The Breakfast Club
An Affiliate of the
The Knife &
Fork
Breakfast Club Visits Prescott/Susie’s
Skyway Café
21 July 2012
by
In keeping with a relatively late Breakfast Club tradition of trying
to keep the mid summer destinations to places that are one hour or less in
flying time, the Breakfast Club dropped-in on cooler
From Deer Valley Airport, I can more or less follow I-17 northward at about 6500’ to a point just to the north of Cordes Junction before turning towards Prescott. The only downside is that you can not receive the ATIS information due to the high terrain of the Bradshaw Mountains but you can hear some of the transmissions from other aircraft in the area that are already talking to Prescott Tower. This little snippet of information will offer some idea of what is going on regarding the runway in use.
At about 12-miles out or somewhere between Humbolt and Prescott Valley, I called the tower to get arrival instructions. As is usually the case when arriving from the southeast, the tower will give you a transponder code in order to positively identify you and to fit you into the pattern with other arriving traffic. As is usually the case, they were using runway 21L. As I neared the airport, the tower inquired as to where I was parking and I responded that I was going to the restaurant. To my surprise, the tower switched me to runway 21R. In the thirty years that I have been flying into the airport, I have never landed on 21R so today would be a first for me. After landing on the narrower and shorter runway, I was not exactly sure if I should turn left or right to access one of the taxiways but just before arriving at the first runway exit at Alpha 2, the tower instructed me to turn right on A2 and contact Ground.
Ground instructed me to turn left on Alpha taxiway and to continue to B3. For some reason the ground controller must have known that I was not familiar with this route to the terminal so as I arrived at the first intersection, they said to continue straight ahead on B3 to Charlie Taxiway. Charlie taxiway is the taxiway that is on the right side of runway 21L and by now I was in more familiar location. Ground instructed me to turn right and cleared to cross runway 12/30. As I began to cross 12/30, I noticed that Charlie Taxiway was blocked-off just past the terminal and blocked to way to the transient parking where we would normally park. I asked Ground where transients were parking today and they responded by instructing me to turn right on Echo and to park on the ramp that is just to the west of the terminal.
As I was parking the airplane, I could hear a few other Breakfast Club aircraft talking to Ground and heading my way. I noticed that there were a few familiar Breakfast Club aircraft already tied-down so I waited for the rest of the gang to arrive. After everyone had arrived, we exited the ramp gate and headed to the restaurant.
Susie’s Skyway Care has always been one of those quintessential airport restaurants that, even if you went in blindfolded, and then suddenly your blindfold was removed, you would know that you were in the midst of something aviation. The walls are lined with photos of airplanes or aviators and the ceiling is populated with countless plastic models of just about every kind of airplane. The food is good enough for the starving aviator in search of the “$300 ham and eggs” but the fare for the meal is a considerably more reasonable.
The seating there has always been a bit cramped so the Breakfast Club
gang was scattered about at various tables but generally in the same area. The view out the windows affords a portion of
the ramp where the commuter airlines park and also some of the runway activity. Anyone departing 21R will fly directly over the
terminal building so at times
If there is one thing that, I believe, needs addressing is,
the rather dated and well worn condition of the terminal building. I don’t know for sure but I believe that it
was constructed some in the 1950’s and it shows it. The restaurant is in dire need of replacement
as it is too small for the amount of people that visit the place on a regular
basis. I have been coming to
If landing on 21R was not enough of a new experience, then our departure was just the frosting on the cake. The wind has shifted around to the southeast thus making runway 12 the runway of choice. From the restaurant parking, taxiway Echo was right in front of us with the arrival end just a short taxi to our left. In all those years that I have been coming here, this is the 3rd time that I have used runway 12.
The
What’s Next?
For our August Breakfast Club event, we will be taking a short
flight to
To view photos of the