2 aircraft down in Marana AZ

I was at Westwind circa 2001 when Pan Am Academy was across the parking lot (later became Transpac) and even then the Northwest practice area was pretty congested. I can only imagine how bad it is now with 5-6 more flight schools in the area


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Now they talk to Luke and go to the SATR west of DVT if Luke can accommodate them. Better to practice maneuvers with an extra pair of eyes watching you and giving advisories every so often.
 
Did you instruct of attend there? Was old man G Z there back in your day?

I instructed there with Keith. Miss that dude. I don’t remember a G Z off the top of my head. I was there probably around the ‘09 time frame without looking at my resume.

Gulley also almost killed himself taking a header of my apartment balcony but that’s another story.
 
Now they talk to Luke and go to the SATR west of DVT if Luke can accommodate them. Better to practice maneuvers with an extra pair of eyes watching you and giving advisories every so often.
...meanwhile while Varney is talk to Luke... maybe. EVERYONE else is talking on the Rainbow valley unicom. But no one is talk to each other. i.e. Varney planes and EVERYONE else. Super surprised that there hasn't been a midair over there yet.
 
AOPA is hyperventilating about some high traffic airports in Florida using ADSB to charge landing fees.

Conflicted on this, but that is one solution.
I've told the story before but during my PPL check ride the DPE I was flying with asked me after a bunch of air work to go to Agua Dulce (L70). I did the figuring and the research in the cockpit of my mighty C152 and headed for one of my favorite airports (I honestly was hoping we were going to stop for a chili cheese dog, IYKYK). Did everything correctly approaching a non towered field, CTAF calls, check the windsock, pattern entry and ended up on final. I had the airplane trimmed, on speed and lined up with the runway and suddenly he says "There's an airplane on the runway!". I still had the eyes of a very young man and I was looking through the same clean windshield (there's a reason why it was clean, he had me takeoff out of KVNY into small a rain storm, I quickly decided that flying into a cloud was a bad idea, so without saying a word to him I called KVNY tower and told them I was going off script to avoid clouds, the airplane got a free wash and whatever flight plan I'd been asked to draw up was tossed into the baggage) as he was and I didn't see what he was seeing so I said as much and continued gliding towards what I thought might be a fine landing with thoughts of chopped onions and good chili dancing around in the back of my head. And then he said it again, it was a beautiful day and I had a clear view of the entire airport and with my young eyes I looked at the entire runway and the taxiway and there wasn't an airplane moving anywhere, not even on the ramp. I began to wonder if this dude might've slipped a gear and how I'd handle that but I was almost on the ground and it seemed like the safest option was to just land. Then he said the golden words "go around" so I did. Added power, retracted the flaps and climbed away. Here's the sticky portion that might give some relevance to your post. Some lady came on CTAF demanding all sorts of things so they could charge a landing fee. I was flummoxed, inexperienced and entirely unsure how to handle that and I realized what had happened so I gave the DPE a very hard side eye and he took over the radio for a couple of minutes to argue with the angry lady on CTAF. And then we flew back to KVNY for some pattern work, he had me demonstrate soft field, short field, soft/short field take offs and landings, no flap landings and then we finally taxied to where his office was. I'd barely shut the airplane down when he exited and went sprinting for his office. In hindsight I believe he just really needed to pee. Regardless a few minutes later he came out with my temp PPL and a smile. That flight from KVNY back to KBUR was a proud moment for me, I was not a student, I was a pilot!
 
I've told the story before but during my PPL check ride the DPE I was flying with asked me after a bunch of air work to go to Agua Dulce (L70). I did the figuring and the research in the cockpit of my mighty C152 and headed for one of my favorite airports (I honestly was hoping we were going to stop for a chili cheese dog, IYKYK). Did everything correctly approaching a non towered field, CTAF calls, check the windsock, pattern entry and ended up on final. I had the airplane trimmed, on speed and lined up with the runway and suddenly he says "There's an airplane on the runway!". I still had the eyes of a very young man and I was looking through the same clean windshield (there's a reason why it was clean, he had me takeoff out of KVNY into small a rain storm, I quickly decided that flying into a cloud was a bad idea, so without saying a word to him I called KVNY tower and told them I was going off script to avoid clouds, the airplane got a free wash and whatever flight plan I'd been asked to draw up was tossed into the baggage) as he was and I didn't see what he was seeing so I said as much and continued gliding towards what I thought might be a fine landing with thoughts of chopped onions and good chili dancing around in the back of my head. And then he said it again, it was a beautiful day and I had a clear view of the entire airport and with my young eyes I looked at the entire runway and the taxiway and there wasn't an airplane moving anywhere, not even on the ramp. I began to wonder if this dude might've slipped a gear and how I'd handle that but I was almost on the ground and it seemed like the safest option was to just land. Then he said the golden words "go around" so I did. Added power, retracted the flaps and climbed away. Here's the sticky portion that might give some relevance to your post. Some lady came on CTAF demanding all sorts of things so they could charge a landing fee. I was flummoxed, inexperienced and entirely unsure how to handle that and I realized what had happened so I gave the DPE a very hard side eye and he took over the radio for a couple of minutes to argue with the angry lady on CTAF. And then we flew back to KVNY for some pattern work, he had me demonstrate soft field, short field, soft/short field take offs and landings, no flap landings and then we finally taxied to where his office was. I'd barely shut the airplane down when he exited and went sprinting for his office. In hindsight I believe he just really needed to pee. Regardless a few minutes later he came out with my temp PPL and a smile. That flight from KVNY back to KBUR was a proud moment for me, I was not a student, I was a pilot!
I love stories like this.

My PPL check ride was not nearly as intense. Every maneuver and landing was easy, except at the very end when the DPE made me do a no-flap, engine-out, soft field landing. After I somehow pulled a rabbit out of my ass and put it down on the 1000 footers with the stall horn going off, he told me that was “the best engine-out, flaps up, soft field landing [he had] ever seen, better than [the chief pilot of the flight school]”. I was sure to hide from the chief pilot fearing the DPE would actually tell him that I had bested him (the one and only time, I’m sure).
 
Prelim is out and it's a doozy. There's security cam footage of the incident. Apparently the pilots were yelling at each other over the radio before the collision with one of them claiming the other cut him off.

I'm sort of struggling to still see how this isn't the fault of the Lancair.

 
Prelim is out and it's a doozy. There's security cam footage of the incident. Apparently the pilots were yelling at each other over the radio before the collision with one of them claiming the other cut him off.

I'm sort of struggling to still see how this isn't the fault of the Lancair.


Lancair failed to maintain separation, and basically caused his own go-arounds by failing to maintain pattern separation, even with the Cessna stating its pattern intentions over the freq. Some of our Mx guys who were at the hangar on the east end, said the Lancair pilot sounded either rushed, impatient, frustrated or a combo of these, in his transmissions.

Everyone uses 12/30 there. When I’m in there, a few times a week, I’m usually operating runway 3, just to be out of the way of the busy mess of traffic on the perpendicular runway everyone else is using.
 
There was a pretty long period where people were playing pretty nice, but I've seen the level of random dip•tery increase over the past 2 years or so.
 
Lancair failed to maintain separation, and basically caused his own go-arounds by failing to maintain pattern separation, even with the Cessna stating its pattern intentions over the freq. Some of our Mx guys who were at the hangar on the east end, said the Lancair pilot sounded either rushed, impatient, frustrated or a combo of these, in his transmissions.

Everyone uses 12/30 there. When I’m in there, a few times a week, I’m usually operating runway 3, just to be out of the way of the busy mess of traffic on the perpendicular runway everyone else is using.

That's my thought. What the Cessna did or didn't do, and I'm not saying he did anything wrong at all, is sort of irrelevant when the Lancair flew up into the back of him to begin with.

Aren't old guys with fast airplanes bombing into the pattern sort of an epidemic these days?
 
That's my thought. What the Cessna did or didn't do, and I'm not saying he did anything wrong at all, is sort of irrelevant when the Lancair flew up into the back of him to begin with.

Aren't old guys with fast airplanes bombing into the pattern sort of an epidemic these days?

I’ve seen it happen more than a few times at that airport and a few nearby ones, myself.
 
I used to cancel and join the pattern there in a NearJet most of the time. Trying to fit in a straight-in was next to impossible during snowbird season. There definitely was some frustration between locals and flight schools. Absolutely never from me, especially when I’ve done my best to fit in with everyone in the pattern and the crew ahead of me decides to debrief the whole flight on the runway while doing a stop and go.

Honestly, the big 141 programs in Phoenix should just all go in on a couple parallel runways in the middle of nowhere for pattern work. I’d contribute to the project if they got private approaches charted, read the bit of the ACS where you don’t need an ILS if you have WAAS minimums below 250, and left CGZ alone.
 
Honestly, the big 141 programs in Phoenix should just all go in on a couple parallel runways in the middle of nowhere for pattern work. I’d contribute to the project if they got private approaches charted, read the bit of the ACS where you don’t need an ILS if you have WAAS minimums below 250, and left CGZ alone.

An exact airport of that description used to exist down south of metro PHX
 
Honestly, the big 141 programs in Phoenix should just all go in on a couple parallel runways in the middle of nowhere for pattern work. I’d contribute to the project if they got private approaches charted, read the bit of the ACS where you don’t need an ILS if you have WAAS minimums below 250, and left CGZ alone.

Good idea. Who pays for it, how do you staff it (CFR?) and how will you deal with the inevitable NIMBYS? Because even if there's not any now, there will be at some point.

FWIW, there used to be an airport out west of MIA called "Opa-locka West". It was built back when Burnside-Ott (early style pilot mill) had 100 airplanes and was saturating South Florida in the later 60's. Traffic died off, and legend had it became a popular place to dump off drugs in the 80s.

Dade County decided at that point all airports had to be manned, so they fenced it off and eventually and used the excuse of "hurricane damage" to close it down. Last I checked it was getting consumed by a limestone quarry (which is what most locals assume was the real reason it was shut down).
 
Good idea. Who pays for it, how do you staff it (CFR?) and how will you deal with the inevitable NIMBYS? Because even if there's not any now, there will be at some point.

FWIW, there used to be an airport out west of MIA called "Opa-locka West". It was built back when Burnside-Ott (early style pilot mill) had 100 airplanes and was saturating South Florida in the later 60's. Traffic died off, and legend had it became a popular place to dump off drugs in the 80s.

Dade County decided at that point all airports had to be manned, so they fenced it off and eventually and used the excuse of "hurricane damage" to close it down. Last I checked it was getting consumed by a limestone quarry (which is what most locals assume was the real reason it was shut down).
IMG_8137.jpeg

Different than this one?
 
Back
Top