The Breakfast Club
An Affiliate of the
The Knife & Fork
Breakfast Club Travels to
14 Jan 2006
by Warren McIlvoy
The Breakfast
Club inaugurated our 13th year
of monthly event with a fly-in to
After being cleared through the Phoenix Class B Airspace via the west
transition, I dialed-up our "air-to-air flight following"
frequency to check-in with the rest of the gang. It appeared that we were about
the middle of the pack with some folks already passing just west of Marana
Regional. As we progressed further south, I could hear other aircraft
coming-up behind us. The weather was just great and the air was smooth as glass
but there was some haze that seemed to limit visibility to about 35 miles or
so.
As you might have guessed, traffic at Ryan was keeping the controller as
busy as a one-armed paper hanger. At least this time, he was using both 6L and
6R. As luck would have it, we were directed to 6L After
getting clearance to cross 6R, we proceeded along taxiway B2 towards the
restaurant.
Todd's Restaurant is the quintessential airport restaurant. The large
window panes allow for a panoramic view of all of the
ramp activities. The restaurant is too far removed from the runways to see much
of anything going on there but the ramp is plainly visible. All of the seating
is accommodated with booths of various sizes so getting more than 6 persons in
one spot was not going to happen. Although the majority of the Breakfast Club crowd
dominated the eastern half of the dinning area, we still overflowed into the
western half. With all of the available seating area completely occupied,
service was a bit slow, as expected. It was easily 45 minutes before we
received our order which, I guess, made the food just that much more enjoyable.
The food was good and I guess that I should not fault the servers as we were
almost double the number of people that I thought might attend.
My niece Jeanne and her husband Tom along with his father Beryl
were there as they live about four miles east of the airport. It was our
intention to stay for the day but the weather prognosticators said that it was
possible that the afternoon weather would take a turn for the worse. So other
than engaging in "what's new" conversation after breakfast, we
amended our plans to depart before the predicted downturn in the weather would
reach the
It was also in our plans to stop at Phoenix Regional (A39) to top-off
with fuel because it was .75 a gallon cheaper than at DVT. I had not yet been
to Phoenix Regional so I thought that this was a good excuse to
touch-down on a new runway. On the east side of the runway, there is a large,
above ground, fuel storage tank. The tank is separated from the paved ramp area
by about 25-30' of dirt so you must pull out a large quantity of hose and
ground cable to fuel your aircraft. They also provide a 10' tall step ladder, a
bit of overkill I think, to reach the fuel tanks on airplanes that have the
wings in the wrong places. While we were filling our fuel tanks, a Cessna
Caravan taxied-in and parked on the north side of the fuel tank area, this
might explain the 10' step ladder. After departing Phoenix Regional, we
flew in an easterly direction until we were able to contact Phoenix Approach
and we were given the west transition back to Deer Valley Airport. By
the way, the bad weather never did show itself.
The
What's Next?
Our schedule shows Page in February and Kingman in March but the
restaurant in Page is not open during the month of February so we have
switched these to events in order to keep them on our schedule. Please mark
your calendars with these changes. That's all for now but remember, fly safe.
Click on the Tucson/Ryan
link to view photos of this fly-in event.