Heading to southern cal this next weekend. WX to be good. Will be parking a Whiteman in San Fernando Valley. Anything shakin down there that I should not miss. Would not mind puttin a face to a name if anybody arround. Do not worry, I will stay on the meds.

May stop at Chicken Strip for an out of the way stop.

Tim

Bummer, I'm leaving SoCal this week in the big rig for Atlanta, GA. Have a good trip!!

I will be there on Thursday. When you leaving

tim

qmdv wrote:Heading to southern cal this next weekend. WX to be good. Will be parking a Whiteman in San Fernando Valley.

Let me know if you want to have a burger at the restaurant. Will be there most days during the week. 818-634-9762

Bill

Ever have a sub a Santoro's

Tim

qmdv wrote:Ever have a sub a Santoro's

Tim

Where'zat???

EZFlap wrote:

qmdv wrote:Ever have a sub a Santoro's

Tim

Where'zat???

Burbank Blvd. near I-5 ---- Tim has a table and chair with his name on it >>> the Plumber is in.

Tim,

I'm in Southern Sierra Mountains east of Bakersfield, it's raining hard today and forcast for rain again starting next Sunday the 11th through the 13th. If you have some time and want to see some great mountain country come by Kern Valley airport "L05". I'll meet you there for a Hamberger, there great.

Rick

Met a guy from there that has a 172 with a 220HP Franklin

Tim

701driver wrote:...I'm in Southern Sierra Mountains east of Bakersfield....

I spent a little time in that area when I lived in LA a number of years ago. Have you ever been into the private strips I see on the LA sectional, between Lake Isabella & Tehachapi? I knew a guy who moved to Kelso Valley from LA to become a hermit, went to visit him once but never saw the airstrip shown there-- of course, I wasn't a pilot in those days. The sectional also shows a Sacatar Meadows airstrip up the 9 Mile Canyon road near Kennedy Meadows-- been fishing up there on the east fork of the Kern but never saw that airstrip either. It must be near Huggy Bears or whatever the name of that store/eatery is? There must be some good places to land & poke around in the desert near Hwy 395 also, eh?

Eric

TTT

shortfielder wrote:TTT

???

Hi Eric,

Yes I’ve been to the PRIVET strip your referring to. It’s at the corner of Kelso Valley Road and Jawbone Canyon Road in Kelso Valley. A rather remote spot, only two dirt roads in, one 30-miles and the other 15-miles in. The strip you remember is now gone. A fella from L.A. bought the property, 300-acres and has built a 4000ft by 400ft north/south strip and a 3000ft by 400ft east/west cross wind strip. He is a very serious glider pilot and intends to make it a nice place to fly out of. That will take some work as power and phone are 30-plus miles away, my kind a place.

As for the other strips the one around Kennedy is privet and the owner lives here in Weldon. I’ve been trying to meet him to get permission to land there. So far no luck.

HWY 395 has some strips but the majority are between Barstow and Nevada. I haven’t spent much time over there yet but I hope to this fall when it cools down.

Rick

There are many many strips out there in the southern Sierra and high desert. We sailplane drivers used to have to keep track of them, because we needed to use them occasionally... usually uninvited but with no other option!

There were several private strips in the Weldon/Isabella/Tehachapi area, including PSK ranch in Bear Valley, one at Caliente years ago, and others I've only heard rumor about. Kelso Valley was always a private strip but I also heard that someone was going in there to make a paved first class thing out of it.

The one up just northwest of Red Rock Canyon, (probably the one you are saying is on Jawbone Cyn rd.) we used to call "Cocaine International Airport" 25 years ago. A good size dirt strip, just right for a Twin Beech or C-47 with a grizzly old bastard flying it over-gross, with absolutely nothing anywhere within miles. When the glider people would be sleeping out at California City, we'd hear the radial engines droning around in the middle of the night and laugh to ourselves. Ain't no other reason to be out there at night unless you're sexually attracted to Mojave Green snakes.

There was/is a strip just north of Koehn dry lake, east side of Red Rock cyn., called Goler Heights. It's behind a berm so you can't see it from Randsburg road... it was also a midnight cargo operation at one time... there was a 182 that blew up in a fireball there, and they reportedly found $100 bills all the way to Barstow.

There was a duster strip in those hay fields just south of Red Rock canyon, across the street from a long-deceased Japanese restaurant called Tokiwa's. Been there, done that in a glider.

Halfway between the California City turnoff and the Inyokern turnoff used to be Robber's Roost airstrip. Robber's Roost was some famous old west hideout in the hills just west of the highway. This would be on hwy 14, 20 miles East of Kelso Valley if I recall. I believe it is overgrown now, possibly not even discernible.

Just north of the Walker Pass highway 178 exit off hwy 14, there was a tungsten mine that had a long narrow strip, reddish brown dirt, literally across the fence from the highway on the mountain side of the road. I stopped in there and met the guy, told him gliders might be coming in if the weather quit, and that our ground crews would always have a 6 pack to trade for landing rights.

Just north of that is Little Lake, which had a private duck hunting strip where I landed a sailplane in a downpour in 1982. The guy came out with a shotgun and two angry dogs, and threatened to bulldoze the glider off the property if my crew didn't get there in an hour. We got my ship out just in time!

Just northwest of that would be the Sacatar / Kennedy Meadows strip, which I never went to, but at one time it was on the sectional chart. That is indeed off 9 mile road, 10 miles west of the road up in the mountains if memory serves. No idea about the status of that

North of 9 mile road, back on Highway 14/Highway 395 is Coso Junction with it's small cinder cone volcano hills. There are 3 or 4 small dry lake beds there that we used to simply call "Cinder Cone". Plenty of room for a decent STOL airplane, but you wouldn't want to send a 210 in there unless the guy knew whet he was doing.

North of that is a tiny little dot on an old map called Dunmovin, which at one time had a strip but now is just a couple of hayfields. The glider guys always used to get a kick out of calling their crews and saying they "may be done movin' at Dunmovin". I suspect that's where the name came from anyway.

North of that, just southwest of Owens Dry Lake, was Olancha airstrip, just behind a Union Oil 76 gas station (now boarded up) right on 395. Olancha was a good strip by remote desert strip standards... wide and two good dirt runways. Landed the AS-W20 there in a contest out of Bishop, after an hour of trying to scratch my way out from 800 feet.

After that, you have Lone Pine airport and the incredible Owens Valley, the Elysian Fields of soaring.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane

BTW, there is an AWESOME website called "abandoned and forgotten airports"
http://www.airfields-freeman.com . What an incredible historic resource for back country pilots and aviation historians! If you a re not aware of this website, you gotta see it!

Tim,

I forgot to get back to you about Joe with the Franklin powered 172. The plane and Joe are still here and doing well. If you ask him about the Franklin you'll get a very interesting story about rebuilding the heads. He's still looking for a hanger so if your ever here it's the 172 parked in front of the restaurant.

Rick

EZflap,

Thanks for the information about the Owens Valley and the 395 area. I've been wanting to go poke around over there for some time. Now I have no excuses thanks to you.

Rick

EZ -

Thanks for the great post, sparking many two decade old memories - I got my PPL out of BUR and one of my big regrets was not spending more time out backcountry aviating in the Mojave desert and surrounding environs.....I boogied out of SoCal for grad school just 1 week after receiving my PPL in 1991 and haven't been back for any extended time that would allow for more exploring. That said, during my undergraduate sentence in the southland, I spent a hell of a lot of time out in and around the areas you mention in your thread in an '83 Toyota 4x4, getting into way more trouble than I should have. I learned some valuable lessons those formative years on trips in/around Olancha, Red Rock Canyon, Kennedy Meadows, etc. I did find the Sacatar airstrip on one trip, plus another up further north out of Kennedy Meadows that appeared to be right south of the Golden Trout Wilderness boundary. Never knew what that one was called, if it was in fact an airstrip. I just remember the windsock and a long straight stretch of dirt strip.

Flynengr

I went by Sacatar Meadows Airport (91CL) up in Kennedy Meadows in July on a motorcycle. The grass was clipped and the runway seemed clear, though I didn't drive it. Beautiful wilderness up there.

To me the ride from US395 up 9 Mile Canyon Rd, over Sherman Pass, across the Kern River and over to Springerville, CA is the best motorcycle run over the Sierras. Unfortunately, the folks at Grumpy Bears must have been on a supply run because I wandered around for about half an hour and no one came by.

Grumpy's is a short walk from the airstrip. You'll see it flying in. I'd call first to be sure they'll be open, assuming Kit Alexander gives you permission to land.

A nice, but more civilized, airport nearby is Lone Pine Airport (O26). It is at 3,680', but 10 miles due east of Mount Whitney (14,497').

qmdv wrote:Met a guy from there that has a 172 with a 220HP Franklin

Tim

Tim that's 172 Heavy I think? If I don't go to RNO I'll be around in Riverside.

If you are headed anywhere near Tehachapi / Kernville, check the TFR's. That neck of the woods has been trying to burn itself down lately and there have been numerous, evolving TFR's. Also note that the FAA's TFR map and/or list may not be accurate. Call FSS.

L94 (Mt Valley) is a gliderport that is friendly to power traffic. There will probably be a pile of gliders launching Sat. around noon for a straight out race. Fun to watch. The restaurant on the field is good as are several eateries within walking distance of Tehachapi Municipal airport.

Cocaine International was unlandable (gullied) as of a year ago. Kelso Valley is huge but private and has some tough to see grading stakes (rebar) near the edges/intersections. Olancha strip is narrow but good. It slopes up to the S. Cinder Cone dry lake is good and it is a fun walk down to fossil falls. Some glider folk put wind socks up at these locales.