Arty's Ultimate Ultralight Adventure

Sunday, April 5
I got to the Casa Grande (AZ) Airport about 10:00 a.m., having checked out Randy on his SPOT tracker and seeing that he was still at his overnight spot. Jim Hefner and Ron Lee met me there; they had flown in from Tuscon in Jim's Cessna 150 to fly a ways with us. We waited and waited and waited, impatiently checking Randy's movement - or lack thereof. Finally, at 1:00 p.m. we decided to go to lunch. We had just ordered when we get a phone call from Randy that he had just landed in Casa Grande!

The three of us were wheels off at 2:10 p.m. There was a 10+ mph headwind and some bumps, but not much. Jim had showed us a really good route to avoid Tuscon's airspace. It would mean cutting cross country away from paved roads, but Jim assured us that there were plenty of dirt roads to land on if we needed to. And he was right - they don't show up in these pictures, but there were plenty of them. We played "where are you?" tag as both Randy's Carrera and Jim's Cessna are faster than my Drifter. Jim came up along side of me several times and I wanted to take his picture, but it was too bumpy for comfort - not to mention picture taking. I got a couple of quick shots - but not as many as the scenery deserved.

We all landed at San Manual Airport where Randy and I refueled and Jim and Ron bid us goodby. Then Randy and I followed a dry river valley to Willcox-Cochise Co. (still AZ) Airport.

I followed a narrow dirt road through a saguaro "forest" and decided I didn't want to get low enough to get really good pictures of the cactus! I had been warned that they are extremely painful if you run into them - and totally resistant to being knocked down by something as insignificant as my Drifter. Then we came over a low ridge and a wide valley spread out in front of us.

The airport is situated a few miles from a very large "playa" - dry lake bed. I couldn't resist, and radio'd Randy that I was going to play - I wanted to land on the lake bed. He was enthusiastic and we played in each others shadows for a while over the lake bed; then he landed and I came in beside him. The lake bed was sort-of "dry" - it was slightly spongy and our tail wheels dug in a bit, but we weren't worried about begin able to take off again.

After about 30 minutes of taking pictures and talking, we took off and flew to Willcox-Cochise Co. Airport. It was 6 p.m. and we decided to camp for the night. The FBO owner came out and was delighted to see us - she had heard about our flight! She offered us a courtesy car and we went into town for pizza.

We're pretty sure that we can make El Paso tomorrow. I'll be calling Will Arribe and Dave Rains to see what suggestions they have for getting around El Paso's convoluted airspace.