N951CC flight to Mojave, December 20th 2008

Since we didn't get to fly to Tehachapi last week for the anniversary of our engagement, we decided to try again. This time instead of the winter storm preventing us from getting there, there were some clouds in the valley, but worse there were notices to airmen for ice and 6 inches of snow on the airport. We decided to Rosemond instead, we went there a while ago and they had a great buffet.

Rosemond doesn't have any wind information so I got my wind information from the nearby Mojave airport light out of the east (070@4). Since Rosemond prefers runway 25 in light winds to avoid overflying the nearby houses, I decided to land runway 25 (with the wind). After turning to final I noticed that even though my airspeed was right at my normal approach speed I was significantly faster over the ground than expected. I was able to compensate, but it wasn't the prettiest landing, I should probably intentially practice these. They are not standard landings and are rarely done, but sometimes a downwind landing is safer due to terrain (such as Kernville).

Unfortunately the restaurant wasn't open, they changed their hours to open at 4pm instead of 11am except for Sundays. Great now the last two restaurants we've gone to have been closed, next time I should check! We decided to fly back to Mojave since we've been there more recently and it's a very short flight on the way home. Mojave was open, but they were extremely slow since Scaled composites (Burt Rutan's company) had brought a large party in (we didn't see Burt or Dick). There was only 1 waitress and she was very overworked. The food was excellent as usually and I filled up with cheap gas before we took back off for home.

On the way home, I decided to try to find Kelso valley. Our neighbor lent me a book about flying around here in the olden days. It's a very intersting book to read. A woman wrote the book about her and flying adventures with her husband who flew into all sorts of crazy places; mostly dried lakes and old dirt roads. One of the locations they flew into was Kelso valley and I think I knew where it was. I looked on Google Earth and I think I could see a desert scar from a runway decades ago.

The air was extremely smooth so we flew low over the mountains and I believe I found the right valley. It was easily wide enough to descend down into and land. There were a few homesteads scattered around, but I didn't see the runway. I think it was buried in the snow. After flying over this valley, we cut back over to the Owen's valley and flew back to Inyokern.

Flight to Mojave KMHV for lunch

Yesterday we planned on going to Big Bear Lake (L35) for lunch, we've never been there before, but it's a short flight to a mountain strip with an on airport restaurant. It's a resort area and supposed to be a very scenic flight. After checking the weather, getting a flight briefing, and filing a flight plan, we got out to Inyokern (KIYK) and it was strong and gusty winds that were not reported or forecasted. Knowing how screwed up the weather gets around here, we cancelled figuring it would just get worse and the forecast was already null and void. It turned out that it was only windy for 2 hours and then it calmed down, but we were already back home for the day; our plan was to go today instead.

Today I did the same thing, got the weather, did the briefing, and filed the flight plan. We got out to the airport and taxied over to the fuel pump since I needed more fuel for the trip. My luck again, the fuel pump was out of service. Determined not to give up, I called a few airports enroute and got a hold of a person at the Mojave airport. They said they did have fuel and their pump was up and working. Mojave is only a 30 minute flight from Inyokern and I had plenty of fuel to get there with reserve. Once we got there, we realized how late it was getting and that we wouldn't be able to eat until 1 or 2 at Big Bear, so we decided to just eat at Mojave and go to Big Bear another day.

The fuel was only $4.99 at Mojave so I made sure to top the tanks off. Last time I fueled at Inyokern, it was $5.19 and I was told this next batch coming in would be in the $5.60 range. I put in 63 gallons so the savings was almost $40! Well, it will be a few weeks before we get to Big Bear since we'll be in the Midwest for the next two weekends.

Here is our track for this flight.

And here is N951CC and Michelle in front of the Mojave air and space port tower and restaurant.