Below: Crater Lake in Alpenglow.
I landed at Tonopah Nevada, halfway between Reno and Lost Wages.
The airport is an ex military airfield in a valley east of the town.
The only lights I could see were those of the runway and nearby buildings.
It reminded me of early versions of Flight Simulator.
Approach and landing were interesting with a 15 knot wind gusting to 25.
After a black hole takeoff, my flight from Tonopah to Tucson was relatively smooth. Above me airliners were asking for altitude changes to avoid turbulence. Mountain waves were pushing me up and down, prompting ATC to give me extra altimeter settings. (A random altimeter setting is ATC's way of reminding the pilot of his assigned altitude.) I asked for a lower altitude but by the time a lower altitude was available the waves had subsided and I remained at 15000 feet.
December 27 looked like a narrow window of good weather for the return flight. A weather briefing the night before was optimistic. The morning briefing promised fair weather and slight tailwinds once I reached the Oregon border.
Below: Las Vegas,
McCarren Airport in foreground, Nellis Air Force Base in the background.
The scenery in Western Nevada is quite unlike the Willamette Valley.
The flight to Tohopah was uneventful.
The advantage of flying on an IFR flight plan is the extra set
of eyes watching out for traffic most of the way.
(Some remote segments are beyond radar range.)
The disadvantage is that you often fly higher than desireable,
and you sometimes get inefficient slam dunk descents.
Left: Prototype scimitar propeller design in front of Desert Aviation at Tonopah.
I received another briefing at Tonopah.
The promised tailwinds had disappeared, along with
the clear VFR weather that had been forecast.
Twice along the route I checked in with Flight Watch for weather updates.
Left: lowering clouds in the vicinity of Mt. Shasta.
Below: Low clouds in Southern Oregon
Below: Crater Lake from the South.
Klamath Falls and Medford were clear.
Eugene was reporting 600 overcast, Hillsboro 1200 Scattered.
But Hillsboro was also reporting a 0 degree spread between the temperature and
dew point, so
I got out the PDX 10R approach plate and studied it just in case.
In the failing light I could see the valley mostly covered by low stratus clouds. Some of the Corvallis airport was visible under a sucker hole. After Eugene I was given a number of slight reroutes, then a series of vectors for traffic. When I was left pointed towards Portland International, I wondered where I was being sent as everyone else on the frequency was going to PDX. No, they hadn't forgotten my destination.
The cloud cover ended near McMinville and I was given a visual approach to Hillsboro. Hillsboro was mostly clear when I landed. Fog was forming by the time I buttoned up N2469R.
But at least everything worked this time.
| Flight | Fuel Burn | Distance | Hobbs | Mileage | GS | HIO TPH | 10.2 Gal/hr | 564 nm | 4.2 | 15.2 | 154 mph | TPH TUS | 9.66 Gal/hr | 534 nm | 4.0 | 15.9 | 154 mph | TUS TPH | 10.7 Gal/Hr | 534 nm | 4.6 | 12.4 | 133 mph | TPH HIO | 10.7 Gal/Hr | 564 nm | 5.1 | 11.2 | 127 mph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|