The Breakfast Club
An Affiliate of The Arizona Pilots Assn.

The Knife & Fork

Breakfast Club Visits Kingman, Airport Cafe




12 Jan 08
by Warren McIlvoy
The January fly-in event for the Breakfast Club, marked the beginning of the 15th year of fly-in activities. Kingman was our destination and, as such, is becoming a favorite of the fly-in breakfast community. The fact that the Airport Café serves-up a "mean" and ample breakfast, has not gone unnoticed in the aviation brotherhood.

The geography between the Phoenix and Kingman locals offers a wide variety of geographic theaters. There are some reasonably good sized mountain ranges separated by broad valleys along this route. Just enough of each to keep the casual sightseer busy for the hour and 10-minute flight. On top of what is commonly known as Yarnell Hill are the small metropolises of Yarnell and Peeples Valley. A little further down the "road" is the mining town of Bagdad and its large, open-pit copper mine that is adjacent to the Upper Burro Creek Wilderness Area. Between the Aquarius and Haulapai Mountains, lies an unnamed valley where the quaint little town of Wikieup if found. On the direct route, one would just skirt the northern reaches of the Haulapai's and a slight turn to the west would take you right to the Kingman Airport. Today though, in order to mitigate the effects of the rather energetic head winds at 8500', we choose to circumvent the higher terrain with a more southerly route that would take us up the Sacramento Valley at a lower altitude that negated most of the headwinds. In this instance, we would approach the airport from the south. Traffic was using runway three so we made a rather wide upwind approach so that we could make a right turn into the left downwind approach to the runway.

After securing our aircraft, we crossed the ramp and entered the terminal building and the Airport Café. The 35-members of the Breakfast Club took all but three of the available tables that were indoors. If the weather had been a  bit warmer, we had planed to use the patio but it was a tad bit too chilly for our thin blood. The café was a typical airport eatery with a number of aviation related pictures on the walls but nothing really outstanding. What the café may have lacked in atmosphere, it more that made-up for it in breakfast. I had the chicken fried steak and eggs with hash browns that completely covered the plate. The portions were 747-sized and tasty to boot and another surprise was that the prices were more like the size of a C-152.

Here are some interesting little known facts about Kingman:

Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a Naval officer in the service of the U.S. Army Topographical Corps, was ordered by the War Department to build a government-funded wagon road across the 35th Parallel. His secondary orders were to test the feasibility of the use of camels as pack animals in the southwestern desert. Beale traveled through the present day Kingman in 1857 surveying the road and in 1859 to build the road. The road became part of U.S. Route 66 and Interstate 40.

Kingman, Arizona, was founded in 1882. Situated in the scenic Haulapai Valley between the Cerbat and Haulapai mountain ranges, it is known for its very modest beginnings as a simple railroad siding near Beale's Springs in the Middleton Section along the newly-constructed route of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. The city of Kingman was named after Lewis Kingman who surveyed along the Atlantic and Pacific right of way between Needles and Albuquerque. Lewis Kingman supervised the building of the railroad from Winslow to Beale's Springs, which is near the present location of the city of Kingman

Kingman is a transportation center along the I-40 corridor, as well as for U.S. Highway 93, Route

66, and the rail line of the BNSF Railway. It serves as the southeastern gateway to the resorts of Laughlin, Nevada and Las Vegas, Nevada. Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides daily service to Kingman, operating its Southwest Chief between Chicago and Los Angeles.

Kingman has been featured as a filming location for the movies Roadhouse 66, scenes from Universal Soldier (Crazy Fred's Truckstop and a destroyed gas station on Route 66) and Two-Lane Blacktop. In addition the first contact scene in the movie "Mars Attacks" was filmed at nearby Red Lake.

According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Jean Claude Van Damme received a speeding ticket on I-40 during the filming of Universal Soldier.

In "Otis", an episode of the television series Prison Break, LJ Burrows is sent to an adult facility in Kingman, Arizona. In a subsequent episode "Buried", LJ is released from the aforementioned facility.

The town is mentioned in the lyrics to the song "Route 66".

The Wendy's scene in the movie Zoom was also filmed in Kingman.

Pamela Anderson also did one of her 1992 Playboy photo shoots at the corner of 4th Street and Andy Devine Avenue (Route 66), and was brought into the Kingman Police Department for indecent exposure. She was not charged but asked to write a letter of apology.

And you thought that Kingman was an insignificant small town!

After our tasty breakfast meal, I got some photos of the Breakfast Club throng and, just a tad later, some ramp photos of some of the Breakfast Club aircraft. On our ride home, we took the "direct" route at 7500' to take advantage of the tail wind. In either direction, the ride was smooth as glass.

The Kingman Gathering


What's Next?

Our February event will see us return to Benson, Arizona and the Apple Farm Café. March will see us traveling to a totally new destination, Gallup, New Mexico and I believe that the restaurant is Miki's That's all for now but remember, fly safe.

Click on the Kingman link to view photos from this fly-in event.

D