The Quest to Land at All Arizona Airports

Flying once or twice a week, one can visit the handful of $100 breakfast airports within reasonable distance of Phoenix only so many times.  Instead of repeating the same flights over and over, why not set a goal to land at airports all over Arizona?  It’s a great way to see a lot of things you’d otherwise never see.  It’s also a great way to hone pilot skills since it presents many new scenarios to the pilot – new runways, new terrain, new enroute navigation experiences.

So, Dad and I have decided to set a goal:  Starting in October 2015, we are going to visit every publicly accessible NPAIS airport in the State (there are 58 of them).  We will use the Wikipedia List of Airports in Arizona as our checklist. We’ll get a picture at each airport, with something recognizable at that airport, as proof of having been there.  Here’s our progress …

	Airport	Airport Name	City	Visited	Notes
1	KDVT	Phoenix Deer Valley	Phoenix	10/11/2015	Purchased N40MH from owner based at KDVT
2	E60	Eloy Municipal	Eloy	10/11/2015	Breakfast
3	18AZ	Skyranch Carefree	Carefree	10/11/2015	New home base for N40MH
4	KPRC	Prescott Muni – Ernest A. Love Field	Prescott	10/13/2015	Ate at Susie’s Skyway Restaurant
5	P52	Cottonwood Municipal	Cottonwood	10/31/2015
6	KPAN	Payson Municipal	Payson	10/31/2015	Good restaurant.
7	E63	Gila Bend Municipal	Gila Bend	11/2/2015	No restaurant on airport.
8	KSEZ	Sedona Airport	Sedona	11/11/2015	Great restaurant with views.
9	KFLG	Flagstaff-Pulliam	Flagstaff	11/11/2015
10	KINW	Winslow Lindbergh Regional	Winslow	11/11/2015
11	P20	Avi Suquilla	Parker	11/14/2015
12	KHII	Lake Havasu City Airport	Lake Havasu City	11/14/2015
13	KIFP	Laughlin/Bullhead Int’l	Bullhead City	11/14/2015

E60 Eloy

KPRC Prescott

P52 Cottonwood

KPAN Payson

E63 Gila Bend

KFLG Flagstaff-Pulliam

KINW Winslow

KSEZ Sedona

P20 Avi Suquilla (Parker)

KHII Lake Havasu

KIFP Laughlin/Bullhead City

Kicked out of the Nest

Making good on my vow to venture out, I’ve now completed three cross-country flights – all within two hours of home. My early concerns were how my pilotage skills would pan out – so of course the best way to address that was to simply get out and do it. My first of three cross-countries was dead reckoning and pilotage, and it went well. At one point for about five minutes, I was not exactly sure where on the chart I was located at the moment, but it all came together as I progressed. I knew it would.

How does one reduce the risk of getting lost? I think it’s pretty simple:

1.  Thoroughly study the planned route, and surrounding areas, before you depart. I probably spent upwards of an hour looking carefully at the sectional chart where I had drawn my flight path, highlighted in bright pink highlighter (that’s what you get with teenage daughters around the home).

2. Select a sufficient number of checkpoints which allows you to see the next one before the previous one goes entirely out of sight. This may be a challenge in some areas such as the southwest deserts, but if you study the route on the chart enough, it’ll come together for you. Some will argue that this is an excess number of checkpoints, but you’ll find that some checkpoints are tougher to find than others – and having too many sure beats not having enough.

3. Prepare for the worst case scenario ahead of time: get flight following, or at a minimum keep the closest Flight Service Station radio frequency on hand. Remember, as you travel distances, the frequency you have may go out of range, so be prepared to try another known frequency if the first one proves unusable.  Flight Service Stations are limited in their capabilities, but they can provide other frequencies for further assistance if needed.

And, of course, it is best practice to always file a flight plan 🙂

A good pilot must feel entirely comfortable with pilotage, and be able to utilize navigational aids such as a VOR to supplement the efforts – and not depend on a GPS (which could malfunction at any point, right?) However, I quickly realized how nice it would be to have GPS as a backup on my next two cross-country flights.

Watch for my next blog post … I will walk you through what I learned about GPS and moving maps, and share information that I wish I had found consolidated into a single post when I began exploring how a portable GPS and moving map could help me.