The Breakfast Club

The Knife & Fork




Breakfast Club Travels to Tucson, Ryan, Visits Todds Restaurant





14 Jan 2006
by Warren McIlvoy

The Breakfast Club inaugurated our 13th year of monthly event with a fly-in to Tucson, Ryan (RYN). By any and all standards, this event was a rousing success. When I called Todd's Restaurant earlier in the week, I told them that we might have about 25 persons attending this event. I had absolutely no idea that we would have 43 persons in attendance. That number puts this event in the top three for attendance and severely taxed the capability of the restaurant staff to cope with this sudden influx of starving pilots and passengers.

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 Phoenix area.

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 Tucson, Ryan Bunch (literally)


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.

The view the photos from Ryan, just click on this link to take you to my Kodak Easy Share page. If you see a photo that you cannot possibly live without, you can order one from that site.