Some recent flights

We flew to Santa Monica for lunch on 7/12/09. Figured this would be good practice flying into the LA airspace and is along the same route we would take to Catalina island. The spitfire grill is close, but not right on the field so I wish we had brought the stroller for Katie. The Typhoon and the Hump are right on the field, but weren't open yet and were asian cuisine. The Hump seems to be only open for dinner which is RIDICULOUS since it has the best view of the runway by far.

The forecast is too hot for camping this weekend (7/18/09) so we decided just to fly for lunch. We've never been to Porterville and I see they supposedly have camping on the airport. This gave us a chance to check out the campground and see if we'd come back and camp another time. The campground was nice grass with very nice shade trees and bathrooms. The restaurant said the airport will turn off the sprinklers if people are camping so you don't have to worry about that. Even though the campground is nice, there really isn't much to do there. It would be nice for transient camping or for an airshow, but not for just camping.

Ken Block at IYK (from cell phone)

I was really stupid, I shot this video from my cell phone when I had my camcorder sitting 20 feet away in the car... See everybody standing around? There was nobody making sure the course was clear. I was standing next to the building and he was drifting away from me so I wasn't in any danger, but nobody was stopping traffic from entering "the course".

Ken Block on Top Gear at Inyokern Airport

Here is the Top Gear episode that was shot at the Inyokern airport. The close up tail shot of the orange and white airplane (around 3:15) is mine, you can see the number N951CC. I love the video, but am not happy the airport allowed this shoot at Inyokern. They didn't show him doing donuts around the tied-down airplanes, but he sure did. I went to the airport meeting today and gave my 2 cents that owners don't pay to tie their airplane down to have it put at risk. Check out how much dirt he throws up, now would you want your paint job taking that punishment? The owners weren't even told this shoot was going to happen to give them a chance to move their planes out of the way! There was practically not safety either, nobody was making sure somebody wasn't around all the blind intersections he was flying across. What was done is done, but hopefully the airport board will not permit this type of activity again at the airport.