volcanic anomoly in the middle of the praries. But despite ourselves, we did do the touristy thing again!
We did have dinner one evening in Rapid City (about an hour's drive north) and took the opportunity to visit the South Dakota Air & Space Museum at Ellsworth AFB. The whole museum is constructed from cold-war fast-response jet aircraft blast shelters relocated from elsewhere.
Outside:
Inside:
They have a B52 parked outside, with the classic skin "wrinkles"; compare them with the one at Duxford and you will see the similarity. It's just how they were made, apparently
When the winds subsided in the wonderful Black Hills, we headed south. We had a destination (and a Training purpose) in mind. We knew about Big Boy 4014. And we knew it was being restored in Cheyenne Wyoming. And we weren't very far away. We also knew that they didn't entertain visitors, certainly unannounced ones. At all.
More to follow.
Last edited by Rob L on Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.