Friday, June 26, 2009

Gila Bend - Buckeye - Castle Well / Cessna 182RG Skylane (N7109V) / VFR

Inspired by a video I saw on YouTube, I decided to fly from Buckeye, a tiny, dusty, hot little airport in the desert, to Castle Rock, an even tinier, equally dusty, and equally hot private airport east of Wickenburg. However, I had the aircraft parked in blazingly hot, dusty, and tiny Gila Bend, so I had to start there.

Both legs were uneventful. For the first, I just check which radial to ride on for Buckeye and pretty much followed that, watching for Highway 85 below me. Landing at Buckeye was uneventful, apart from the heat (but it was hot everywhere).

After staying overnight in Buckeye, I flew the target leg the next day, and it was only about a 20-minute flight. Castle Well is really tiny, with a short little runway, but I did just fine. In the sim, the scenery looks very bland and desolate, but as the video proved, in real life, the scenery is … very bland and desolate.