The lovely early spring weather this Sunday prompted me to take a little jaunt down the California gold country in Placerville Aviation’s lovely Diamond DA-40 “Star,” N232JP (lovingly referred to as ‘2JP’, pronounced ‘two-juliet-papa’, hereafter). Since the weather promised to be comfortable in the central valley (as opposed the oppressive heat of high summer), I decided to lead an expedition to the legendary Castle Air Museum, at Castle Airport (KMER) (formerly Castle Air Force Base). In addition, I decided to use the low temperature — and attendant low density altitude — to take a flight over the beautiful Yosemite valley and the fabled Hetch Hetchy reservoir.
Despite a sound recruiting effort, I was only able to find one passenger for this central valley escapade, and so it was with rather significant ballast in the back seat of the DA-40 that we departed Placerville (KPVF) at approximately 1030 local. While fueling ($4.79, full service from the pump) we chatted briefly with the instructors of a flight of two Schweizer 300 helicopters on a training flight to Reno (KRNO). <sarcasm>That’s a good plan</sarcasm>.
The trip was surprisingly enjoyable, especially given the AIRMET for moderate turbulence over the foothills, although climbing to 8,500 feet helped with this (as painfully demonstrated on the return trip). Approaching the town of Tuolumne (the GPS waypoint DUCKE, to be precise), we turned east up the Tuolumne River until the O’Shaughnessy Dam at the mouth of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir before turning south. Hetch Hetch is quite spectacular from the air, and I can only imagine that the valley — which appears wider than the Yosemite valley from the air — must have been truly stunning before it was flooded.
From Hetch Hetchy, we turned south again, directly towards Half Dome. I also climbed, and deployed the first notch of flaps, both to make the sight seeing last longer, and to assuage passenger fears about terrain height.
Yosemite National Park is beautiful this time of year, although quite snowy. Half Dome was crowned with a jaunty little snow cap. The valley appeared mostly snow free, although it is hard to see the valley floor from the air, given that you are required to remain 2,000 feet above the rim.
From Yosemite, we proceeded west to Castle, and despite the two nautical mile of available runway, I did a super short “three point” landing that would have been almost perfect, if the 2JP were a taildragger. Castle was surprisingly cool — the low 50’s — with a nice breeze, so we tied 2JP down at Gemini, who were more than happy to provide us with a lift to the museum. A note about landing at Castle. If you land on 31, land on the numbers and taxi via taxiway ‘C’ or even ‘B’ to the base of the tower. Taxi time: 3 minutes. If you land on 13, and you land on the numbers, you have a 2 mile + taxi in. Taxi time: 5-7 minutes (even at Southwest taxi speeds). The lesson? Land short on 31 and long on 13. Finally, play with the guys in the tower, they’re bored.
The castle air museum probably deserves an entry of it’s own, but in a nutshell, it is superlative. The collection includes such rarities as an SR-71, a B-29 and Avro CF-100 and CF-105. The true gem of the collection, however, is a Convair B-36. This ten engined behemoth is one of the great beasts of the sky. The nearby 707 (KC-135 to be precise) looks positively small compared to the B-36 and the B-52 while physically similar in size does not have nearly the ramp presence as the B-36. As of this writing the B-36 is being re-skinned with new aluminum panels donated by ALCOA.
We had a quick bite at the Museum shop before returning. This was one of the two disappointments of the day, as I had recalled a burger of exceptional quality from previous visits, and what I received was barely adequate. The second disappointment was that the shop no longer carries the “Merced Army Airfield — Primary Flight Training” hats, of which I am quite fond.
To get back to the ramp, have the people at the Museum gift shop call the FBO, while it is walkable, it would be a pretty long walk, and the people at Gemini are quite friendly. Furthermore, Gemini’s truck only full serve was $4.90 a gallon, which while by no means cheap, is quite reasonable compared to the truck rates charged at many other NorCal airports.
Departure climb was impressive, as a 15 knot headwind and a cold day produced an initial climb well in excess of 1,000 feet per minute. On departure, we also had the strange situation of overtaking a Twin Beech on approach to Modesto (KMOD). Given that 2JP only does *just* into the 130 knot range at max power, the Beech must have been really dragging it in for us to overtake.
Picture soon.
Who's Lookin'
A good and interesting read, thank you.