Our good friends and fellow flying dentists (flyingdentists.org) Dave and Angelyn Craddock own the first Mooney Acclaim type S and invited us to join them for a four day weekend in McMinnville for one of our flying dentist meetings. Dave and Angelyn and their beautiful black Mooney, the “Batmobile” are featured in the Mooney ads in AOPA Pilot and Flying magazines. It really does look like the Batmobile when it goes by my 160kt Mooney at 210kts.

My normally aspirated Mooney is not the aircraft to use for two Rocky mountain crossings in four days, so we met in Sioux City Iowa at 9am and headed out. It was a beautiful flight out, down low to avoid the winds at altitude and VFR made for great sight seeing. By the time we got to Bozeman MT (BOZ) for fuel we were under an overcast, came through a notch in a mountain and ended up 4 miles from the airport 4000ftAGL. No problem, just deploy speed brakes, drop gear and come down 2000ft/min while gradually reducing power.

Everywhere we go this airplane causes a stir. The airport manager at Bozeman came out to the self serve pumps just to see it. (Just because you fly an Acclaim doesn’t mean you’re not sensitive to fuel prices). He gave us a ride to the restaurant which was fortunate because the cheap gas didn’t come with an FBO’s crew car. An airport car here would be great for those of us not flying brand new Acclaims.

When we came back after lunch the plane was surrounded. Vicky and her crew took time off duct taping the cowling of her straight tail 182 to look it over. Vicky is a trip, new to aircraft ownership who flys VFR all over the area in her first plane. She is recently divorced, 50s, attractive, fun, looking for a man and makes no bones about it. I wish I would have gotten her last name and # but Tara may have misunderstood. If your interested, just stop by BOZ, get some cheap gas and put your contact information under some of that duct tape on the cowl of the blue 182 tied by the pumps. Hurry, the 182 has a Garmin 430W, so I’m sure the duct tape is temporary.

Even after spending 6.5 hours in the plane the day before we were still up for some sight seeing the next day. We flew low through the valleys of the Cascades to the coast, up the coast at 500′ to the Columbia River, around the Mount St. Helens crater and to the Dalles for lunch. Dave gave me the left seat from the Dalles (DLS) back to McMinnville. It was my first time flying a long body Mooney and in front of a G1000. It takes some getting used to but it handles just like my 201 until you land. Fortunatey I know what to do when you bounce a Mooney and my 2…or 3rd touchdown was as smooth as silk.

McMinnville and the Oregon coastal area are beautiful, especially by air. There are countless small airports, and tons of aviation activity, but we have no Airport Cars Club members up here. Even though our weather was perfect, I understand winter leads to low overcast and ice. We have several Airport Cars Club cars in California. Why not sign up and enjoy the San Francisco bay area instead of the cold north west this winter? One of our other members will keep your car fresh if you do.

The Flying Dentists Association has excellent programs and as well as Continuing Education (our primary mission) we had a private tour of the Spruce Goose by the company that disassembled and moved it to McMinnville. I got to have my picture taken while sitting in the pilots seat of the Spruce Goose! Cari from Pilot Getaways, if you go there don’t forget your hula hoop, there is lots of room on that flight deck. The rest of the Evergreen museum is excellent, and even has a tasting bar so the pilots could browse at length while the spouses had their fill of free wine. This very interesting afternoon lead to a very interesting evening!

What a machine! Four people non stop from McMinnville (MMV) to Sioux City (SUX) in under 5 hours. We used all the Acclaim’s tricks. Turbo normalized to 25K’, O2, XM weather on the G1000, TKS and the porta poty (not standard equipment). The Mooney Acclaim is truely a personal airliner.

I just arrived at AirVenture after a week of wilderness camping on Isle Royal with my older son’s boy scout troop. if you have tried to reach me and I haven’t gotten back to you, that is why.

Isle Royal has the distinction of being the National Park visitors spend the most time in. That is probably because after a 4 hour boat ride we were deposited on a dock, and the only boat wouldn’t return for 2 days. I said dock, not visitor center. No restaurant, toilets, gift shop-nothing but a large wilderness Island to explore for a week.

Wilderness camping holds similar appeal to me as flying. It’s about planning, travel, beauty, weather and risk  management. Good technique is rewarded with a wonderful experience. Screw up and you’re in for an experience you’ll not soon forget. The best planning I did was putting an 80# pack on a 100# kid. Funny is a smart mouth kid on his back in the mud with his arms and legs flailing. It was slightly less funny when he said “dad, help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”. It’s that paternal thing.

Fortunately the fishing was excellent. Two guys in a canoe caught 49 Northerns and Walleys one afternoon. Two fish fed all seven of us. The alternative is dehydrated food which never seems to completely rehydrate until it’s in your stomach. The fresh fish doesn’t dehydrate you and the protein is needed to rebuild all the blood cells sucked out of you by the mosquitoes.

Isle Royal is beautiful and unique, the weather was perfect and we had a blast exploring, canoeing, fishing, swimming and cliff jumping. Cliff jumping… it’s in the boy scout manual under “cool things you can do without wearing a neckerchief”.

Flying there was the usual ground transportation hassle though. Fly in to unattended Grand Marais (KCKC) and somehow get to Grand Portage, 30 miles up the road. I put brochures on 16 airport cars there. If you own one, you know, it gets cold up there and some of our members would be happy to run it for you occasionally while you’re driving theirs down in Florida.

Right now I’m sitting here at AirVenture. This is the cream of Americana! Wow! The F22 Raptor just went by! All the wanabe socialists just covered their ears. I have talked to hundreds of people here and I bet not one of them are on public assistance or have a mortgage in foreclosure. The political candidates should come here to see how to solve our countries’ problems. Give us our freedom, both economic and social, take away the unnecessary and stupid regulations, and we can do anything!

There is so much cool and new stuff here. Synthetic vision, Cirrus jet, Eclipse 400, glass panel retrofits, the JetPack are just a few examples. The neysayers will say this stuff is just for the upper class of aviation. I remember flying with a Narco “superhomer” asking for a short count to tune my receiver while the KX170 was only found in Airliners. How long ago were we all following VORs? Now even the most rudimentary VFR aircraft has at least a hand held GPS. This stuff will trickle down to us aviation “bottom feeders” in no time.

As far as cost containment, how about a 120k airplane with a 2000hr TBO burning 5 gallons/hour with a glass panel and a useful load of 740# that costs less than $120k new? Check out the Jabiru J250. Sportplaneseast@mac.com. Or the electric airplane that flys 70k with an energy cost of $.75/hr.  There are other cost saving initiatives like Airportcarsclub.com, pilotsharetheride.com, or shareyourflight.com that can more than make up for the difference at the pump.

Our friends at Pilot Getaways Magazine wrote us a nice little article in the July-August issue. George and Cari from Pilot Getaways stopped by to visit a couple of times and they said while things got a little slow this past winter, they are back to normal now. By the way, if you read about an attractive girl dancing with a Hula Hoop on the wing of a DC3 or the flight deck of the Goodyear Blimp, that was Cari. They live the lifestyle I aspire to.

As usual, the big media got it wrong. The JetPack is not powered by jet engines. It is actually 2 ducted fans powered by a 4 cylinder 2 cycle engine that runs on auto gas. It’s interesting but will need some type of stabilization system before I would take it more then 3 feet off the ground.

Maybe it is our proximity to the JetPack, or my wife’s cleavage, but in spite of being out here in the boondocks with the other first time exhibitors, we are having a good show. We should have a couple hundred members by the end of August. Hurry and sign up now because this charter membership offer will go away soon. What have you got to loose? If you don’t think it will work for you let me know why. If enough people have the same concern, maybe I can change something. Click on our logo at the top of this page and then “contact Airport Cars Club”.

Steve

A couple of weeks ago I landed at Madeline Island (4R5), one of the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. The airport is unattended, and after landing on this beautiful Island strip I had to hitch hike the 2 miles into the marina where I was being picked up by my friend on his boat. Unfortunately my duffel bag and the case of “headphone hair” gave me a look of vagrancy that eliminated my chances of getting a ride from anyone I would be willing to accept a ride from. All this indignity while there were 14 airport cars parked there.

I would have been so proud to have cruised into town in that 80’s vintage yellow LTD with the cow horns on the hood. If you have been to Madeline Island airport, you know the car. If you own the car, why not give the rest of us a break and sign up with Airportcarsclub.

If you look at the map of our car locations, it seems the best method of recruitment is direct contact with the FBOs and brochures placed on cars as evidenced by the line from my home in MN down to FL. We have made this trip twice already this year. One for Sun’n Fun and one for a trip to the Bahamas. This is really a tough job!

Due in part to the success of these trips, we are on a tour of the South West and currently in Lake Tahoe (TVL). We have made stops in Kansas City (MKC) and Amarillo (1E4, not exactly a destination airport but Duro Canyon makes for a good afternoon). Santa Fe (SAF) was having a crap fair (did I spell craft wrong?) that my wife couldn’t resist. Fortunately, with 4 of us in a Mooney we couldn’t afford any additional weight no matter how cute the item. We all enjoyed the rafting trip on the Rio Grand out of Taos (SKX).

When I asked the FBO at Taos if they had any airport cars on their airport he said “you mean all those cars parked out there that only get driven once or twice a year? I spend more time working on them than the owner’s airplanes.” Apparently the local varmints like to live in the cars and chew on the wiring. These cars would be more reliable if driven more frequently by Airport Cars Club members.

Turn off your terrain warning when landing in Sedona AZ (SEZ). It’s urgent admonitions to “pull up” only add unnecessarily to the excitement of landing there. Sedona is a beautiful area, and the Sky Ranch resort on the airport bluff gave us beautiful views of the area as well as walking access to our airplane for those day trips to Flagstaff (FLG) and the Grand Canyon (GCN). An airport car here would have been nice for the day we toured the Sedona area. This was one of those drive the car to you, while you wait, drive to their office to fill out the forms and you’re ready to go only an hour later for your one day rental.

Bryce Canyon was a family favorite. While the Grand Canyon is Grand, unless you have several days, it is just that. Bryce Canyon is much more interactive as you can really get into it. My boys even mentioned the word fun in the same sentence as the word hike.

Unfortunately, the beautiful Bryce Canyon airport has no rental cars and no ground transportation. One of my boys looks like the unibomber, the other is a skaterboy and I have my headphone hair. My wife is hot, but obviously with us, so ground transportation here was possible but only with begging and heavy tipping.

We have been able to use a couple of airport cars on this trip and it really worked slick. Much faster and cheaper then rental cars and the owners now have full tanks and fresh batteries. Here in Lake Tahoe there are 39 airport cars. I hope a couple of these owners will sign up!

As the administrator of this site, I can see where you enter, where you leave and how much time you are spending on the site. (Don’t worry, I don’t know who you are). I know there is a lot of interest out there, but you just aren’t signing up. We need you to sign up to hit that critical mass that will really get the club rolling. Hurry, I’m planning more trips and I want to use your car.

If you are one of those hundreds that have bookmarked the site or spent more than a half hour looking but not signed up, do me the favor of contacting me and tell me why. Just click on the big “A” at the top of this page, and on “contact airport cars club”. The club concept is new, and maybe there is something I can do to make it work for you. Send me the location of your airport car and where you would like one, and maybe I can hook you up and give you the immediate utility that I think most of you are looking for.

We will be in Oshkosh this year, booth E 5076. Come and see us there, tell us what a great idea this is, and sign up. It’s hot there, and maybe I can get my wife to wear a halter top.

Steve