Looking out the front window of my room to an Oasis of warmth and calm. Nobody is out of course as its "freezing" today at +18. Everywhere we walked it seemed that arches are heavily used in design here in Scottsdale.
There was a Chick-fil-a conference here for the two days so the building to the right was full of people each night. This complex is pretty huge and I believe there were 4 areas like this with pools and other buildings.
Another gated complex just down the street from us. It was pretty barren to the east with just open fields with small bushes so it looked neat with all the palm trees surrounding the hotel.
Pinnacle Peak to the east north east of Phoenix. On our arrival it was a ceiling of about 4000 feet and we had been vectored for a visual approach. There is no approach for this arrival end due to these hills as well as the bigger ones just to the right of this picture. The controller kept asking to call it when we had it visual, but the rain was reducing visibility to about a mile locally so we weren't gonna call it until we were positive because we could see the bases of these hills under the rain showers. If there is one thing I really don't like doing is bombing around somewhere new in marginal conditions with mountains to hit ! We ended up getting the field about 6 miles back and we got cleared the visual. It was the co-pilot's leg and he was gonna snake his way through the hills to final. With the rain it looked like my side was more open as I could clearly see the granitous maximus on my left and could hardly see on his side. I was telling him to come left as I could see it was better on my side, but he was sticking more to the right because he could see Pinnacle mountain and had trouble with the vis on my side. So after confirming with him 10 times about the mountain he beautifully set us up on final for runway 21. There was nothing dangerous in our situation its just that each of us felt more comfortable with what we saw out our side and for me not flying I was probably seen leaning towards to left to head where I can see. Two crew flying has to be the most rewarding experience as a pilot. Working as a team to achieve a safe flight and keeping the clients happy, or climbing through thick overcast to suddenly feel like a bat outta hell when you break through into the sunshine, looking over at your co worker and you both say "I love my job" in unison is what it's all about.
When I think of how much resources that are used to keep the grass green out here (and with the amount of golf courses that's a lot of resources) I first thought how we are wasting so much energy and water. But then my co pilot stated that if they come to Canada and see how much energy we need to keep warm and truck goods and services around then it would be the pot calling the kettle black. To each their own I guess, but its amazing how just adding water in a desert springs up life.
Lear 45 short final for RWY 21 KSDL. Of course with such nice weather we ended up walking to the airport to check out what was going on. We ended up sitting under the arrival path for a bit in case we could get a G-5 coming in but no joy until later.
This guy was doing circuits for quite some time and the airplane had a great paint job. On one circuit I believed the instructor gave him a simulated engine failure or he just yanked the power to idle as we heard a huge bang from the backfire. It was a fairly busy spot with jets landing in between the 3 aircraft in the circuit.
Water being a precious resource in these parts is guarded like Fort Knox. Well not really but there was high chain like fences around this aqueduct with 4 levels of barbwire on the top. The Central Arizona Project takes water from the Colorado River and brings it south, click to see this great shot of it.
This could be the Weild part in the post title but this gentleman is just a unique individual ! Considering everyone else is driving a BMW or a SUV this guy sorta stuck out and grabbed our attention. We had to take a picture because trying to describe it would never fully give you the idea.
A picture says a thousand words !
I think I have found Mother Nature. :) Next post is pretty much airplane shots and then the journey north to Salt Lake City.
1 comment:
I've been to Arizona enough times to know that I don't want to live there, but you're making me want to visit again -- and to fly ourselves!
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