Airventure 2024 | Day 1

July 17 | Well, the first day is almost done. The restaurant downstairs opens at 5, but the nice young desk clerk told me the bar is open all day. Did I mention that I’m back in Rawlins, Wyoming?

I had ambitious plans of getting up at five, getting to the airport by six, pulling the 182 out by 6:15, and being away just as the sun rises. That way I could make Wendover for fuel before it became too hot and then push on to Laramie so the next day would be a short hop over that one last mountain range and I would be cruising across the great American Midwest, with all the green and pastures of plenty.

Reality crept in. I didn’t get out as early as I planned, it took a few minutes to get my IFR clearance to poke through the marine layer, and then another fifteen to twenty minutes to get my release because someone had a missed approach at Napa and ATC had to get him on the ground so I wouldn’t run into him.

I got my instrument rating last year with the wonderful people at Mike Smith Aviation in Napa, so I’ve been boldly going IFR for all of about a minute to climb out of the marine layer. I’ll work up to braving real clouds and instrument approaches later. It was IFR over Tahoe with the smoke and cloud, but I wasn’t landing there.

The first part of the flight wasn’t bad, with me at 13,000’ and on my flight plan. ATC wasn’t sure they wanted me to come down at Wendover because a KC-135 was doing touch and goes with a 172 also in the pattern. When they finally released me to land, I had to spiral down to pattern altitude wedge in behind the KC-135. I landed and realized I had a long taxi to the fuel pumps. Wendover was where they trained the B-29 pilots who were to drop the “bombs” on Japan.

It was already close to 90. I just had the engine overhauled and it runs hot anyway because or the friction during the break in period. I took off on that incredibly long, nearly deserted runway and took almost forty minutes to climb back up without overheating and ruining the freshly rebuilt engine and ruining it. It should be well broken in by the time I get back home.

Once I got to Wyoming, the afternoon heat had started creating those beautiful, fluffy clouds. With all those lovely up- and down drafts. After bouncing along for an hour, I decided to cut the misery short and land, once again, in Rawlins. Ray at the airport is a peach of a guy, and the people are nice and friendly, but after landing I was grateful that I live in Sonoma.

Tomorrow is another day. I’ve always been able to get to Brodhead on the second day if I haven’t made and detours, so I’ll be off to dinner, take a nice hot shower, put my earplugs in and crawl into bed.

Let’s see if I can get going a little earlier in the morning.