Breakfast Club
An Affiliate of the
The Knife & Fork
Breakfast Club Visits
17 Apr 2010
by Warren McIlvoy
If one were to ponder about flying to a unique
and seldom mentioned fly-in destination, one could only think of Bagdad (not
Baghdad), Arizona. It has been quite a while since our last visit some
time during the mid 1990's. I had an old business card from our tour guide at
the last fly-in but I was not sure that any of the phone numbers were still
current. With a little trepidation, I called the listed number and behold, some
one responded. I related to him about our fly-in group and that we would like
to revisit
The morning of our fly-in arrived with outstanding flying weather with little
to no wind and skies clear enough to see all the way to the middle of nowhere.
Our direct course would take us between Yarnell
and
As expected, there was no other traffic in the pattern and I was the first to
arrive. After landing on runway 5, I rolled-out to the ramp exit that is about
2/3's of the way down the 4600' runway. After parking, I notice that the
altimeter was spot on the airport altitude so the 30.09 setting was a good
choice. I secured the airplane and grabbed my hand held radio and took on the
roll of "
Before the last of the aircraft had arrived, Bob and his
"fleet" of vans appeared on the scene for the short ride to our
morning destination for breakfast. In all, we had 32 people show-up for the
event which helped to make the vans a little less cramped.
It only took a few minutes to arrive at the Circle Bar Steakhouse where Bob
had arranged for a buffet style breakfast. The Circle Bar does not
normally serve breakfast so we had the place all to ourselves. They had
arranged two long tables with seating on both sides and the table with the
important items was right behind us. The folks at the Circle Bar
fixed-up a heaping helping of scrambled eggs, sausage patties, bacon, biscuits
& gravy, hash browns, coffee and orange juice, and a fresh fruit tray. The Circle
Bar folks did well for a restaurant that does not ordinarily serve
breakfast.
Here is a snippet of history regarding Bagdad:
"
In 1927 the Bagdad Copper Company began operation. The beginning of the Great
Depression in 1929, slowed but did not stop their
efforts. The company managed to continue development through the 1930's and, in
1941 received a government loan that enabled them to add new equipment. Since
the low grade ore made underground mining unprofitable, General Manager, Ernest
R. Dickie, began converting to an open pit operation.
Dickie used large trucks for haulage, and
When we visited
The City of
On our earlier tour, we viewed the mine more or less from the top that included
a stop at the primary crusher, a drive over the leach field, a
walk through the Electrowinning plant, and a
walk through the concentrator. This time however, we actually went down
into the pit itself and stopped at an overview where we got a pretty good
panoramic view of the entire operation. The primary is no longer on the tour as
it was now near the lower part of the pit making access for a tour impractical.
We did go to the Electrowinning plant
but we did not walk along the tanks or enter the building where the cathodes
are used to collect the copper particles. We did do an extensive tour of the maintenance
building where the huge ore haulers are serviced. To see the huge machines
in pictures is one thing but to stand next to them is a different story. Even
the front loaders dwarf anything that you might have seen on a construction
site. It is almost mind numbing to try to comprehend the shear size of the
equipment that is used in a typical mine operation. From the maintenance
building, we drove over to the concentrator but did not walk through it.
The Ball Mill that is part of the concentrator consists of a series of
huge rotatingdrums that are approximately 18-20' in
diameter that is constantly being fed the raw ore. As the drum rotates, the ore
is pounded by steel balls and as the ore is broken into smaller bites, it is
fed into yet another drum where the process continues. After the ore leaves the
last of the ball mills, it is then fed into a series of huge tanks that
processes the ore into what is called "copper concentrate".
We were informed that at this point, the concentrate is about 30-35% copper.
From this point on, the copper concentrate is trucked to the smelter in
Although the tour was abbreviated somewhat from our earlier tours, it was still
fascinating to see close-up the world of open pit copper mining. One little
side note is that our tour guides were of one family. Bob
Delgado's daughter, who works at the mine in the IT department, and her
uncle. It just seems like you just can't get the "family" out
of the mining business.
The
What's Next?
Our May event will be an over-night event to
To view photos of the Bagdad event, click on the link below.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=ciigunav.8a8ir5rf&x=0&y=-wjpg51&localeid=en_US