Here are some stills taken from the air-to-air video we shot yesterday of Geoff Pritchard’s 1930 Fleet Model 2 biplane.
Geoff has been a year and a half in trying to get this airplane imported, certified, mechanically sound and himself checked out and signed off to fly it. He finally soloed on Thursday, Oct 24th. Yesterday, Barry Davis and I flew the Cavalier along side Geoff for about 2 hours as Barry captured some incredible video of the Fleet. These shots are taken from that video.
I`m in the process of producing a documentary about Geoff`s journey with the Fleet and I hope to have it done by early next year. I look forward to screening it for you guys.
Leaving the sandy beaches of San Diego today. We are heading for Las Vegas. There is a cold front coming through producing strong winds. Plans are to get on the ground before it gets to bad. Weather is suppose to go VFR by noon here. We plan to be ready to go by then.
Runways are all north south, north of Las Vegas so an emergency pee stop will not be an option. Good reason to tour Vegas again. Winds are forecasted to be strong again tomorrow but at least we will be flying out of it. They will be out of the north, it will be a slow bumpy ride tomorrow.
Disney from the airHeading to Dana pointOff shore to stay clear of the restricted airspaceFlower fields in CarlsbadSouthern California coast lineSan Diego
We flew out of Fullerton today around noon. We had to make a left turn to 120 on departure and then get in touch with SoCal approach. It wasn’t long they had us resume our own navigation and we went direct to Dana Point, which they were aware of. They approved our cruising altitude of 3500 ft. After Dana Point we turned down the coast. We stayed out over the ocean to be clear of the restricted. It was topped at 2000ft but it felt better staying clear. We switch to many different frequencies for the short 30 min flight. This part of the country has very busy airspace. I have to silence the kids most of the time as it is very important not to miss an instruction.
Once over Carlsbad we got cleared through the Bravo airspace. We made a slight deviation over Carlsbad so my wife could pictures of the flower fields. Approach allowed us to do so. We were soon on an unrestricted descend to a cross on a mountain before inbound to Montgomery . Unfortunately all the looking for the cross had me miss looking at Torrey Pines soaring site. We flew right over it. Some time there is just no time for site seeing.
We landed at Montgomery Field, the service was great. They were beside us before we even got the plane shut down and the rental car was a minute later.
We are here for a few days on the beach before heading north some time mid next week. So far the trip could not be better.
Calgary Recreational Flying Club YYC 