NickG

I completely agree with this. I have been doing a fair amount of X-C flying in the last month or so, including two round trips from Las Vegas to Houston. The max i can handle is about a 4.5 hour leg although I prefer to break the flight up into 2 x 3 hour legs. I fly an Ovation 3 so I'm flying between 11k and 16k so have cannula stuffed in nostrils. I couldn't imagine regularly flying the OP's mission - I think Turbine (although still a long flight) or commercial with a nice bird situated locally for use would be ideal.

Come and land in Las Vegas ( VGT, LAS, HND ) during a “special event”. Fees for light aircraft (up to 6k#) $750 up to $5000. They want to raise it to $10,000 for the top tier over the next 5 years.

I’m the AOPA AVN at KHND in Las Vegas. Unfortunately Las Vegas and the Clark County Dept of Airports have been the pioneers in the completely unreasonable “Special Event Fees”. AOPA is very active in fighting all of these attempts to squeeze GA.

I'm definitely going to make fire/smoke ID a part of my preflight planning, especially when flying in and out of California. The final leg of my flight will be Saturday when my friend will fly me down to KIFP to pick up the beloved O so I can fly it home to HND and a WASH (lol).

Yes. Agree. I didn't have the full picture of how large the fire was.

Yes, it is.

I have the paper filter.

Thanks - I consider myself a careful planner and quite conservative. This was my first foray into something this big. In retrospect, I also think I was suffering a small dose of get there itis combined with concern about the howling winds throughout Las Vegas on my arrival (which didn't happen due to the diversion). I've been told by another pilot that flew the area that the smoke tops were at 22k. and I would have had to make a multi hour detour to fly around it. I probably should have just kept the plane at Hawthorne and hopped on a Southwest to get home. Come back a couple days later and pick up the O. Luckily, nothing other than a dry throat and a dirty plane to serve as a reminder (although my buddy will fly me back to IFP on Saturday to pick up the plane). The outcome could definitely have been worse.

I spoke with my A&P today. He said that wildfire ash is generally not abrasive (a la volcanic ash). He said occasional flight through this will not cause any damage. However, he said I should blow out the induction air filter. Now I've got to figure out how to do that!

By the time I asked, the shortest route out was the one I was on. I had no idea the smoke area was that large or that high. I need to go back and see what I missed on the Leidos brief. As I mentioned, there had to be a better way to fly it than what I ended up doing. I may need to go back and re-examine how I look at weather briefs. I'm usually overly conservative, but this was a mistake. Luckily made it through ok. Plane will be ok (I'll need to clean out induction air filter).

Honestly, in retrospect, I should have diverted sooner. By the time I asked for a higher altitude, I would have been out of it before reaching the top. Probably not my finest example of ADM.

Up to 18 or so according to ATC

Flew IFR back to Vegas yesterday from Hawthorne. Route took me right through the smoke from the fires. Zero vis and thick smoke for nearly an hour. Finally cleared around GOFS, but but my head was pounding (despite being on O2) and I started feeling bad. Diverted to KIFP. Pictures speak for themselves. Plane covered in ash. Wife had to drive 1 1/2 hrs to pick me up. Luckily, a friend will fly me back to IFP on Saturday to pick up the O.

Yup. I’m in an open tie down at HND. 6 year wait for a shade hangar, I’m a couple of years in. They need to build more but they won’t because all of that juicy Fed coin is going into an FBO update and other amenities designed to please the Bizjet crowd. They won’t even put a restroom by the south ramp for the GA tenants. Have to walk nearly a mile to the FBO or use a small toilet by the hangars (still not close) that has been out of order for a month. BTW, I’m the AOPA volunteer at HND so I am planning on making management’s life a little more uncomfortable…

I fly out of Las Vegas. The heat is insufferable. I plan as many XC as possible because local flying is awful. Heat, bad turbulence and loads of pop up thunderstorms and then howling winds. On the other hand, my Ovation loves me because of the long XC’s (two trip to Texas, and back in the last 3 weeks). Despite the heat, I’ve managed to rack up nearly 90 hours since I bought the Ovation end of May. I wish I could get a hangar but that’s not really realistic at Henderson. I fly quite a bit to LA and back (1hr 20 or so each way) and the Southern Cal weather is spectacular for flying when compared to Vegas. However, I lived in SoCal for 30+ years and the cost and traffic is a compelling reason not to move back!

Wow,, thanks for the advice. It seems easy. How would I account for the removal of a front seat on the WB calcs….

Does anyone know how easy or hard it is to remove the front right seat in the Ovation? I want to try a configuration with the right seat removed then my wife and dogs could sit in the back for long trips.

I've always heard that Florida has the most GA?

As the State with the highest GDP in the Country (in fact would be the world's 5th largest economy if it were its own country) this is the sort of thing that will spur action nationally. Maybe we will see some accepted UL standard alignment amongst the engine manufacturers, Aircraft manufacturers and the FAA and finally a new, universally approved UL fuel for everyone. Of course, then the NIMBY'S will have to find another excuse to shut down our GA airports... maybe we'll just come back to noise?

I appreciate the purists who want to fly a classic plane, home built or project equipped with state of the art 1938 avionics. Like the classic car caravans/rally’s where 100 model T’s or similar drive the coast road or the freeway for their club. Thing is, when they do that, the road is generally closed or they have police escorts so people in 2024 Chargers don’t run them off the road. The NAS system has become so crazy and congested since I got my PPL in 1986. If you’re NORDO, stay away from busy areas or busy patterns. Yes, it’s your right and the regs say you can do it, but should you? Oh, and by the way, most likely you’ll be following every procedure in the book properly but some newly minted cowboy in a CIrrus who doesn’t know that he’s supposed to look outside the plane will descend on top of you. While it’s true there have not been many MACs due to NORDO, the crash a year or so ago in Winterhaven was a very sad example. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2023/march/08/fatal-florida-midair-leaves-many-mourning

Actually, she was the one with the attitude. Controller asked her numerous times what she meant/wanted. She kept saying "box climb over the airport" - this was a request she was making during her IFR readback. Keep in mind, this was Labor Day and HND was super busy with all the bizjet folks going home after a long weekend of drunken debauchery. People were waiting for nearly 45 mins for their clearances. She wasn't getting a VCOA in CAVU regardless of how she asked.

The other possibility of course is that she is a PPL with no IR trying to pick up an IFR. That's actually more likely, the more I think about it.

I believe you are correct. I think she needed more training

Those Aithre products look awesome. Just not sure where I’d mount that thing. Looks like it needs to be adjusted by that knob while in flight for altitude, so I couldn’t have it mounted it the baggage area as I’m not Stretch Armstrong. I’m very interested in the Inogen, as my ox saturation isn’t great above 8k and I find myself using my O2 quite a lot, and I do a lot of XC at 10k-16k

Here’s a funny one. At KHND today a pilot in a C172 (I’m assuming student?) was reading back an IFR clearance and kept saying “radio vectors”, She was corrected numerous times and then she asked if she could make a “box climb over the airport”. Controller asked her 3 or four times what that was, and she kept repeating it getting more and more irritated with the controller. Finally the controller just said “clearance denied”. That’s a first.