Aircraft Delivery
Written by Dave Barth, 2004
In 2004 an aviator friend of mine had moved from Longmont, Colorado to Prineville, Oregon. He owned a two-place, side-by-side seating RV-6 didn't
want to fly it to Oregon, himself. I agreed to deliver the plane as a favor to him. I received no money for making the delivery, except for air fare back to Denver.
The advantage for making this particular flight was that I could choose when to go, within a window of a couple of months. What this meant was that I
could go when the weather was perfect.
In late August I began checking weather each day, looking for good flying weather all the way to the west coast. In preparation for the trip, I bought new
sectionals and I took some little trips in the plane just to get competent landing it. I took it to Jeffco Airport, northwest of Denver, and then over the Continental
Divide to the small airport at Granby, Colorado. The little, high-performance aircraft was really to fly. I was out of work at the time, so I could fly any time I
wanted.
In September there were 3 days where there was a huge high all across the western part of the country. When that weather window opened, I got up early
and got to the airport at 4am. I had fueled the plane the day before, so it was ready to go. I was ready to go, too, by flying by visual flight rules (VFR) all the way.
I filed a VFR flight plan with Flight Service. The briefer told me to avoid an unmanned rocket launch area 30 miles northwest of Brigham Young Airport.
When I drove into Longmont Airport it was a dark, moonless morning, and I found that the landing light on the plane didn't work. There were no lights on at the
airport, so I had to taxi to the runway using the navigation lights. I had flash lights, but I couldn't hold the canopy open, shine the light, and control the plane all
at the same time. Fortunately, I knew the airport layout very well because I had trained pilots at the airport. I taxied very slowly and found the runway with no
problem. I was wheels up at 5am, and I remember looking down to see a guy step out of his lighted hangar to watch me lift into the black sky.
I had carefully planned my route. I didn't have GPS. The owner of the plane had removed it and taken it with him in his car to Oregon. The lack of GPS wasn't
important. I preferred using charts to identify my location by using check points on the ground.
I headed north, passing over Horsetooth Reservoir near Fort Collins, Colorado. When I reached I80 that runs through Wyoming, I turned west to follow it. By
this time, the sky was becoming light enough to clearly see the ground. I followed I80 until it turned northwest in eastern Utah. From that point, I continued
on a westerly heading to Brigham Young airport, north of Salt Lake City.
The nice thing about flying west in the morning is that the sun was to my back. The weather was good, the air was smooth, and the headwind was negligible.
I had perfect flying conditions. I landed at Brigham Young, a small, non-tower airport, for fuel.
Flight service again told me about an unmanned rocket launch area 30 miles northwest of Brigham Young, that had to be avoided all day. It must have been
an amateur rocket outing, although Thiokol has some plants in the area. Going north out if Brigham Young wasn't good due to rising ground, so I elected to fly
directly west.
After I took off and had flown west for awhile, I was about to turn north up a long valley to intercept I84, when I suddenly saw flares in the sky ahead. There
was a military area ahead, and I wasn't even close to it, but I immediately turned northwest and climbed to ensure ground clearance and to obey the hemispheric
rule which required me to fly at even thousands, plus 500 feet, or in my case, at 10,500.
When I reached I84, I turned west and hugged the northern edge of the wide valley that runs toward Boise, Idaho. To the South was a restricted Air Force area,
and I wanted to stay clear of it. About 35 miles east of Boise, I saw a Southwest Airlines 737 at my altitude a mile south of me. I figured it was time to call Boise
approach control.
Using my chart, I calculated that I was 30 miles east, and when approach came back with a squawk code, they confirmed I was 30 miles east. I was happy that
my nav skills were still good. Approach control told me to descend to 5,000 feet, to stay south of the airport, and to navigate on my own. I guess the Boise airport
wasn't very busy that day.
Approach said 'bye' when I was in sight of Nampa Airport, about 20 miles west of Boise. At Nampa I got gas, called my friend in Oregon and told him I'd be there
in a couple of hours.
The strangest part of the trip was flying over eastern Oregon because it was so barren, hilly, and with no trees, bushes, or grass, except in some remote valleys.
All I could do was fly straight west from Nampa to Burns, Oregon, then turn northwest toward my destination, Prineville. It was all dead reckoning.
The wet compass was dry. Because the owner always flew with GPS, he never noticed that the compass didn't work well. It rotated about 30 degrees right and
left. I had to estimate the heading by interpolating the swings to reset the heading indicator which is run by a gyroscope and much more stable. Right at the time
I had planned, the big reservoir near Prineville appeared, and the flight ended uneventfully. The next day took a commercial flight back to Denver.
A year later, the owner decided to move back to Colorado. He asked me to fly his plane back with him. I elected not to because I was not current flying. He decided
to fly the plane back with a friend, and he got into serious scud on the last leg through Wyoming and Colorado. Not for me! Glad I wasn't there.