Breakfast Club
An Affiliate of the Arizona Pilots Assn
The Knife & Fork
Breakfast Club Drops-in On Airport
Pancake Breakfast
20 Jul 2013
By Warren McIlvoy
The July Breakfast Club event offered a little change in
pace in that we flew on the 3rd Saturday as opposed to our
traditional 2nd Saturday and we joined-in on a fly-in pancake
breakfast at the Benson Airport (E95).
Benson is along
I-10 and about 40-miles or so southeast of Tucson
and with that in mind, I chose to fly my “copper
row” route from Deer Valley Airport
in north Phoenix. This route begins at GRINE intersection (north of Saguaro Lake)
that is just outside the Phoenix Class
Bravo airspace. At 7500’, you cruise
along the moderate mountain ridges that make-up the western edge of the Gila River Valley
and historic copper mining towns of Superior, Kearny, and Winkelman. A little further south, we come across
another of the mining towns, San Manuel
that also was the site of a large copper smelter. To the east are the Sulphur Springs and Winchester Mountains
that, more or less end just west of Wilcox.
Southwestern Aviation has taken airport management to a whole new
level. Roy
has been proactive in promoting the airport and aviation by sponsoring his “can’t pass gas” pancake breakfasts on
the 3rd Saturday of each and every month. And if a free breakfast isn’t enough to pique
your interest, how about a fuel discount just for attending. Roy
also has “airport limos” available for
trips into town that feature a 1955 Dodge Lancer. It is not often that you get to see someone
who is really enthusiastic about promoting an airport and aviation in general
in this day and age.
Although folks come and go as these pancake events go, I
guess that there were somewhere around 35-40 people there including the Breakfast Club
gang. There were a few tables in the
area of the grill where (I am guessing) that members of his family were fixen the pancakes and sausage. There were more tables in the parking area at
the bottom of the hill below the “terminal building”.
Since Benson is only about an hour’s flight from the Phoenix area, I would
like to see the Breakfast
Club make this an annual fly-in event. Roy is a real
breath of fresh air in the aviation industry and I would like to see him
succeed in his endeavor in Benson. Great
job Roy.
The Benson Crew
- Warren & Jeri-Ann
McIlvoy with Paul Fortune in 93MB, BC-1, 1.5, and BC-201
- Glen Yoder, Rivera Santos, and Peete
Duran in 31TC, BC-007
- Austin
Goodwin and Trent
Heidtke, BC-317 and BC-32
- Jim
Carter and
Larry Jensen in 14LJ, BC-65
- Dewey Harnegel, Jim
Little, and Rich Agoirre in 6028X
What’s Next?
August will see the Breakfast Club
make a switch in the schedule and head up to White Mountain Lakes
(21AZ) and a cook-out supplied by Dr
Dana Myatt and Mark Ziemann, R.N. They have done
cook-outs at several of our fly-in both at this airport and over at Taylor. They do such an outstanding job putting on
these events that we usually have a very good turn-out. September will see the Breakfast Club spending the
weekend at the south rim of the Grand Canyon with breakfast at the El Tovar Hotel. This should be a great weekend at the
Canyon. That’s all for now but remember,
fly safe.
To view photos of this event, just click on Benson
Event