The following story is submitted by Royal Stewart. Royal is my flying buddy from Didsbury, and many know Royal as the fellow pilot who flew to northwestern Ontario with me.

Royal and I flew together to Kenora Ontario where a mutual friend has a cabin on Granite Lake. Paul has a Carbon Cub on floats in the summer and flies it on Wheels to Arizona, his winter home. Recently Royal and Paul flew to the Catus FlyIn at Casa Grande AZ, the airport is just down the road from me, but things have been so busy at my home that I did not get a chance to go.

I had the opportunity to go to the cactus desert fly-in at Casa Grande today. Paul and I left Falcon Field Airport at 8 a.m. in his Carbon Cub and joined up with two other friends. Phil Jossi in his new 180 horsepower American scout and Arnold Overland in his 310 horsepower King Katmai Cessna 182.

We started the event by going to a clinic on Backcountry flying and overnight camping. They gave us a list of essentials and luxuries to take, and of course some advice on weight and balance. There are a lot of remote strips in the desert mountains that are great places to fly in to and camp out. Two of the spots they were recommending Paul, and I had previously flown into. One is called Red Creek, and one is called Grapevine. We then spent the next two hours walking up and down the static line.

Many beautiful vintage planes and several warbirds flew in from Falcon Field.

I had to take a picture of a beautiful 195 for Brian’s sake.

Three young Pilots from Falcon Field gave some formation flying in vintage J-3 Cubs. A pleasure to watch. We talked with these young enthusiastic Pilots. One young man was only 16 years old.

After lunch at the airport Paul suggested we go fly in the desert. He knew of a spot to the Southeast of Casa Grande where there were some places smooth enough to land in the desert. Paul and I led the way. We wanted to keep together since the other two did not know where the strip was.

It was a bit of a challenge to take off together as there were a lot of planes coming and going but we managed a window of opportunity and took off together. We switched to an in-flight frequency after we cleared airspace and Paul led the way.

Paul and I went in first to check out the landing spot which had some fairly sizable ruts from a recent rainstorm. Meanwhile we had lost site of the King Katmai. Phil did some circling around in his Scout and was able to pick them up a few miles to the south of us and called them back.

Paul gave a running commentary on the condition of the runway on our second go around as we landed. We pulled off the side amongst the bushes and the other two planes came in safely following our fresh tracks in the sand. We spent a half hour reminiscing and enjoying the beautiful day and the desert scenery.

We then said our goodbyes and Paul asked me if I would you like to do some more flying to which I quickly replied of course! So, we headed north scouted around a military shooting range and headed up into the superstitions to check out some past and future ATV trails that we want to explore. Now about mid-afternoon it was becoming quite turbulent flying in the mountains, so we decided to head back to Falcon Field. After tucking the carbon Cub away in Paul’s hanger, we celebrated with a shamrock milkshake at McDonald’s and then headed home. Another great day of flying in the desert.

Royal Stewart