It's very rare day it seems lately that I have a whole day to spend flying, except to get to a particular destination. Kevin's fly in in October was the last time I had a chance to get out like that, and I am itching for more.

The current plan right now is that I am hauling the kids to San Diego on 12/27 for several days of visiting with family and friends, and 12/26 may be my only day for a while to get out and hit some backcountry stuff. I'd love to Join Emmett and others next weekend for that planned outing but I am not sure I will be back in time.

I have a particular interest in hitting the Chicken Strip sometime soon, but it would be much more enjoyable if other BCP'ers were interested in meeting there or somewhere else too. The weather is forecast to be sunny with light winds in Saline Valley Monday under this NoCal high pressure we have been experiencing. I am not committed to the Chicken Strip as the only destination, though, and if there are others that are interested in hitting Gravelly Valley, or the Tahoe circuit, or wherever, I'd be interested in meeting up.

Anyone else have Monday off and want to fly?

Flynengr

I could get into that Any excuse to fly is a good excuse what time take me 1.5 hrs from KRIR

Pat you wanna go and show off your body

Glidergeek wrote:
Pat you wanna go and show off your body

Nah.... Here's a picture though

Glidergeek wrote:

I could get into that Any excuse to fly is a good excuse what time take me 1.5 hrs from KRIR

Thinking late morning..10:30 or 11?.....WX here has been good in the a.m. this week; TAF keeps calling for LIFR, but it has been staying clear just with haze. We'll see how well that pattern holds tomorrow. I will blast off as early as the weather will let me. PM me your number and I will give you a call. I am at nine one six 2 zero 6 one 4 four 6.

Thinking it is about 1.7-1.8 for me, depending on the route over the Sierras.

See ya then

Flynengr

You guys have fun. I have to play house with the wife till she goes back to work January 4th Then I'll be headed down to socal in the M7.

Good day

I'm Game, I'll see you two there.

Rick

We was there and as it was Boxing Day the clothing optional rule was mandatory. I was a bit overwhelmed by the 180 talk but...

Fun times at the Chicken Strip today! RAF did an incredible job getting this gem open again. Hat's off to those that participated, including Desert Rat, 701Driver and Glidergeek. Just a few months ago I was afraid I'd never get a chance to land here, after the "strip damage" episode.

Glidergeek, 701Driver, Desert Rat all showed up this morning for a post Christmas soak. Weather was perfect today.

Desert Rat, you bailed too soon! Just as soon as you left we had one of the "extended stay" guests, a young nymph in her early 30's, come grace us with her presence in our tub au natural. Should have stuck around to represent BCP as the only member not afraid to keep with the local customs..... Glidergeek might have some photos to share....

Here are some photos from the flying end of it. I cut everyone's head off in the hot tub pic

First one in



Desert Rat making it look easy



Glidergeek greasing it on



BS'ing about Monache Meadows and other spots



Desert Rat on the roll, looking out from the tub

I'm thinking of flying out to the strip this week. Looks like it's in good shape. Any other interesting strips to try in the area? Can you land on the Racetrack playa?

What's the usual nav and comm procedures for avoiding military a/c in the Saline Valley?

All advice greatly appreciated.


Dave

They will shoot you if you land on the Race Track. Don't do that.

Now if you had a full moon and you knew exactly where to land. That's crazy talk man.

Well, maybe I meant *at* or *near* the Racetrack. The Panamint Springs Resort guy told me there's a landing area out there. Don't worry, I'm not looking for trouble ... that's why I'm asking here first.

DaveF wrote:Well, maybe I meant *at* or *near* the Racetrack. The Panamint Springs Resort guy told me there's a landing area out there. Don't worry, I'm not looking for trouble ... that's why I'm asking here first.

The problem with the Racetrack is that it is very popular with tourists so there will always be people there. They used to land on the Racetrack years ago. That's probably what he is thinking about. About 4 miles east of the Racetrack there is another lake bed but it is close to a road. I have been there but never the Racetrack. I am sure there is someone here who has landed at the Racetrack though.

East of Scotty's Castle There is a great dry like called Bonnie Clare. It is almost the size of the Racetrack and outside the park.

I'll admit that I put the Racetrack and landing in the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the same category.

Desert Rat wrote:

DaveF wrote:Well, maybe I meant *at* or *near* the Racetrack. The Panamint Springs Resort guy told me there's a landing area out there. Don't worry, I'm not looking for trouble ... that's why I'm asking here first.

The problem with the Racetrack is that it is very popular with tourists so there will always be people there. They used to land on the Racetrack years ago. That's probably what he is thinking about. About 4 miles east of the Racetrack there is another lake bed but it is close to a road. I have been there but never the Racetrack. I am sure there is someone here who has landed at the Racetrack though.

East of Scotty's Castle There is a great dry like called Bonnie Clare. It is almost the size of the Racetrack and outside the park.

I'll admit that I put the Racetrack and landing in the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the same category.

I don't see these airstrips on Shortfield.com If they are public use, can you guys upload the information on Shortfield.com? Would be neat to see where they are at

Desert Rat wrote:East of Scotty's Castle There is a great dry like called Bonnie Clare. It is almost the size of the Racetrack and outside.

Our NPS volunteer guides at Scotty's told us that guests of the Johnsons used to fly in to Bonnie Clare to visit the Castle. Landing there is both historical reenactment and continuing use, without the complication of being in the park. Besides, I hear someone put big rocks out on the Racetrack to discourage landing, and that they move the rocks randomly around so you never know where they are. You can even see the tracks where they were.

CAVU

Thanks for the info, guys, and nice video, Glidergeek.

The winds in the Rockies have turned out to be worse than forecast a few days ago, so it looks like I won't make it to the Strip this week. Hope to make it later this winter, though.

Dave

DaveF wrote:I'm thinking of flying out to the strip this week. Looks like it's in good shape. Any other interesting strips to try in the area? Can you land on the Racetrack playa?

What's the usual nav and comm procedures for avoiding military a/c in the Saline Valley?

All advice greatly appreciated.


Dave

I used to fly in R-2508 everyday when I was stationed in Lemoore. No Navy guys are monitoring a VHF frequency when flying there, only UHF, and most guys probably do not even know there is an air strip in Saline, only the nudie camp that is very popular to get buzzed daily.

The RAG (training squadron), has a low level syllabus consisting of 3 flights, 1 dualed up low level flight on the VR-1255 at 200' to 500' and 420 knots, a dualed up low altitude tactics flight, then a solo with an instructor chase doing the same. These flights are around the student's 13th or 14th flight in the F/A-18, so you can imagine that many are behind the power curve a bit flying down low and fast.

The typical LATT flight, at least the way I did them, would start over the Owens lake bed at 200' and follow the highway between Owens and Panimint, through Star Wars/Rainbow canyon to warm up. Then you decide to either go south to work Panimint, or north to work Saline with Panimint being preferred since it is a bit larger and require less time repositioning for the maneuvers. The maneuvers consist of jinks where you pull up to 15 to 30 degrees nose high for a period of seconds and then dive back down to recover at 200', a 100' intro, surface to air counter tactics, low level tactical formation flight, and some other maneuvers and low level flying. Once the required maneuvers are complete, most guys will just fly around down low until their fuel state forces them to knock it off and return to base. It is pretty popular to fly over the nudie camp and up the little valley to the Eureka Dunes, then pick your way over to Owens and fly south to around Lone Pine before popping up to RTB. On the dualed up flights, it is single ship, but on the students solo there will be two jets so the instructor can chase and direct and keep the student from hitting the ground.

For the Higher altitude flights, the "deck" is usually 5,000' AGL, so guys are generally higher than that. If I was flying around there in a small plane, I would probably stay below 100' or up around 4,000'. Nowhere is certain to be safe, but the absolute worst place is probably between 5,000 and 15,000, where there tends to be be a lot of vertical maneuvering, with very high vertical airspeeds and not much opportunity to look outside of the fighting engagement, or use the radar to look for other traffic.

Here is a link to the users guide for R-2508:

http://www.edwards.af.mil/shared/media/ ... 03-052.pdf

I hope this helps out someone, but please keep your head on a swivel because the jets are moving fast out there, and many times being piloted by students with very little experience.

mjb123 wrote:

DaveF wrote:I'm thinking of flying out to the strip this week. Looks like it's in good shape. Any other interesting strips to try in the area? Can you land on the Racetrack playa?

What's the usual nav and comm procedures for avoiding military a/c in the Saline Valley?

All advice greatly appreciated.


Dave

I used to fly in R-2508 everyday when I was stationed in Lemoore. No Navy guys are monitoring a VHF frequency when flying there, only UHF, and most guys probably do not even know there is an air strip in Saline, only the nudie camp that is very popular to get buzzed daily.

The RAG (training squadron), has a low level syllabus consisting of 3 flights, 1 dualed up low level flight on the VR-1255 at 200' to 500' and 420 knots, a dualed up low altitude tactics flight, then a solo with an instructor chase doing the same. These flights are around the student's 13th or 14th flight in the F/A-18, so you can imagine that many are behind the power curve a bit flying down low and fast.

The typical LATT flight, at least the way I did them, would start over the Owens lake bed at 200' and follow the highway between Owens and Panimint, through Star Wars/Rainbow canyon to warm up. Then you decide to either go south to work Panimint, or north to work Saline with Panimint being preferred since it is a bit larger and require less time repositioning for the maneuvers. The maneuvers consist of jinks where you pull up to 15 to 30 degrees nose high for a period of seconds and then dive back down to recover at 200', a 100' intro, surface to air counter tactics, low level tactical formation flight, and some other maneuvers and low level flying. Once the required maneuvers are complete, most guys will just fly around down low until their fuel state forces them to knock it off and return to base. It is pretty popular to fly over the nudie camp and up the little valley to the Eureka Dunes, then pick your way over to Owens and fly south to around Lone Pine before popping up to RTB. On the dualed up flights, it is single ship, but on the students solo there will be two jets so the instructor can chase and direct and keep the student from hitting the ground.

For the Higher altitude flights, the "deck" is usually 5,000' AGL, so guys are generally higher than that. If I was flying around there in a small plane, I would probably stay below 100' or up around 4,000'. Nowhere is certain to be safe, but the absolute worst place is probably between 5,000 and 15,000, where there tends to be be a lot of vertical maneuvering, with very high vertical airspeeds and not much opportunity to look outside of the fighting engagement, or use the radar to look for other traffic.

Here is a link to the users guide for R-2508:

http://www.edwards.af.mil/shared/media/ ... 03-052.pdf

I hope this helps out someone, but please keep your head on a swivel because the jets are moving fast out there, and many times being piloted by students with very little experience.

That's some really great info! Thanks for sharing. Even though we are allowed to fly into/through MOA's with ease, I'm starting to think that it might be a good idea to call ahead to see if any activity is going on in the MOA you plan to fly into/through. But it sounds like MOA's like R-2508 is pretty active about everyday. I'll be on extra alert when I fly through MOA's.

Now that is gov BS at its best. Charts, lines, descriptions, pictures, every possible contingency put in writing. I'll be dead before I could read all that. WTF I hope when their 150M dollar jet eats my Maule it crashes. MOA=Maule Operating Area

Good day

OregonMaule wrote:Now that is gov BS at its best. Charts, lines, descriptions, pictures, every possible contingency put in writing. I'll be dead before I could read all that. WTF I hope when their 150M dollar jet eats my Maule it crashes. MOA=Maule Operating Area

Good day

Now calm down there, young fella!!!