Learning to fly from Day 1: Overnight Trip - Grand Canyon and Vegas

Finally on Wednesday I had a chance to take the aircraft overnight for a couple of days, which gave me the option of getting a bit further afield. First choice, naturally was Las Vegas – about a 2 ½ hour flight from Long Beach. The weather forecast was fair, with strong (30kt) tail winds which would have got me there about 20 minutes quicker, There was a broken layer of cloud in the basin, but I got above it through the gaps, only having to change course once, to fly around one big cloud, and before long I was at 11,500 feet – although only for a short while, as oxygen is required when flying at that altitude for more than 30 minutes.

Once out of the basin, the cloud disappeared and I dropped down to 9500 feet (aircraft travel in different directions at different altitudes so 001-179 at odd+500ft, and 180-359 at even+500ft). As I passed Palm Springs, the air got very turbulent, in the up and down draughts of the air over the mountains. For a while I was thrown around a fair bit, and climbed back over 10000 feet to avoid the worst of it. I could hear pilots of all size aircrafts, trying and failing to land at Palm Springs and having to divert with 35kt crosswinds at the airport there. Once out of the mountain and over the high desert, things calmed down a bit, and with such a strong tailwind, I was averaging 150kt ground speed. The latest weather at my destination airport (Henderson – KHND) was showing a 25 gusting 35 knot crosswind on their only runway, so I planned to divert to North Las Vegas (KVGT) or McCarran (KLAS) both of which had a second into wind runway. Unfortunately, the weather was not on my side as the visibility dropped down with the combination of hazy cloud and a dust storm caused by the strong winds over the sandy desert, so about 50 miles from my destination, I had to divert away from the Las Vegas area.

I headed towards Lake Havasu where I'd heard there were some decent hotels and interesting things to do (nothing to do with Spring Break of course!), but talking to another aircraft who had just landed there, he said it was incredibly tricky and gusty with strong crosswinds. At this stage my priority was to get down on the ground safely and wait out the worst of the wind, so I looked on my app for the nearest airfield that had a reasonable length into wind runway – as the wind was unusual, this proved difficult but I found an airfield called Needles with two good length runways each one around 30degrees from the reported wind. I made my first approach on runway 29 (reported wind 250/25G35), but got blown around during the flare, so went around and tried again for runway 20. Whether the wind had just dropped by this time, or had backed to be more in line with the runway I'm not sure, but it was a remarkably smooth landing with just 2 stages of flaps and a faster approach speed. The flight had taken me over 3 hours and I was exhausted from fighting the aircraft for such a long time. I went into the flight school/cafe there, grabbed some food and rested whilst waiting for the wind to die down. A couple of hours later, things seemed to have eased a little bit, and with no options of accommodation in Needles, full tanks of fuel and the option of returning to Long Beach if needs be, I took off again to aim for Vegas a second time. Still no luck, with the visibility much worse than forecast, I diverted again, this time to Laughlin/Bullhead, which had been recommended as a smaller version of Vegas by my instructor in Long Beach. The winds were still strong here, probably 16kts crosswind, so I was very happy with another smooth (if long) landing, and relieved to be tied down on the apron a few minutes later.

While I was waiting for the hotel transfer to pick me up, another aircraft landed, with the (much more experienced) pilot also unable to get past the weather front to head north. I got a couple of other suggestions from him of places to visit - although they may have to wait for my next trip.

Runway at Sedona

Sedona airport on plateau, centre (before mountains)

After an evening at the blackjack tables and a steak dinner, I was ready for another long day of flying on Thursday. First destination was Sedona (KSEZ), so I climbed to 10500 feet to get over the mountains and turned on course. The scenery in this part of the country is spectacular and I took hundreds of pictures, eventually spotting Sedona airport in the distance. The airport is on a plateau, at 5000 feet, with surrounding mountains at 7000ft, so it is a fantastically scenic approach and a tricky, windy landing. I only had a short amount of time to grab a bit of lunch here as I wanted to get to the Grand Canyon and Vegas before dark.

Leaving Sedona, I turned north towards the Grand Canyon, overflying the town of Williams, where we stayed when we visited last year. Thankfully the weather was better this time than it was then, and after a quick refuelling stop at the Grand Canyon airport, I was back up and heading for the most spectacular view I've ever had out of an airplane window. There are some restricted corridors that you must fly at certain altitudes there to prevent any clashes with the commercial tour operators. This means climbing to 11500 feet out of the airport (6500ft) which takes a while with full fuel tanks! Once I got to the assigned altitude I headed north over the Canyon – words can't describe adequately so I'll include a load of pictures at the end, but here is a taster. I did feel a bit breathless at the altitude, so descended back towards the airfield, before turning to head towards Vegas. All the way there, the views were awesome (I'm running out of superlatives!), and just before starting my descent for Henderson, I also got a great view of the Hoover Dam and the Las Vegas Strip (from a distance).