Went flying with General Chuck Yeager last week. I wanted to check out Placerville airport. From its publicity – sounds like a nightmare to land and take-off.
My instructor from a few years ago told me to go shoot some touch and go’s – confident I could do it.
I figured I could check it out and didn’t have to do any landings if I felt uncomfortable, had enough fuel to go there and back a few times.
I need a refresher on the GPS in that airplane though. I don’t mind – I fly VFR and I like doing dead reckoning (eyeballing the landmarks to find your way) – what if the GPS went out.
They’re taking out the VOR system with which I don’t agree. Yes, we have GPS which is more accurate but what if someone shoots all the satellites out of the sky – or they all fail? Why not have a different back-up system that is already in place.
It reminds me of Los Angeles. I’m told they had one of the best public transport systems – rails all over the city.
When cars came into being, in the early 20th century, they ripped up the rails to make way for cars. To get that land back, to put down the rails again is prohibitive cash-wise. Even in the late 80’s maybe early 90’s, you could see remnants on Santa Monica Blvd. But they still hadn’t learned – they ripped those up too and appropriated the land for cars.
Anyway, I digress. We headed toward Placerville on an adventure!
The GPS kept our airplane in one spot so it was hard to tell if we were heading in the right direction. I also thought it was closer to Auburn.
We looked at different landmarks on the way to negotiate our path. Beautiful area.
General Yeager of course saw Placerville Airport before I did. And I saw it from pretty far away! But I didn’t believe it was Placerville because it didn’t look so difficult as its press made it out to be.
Then again, I learned at Nevada County Airport about which the little black book says: Not recommended for student solo flight. And I did do my solo flights there!
I got on downwind and asked Gen Yeager what he thought about my landing there. It was a bit hot and there was no sign of a restaurant or deli. My interest in Placerville was also it had a great restaurant in town – check out the book “$100 Hamburger”. The restaurant would send a shuttle to pick you up (and take you back after your meal). We weren’t planning on going to the restaurant that day – just doing a recce.
General Yeager said: No, it’s better practice at Nevada County. But do what you want to.
Well, I had to agree with him – Nevada County has a canyon on one end of the runway, trees, steel posts closer to the runway to warn you there are big trees – I guess in case you can’t see the trees.
But as General Yeager asked me one time: Would you rather land in trees or hit a steel post?
Well since I knew that on their first date Bob and Colleen Hoover went flying and ended up in a tree and that didn’t deter her from marrying him, I picked “trees”. (The farmer, whose trees were now ruined, came out with a pitchfork and wasn’t too happy).
I thought about landing but decided General Yeager was right. We headed back. We could see Folsom Lake so pointed north/northeast of that.
We got to Nevada County – a bit windy. I longed for Placerville which had had no wind!
The first landing – wow what a float. Gen Yeager did that shift in his seat thing that experienced pilots do when another is landing and he might have to take over.
We floated. We started to land, we ballooned. I thought we had enough lift to just land and seemed to….but suddenly the lift dropped out so I put on a little power but we still did a clunky landing (clunky for me).
Gen Yeager breathed again.
And we took off.
We came around again – junky winds but again we got down okay. Took off.
And the last time around I was grateful. Did I say the winds were junky? So I certainly wasn’t greasing it on near the near end of the runway!
We came in on final. As we got close, we got pushed around a little. We eventually landed and headed in.
After I had shut the plane down, I remarked that those were definitely not my best landings.
General Yeager said: It’s funny.
And then hesitated to see if I was ready to hear a critique. I was ready – plane was secured.
Gen Y: You tend to land on the left side of the center line. Concentrate and stay in the center.
He’s quite right – and I told him so.
I once did an advanced eye test. Very few people actually see the center line where it is. Very few see horizontal or vertical lines where they are. I see horizontal lines where they are but vertical lines – I place them to the left. Hence in trying to stay on it, I go left a little.
But also, usually you are supposed to stay within the lines – so I think if they had two lines between which I was supposed to land, I’d do very well 
I sure love flying with Gen Yeager!
c. GCYI