Sedona!

Ages ago, I was a young pilot with a freshly minted license. There was a gentlemen at my home airport with all manner of tangible and intangible aviation things. He had a multi engine airline transport license, he had a delivery position on a jet, he had a T-6 WWII trainer that I'd give up body parts to fly and he had a huge number of experiences flying places that I'd only dream of ever going. This type of pilot is very prevalent around the airport: Storied, well heeled and not shy about telling you. I'm probably sliding into that role these days... But anyway, Sedona came up in discussion one time. He warned, if you ever go there, be sure you're on your game, its a dangerous airport, all kinds of optical illusions, vicious turbulence, sink off the end of the runway not even a Navy Fighter could out climb. As I quietly listened, his words faded from my attention and I thought I've got as much of a chance of landing at Sedona as landing on the moon... I'm an east coaster, I don't have a plane, no hours, no Airline Transport ticket... Well sometimes I'm cheerfully wrong. This trip proved it.

Wife and I went to Sedona for the weekend. Wife is a new and wonderful addition to the mix since the last installment of this blog and she has been an all too willing participant in the riding around in a home-built plane business. Most people look at the plane and ask if it's remote control whereas she asked for a ride, and the rest is history. She's also taking flying lessons these days. I'm a little concerned that the disappearance of the "ignorance is bliss mentality" may wear off a bit of the impeccable pilot in shining armor sheen and expose me to a bit of doubt in my intrepid piloting... but these are risks I'm willing to take.

Anyway, back to the trip. Sedona's airport sits up on top of a mesa that is about 500 feet above the surrounding terrain. The problem for many pilots is that you think that you are higher than you actually are because you naturally judge your height from the terrain around you as opposed to the airport elevation hundreds (or sometimes thousands) of yards ahead. So Sedona does have a bit of a legendary air to it. That isn't even considering the "vortexes" that some of questionable scientific background seem to think surround the place. The landing was a bit of a non event. Landings after sitting still for a few hours can be less than picture perfect and this was no exception, even still I think I managed a perfectly fine arrival. I didn't think that the approach was all that different. I guess going from 45 hrs total time to 1800 total time changes your skills and perspective. Either way it was a non event. The scenery while meandering around to land was magnificent: Red Rocks everywhere, towering in columns over us as we maneuvered for our arrival.

Once inside the airport building, not a shack like most, this place was legit, I saw that they had hats for sale reading CV-3-21, making a reference to the airport being like an aircraft carrier and the two runway opposing directions of 3 (30 degrees magnetic) and 21 (210 degrees) magnetic. I didn't buy one.

This was the middle of the winter in Sedona but still this is Arizona, they don't actually have winter do they? Well it turns out they do... We went on a hike with the goal of summiting Mt Wilson but only made it to the bench about an hour short of the summit. Our reason was pretty legit: Snow and lots of it. The ground was soaked as well, after getting to the bench it was a slip slide mud fest. We saw three women on their way down and they were covered in mud and much better equipped with hiking boots whereas I just had on my 5-finger running shoes... poor decision. So we headed back down.

As it turns out Sedona was having a film festival and we managed to catch an excellent thriller type film that turned out to be way better than we were expecting. Independent films get a thumbs up from us.

The town was a bizarre mix of incredibly wealthy and incredibly earthy hippies. Not sure how that mix comes together but it does in Sedona.

Ah, Sedona.