... After enjoying hospitality of Paul and Louise at Dayton Airpark NV, a well rested RV crew departed eastbound.
Thank you Louise for a great home cooked breakfast! And special thanks for that gallon of water you insisted on taking! The jar was half empty in couple hours. You guys do know your territory.
We headed to Tonopah a civilian airport by TTR.
Ocular glare on sectional chart. A solar farm.
Village of Tonopah. Very interesting location between mountains. Reminds me of some stans.
Once the airport was very big but nowadays it shrunk threefold. There are several dilapidated hangars, huge Plattsburgh size ramp and couple closed runways.
We took full fuel and flew about 10 miles south to a dry lake bed. Most of the lake is fenced by the military but there is a good stretch of smooth hard surface before the fence. Recent t-storms smoothened the natural runway even more.
It took us couple passes to figure out where to land. The fence was clearly visible we landed about a mile from it. Non event in RV9A even at gross weight with high density altitude.
What surprised me was the amount of bullets laying around. I've heard that during WWII the B17s were spraying the territory with iron showers but nothing like that. I walked around the airplane and spotted at least dozen of these critters. Took couple for souvenirs, made several pictures and flew away. My copilot didn't even bother to get out. After visiting Alvord and Black Rock it didn't make much difference for him.
After an hour and a change we landed at a picturesque place called Mesquite. There was an RV nose sticking from one the hangars but we were on the clock.
Eastbound, eastbound and eastbound ... We had hoped the rest of our big voyage will be as smooth as the Tonopah dry lake bed.
Thank you Louise for a great home cooked breakfast! And special thanks for that gallon of water you insisted on taking! The jar was half empty in couple hours. You guys do know your territory.
We headed to Tonopah a civilian airport by TTR.
Ocular glare on sectional chart. A solar farm.
Village of Tonopah. Very interesting location between mountains. Reminds me of some stans.
Once the airport was very big but nowadays it shrunk threefold. There are several dilapidated hangars, huge Plattsburgh size ramp and couple closed runways.
We took full fuel and flew about 10 miles south to a dry lake bed. Most of the lake is fenced by the military but there is a good stretch of smooth hard surface before the fence. Recent t-storms smoothened the natural runway even more.
It took us couple passes to figure out where to land. The fence was clearly visible we landed about a mile from it. Non event in RV9A even at gross weight with high density altitude.
What surprised me was the amount of bullets laying around. I've heard that during WWII the B17s were spraying the territory with iron showers but nothing like that. I walked around the airplane and spotted at least dozen of these critters. Took couple for souvenirs, made several pictures and flew away. My copilot didn't even bother to get out. After visiting Alvord and Black Rock it didn't make much difference for him.
After an hour and a change we landed at a picturesque place called Mesquite. There was an RV nose sticking from one the hangars but we were on the clock.
Eastbound, eastbound and eastbound ... We had hoped the rest of our big voyage will be as smooth as the Tonopah dry lake bed.
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