The Breakfast Club
An Affiliate of the
The Knife & Fork
Breakfast Club Visits Nogales, Angie’s
Cafe
9 Aug 2003
by Warren McIlvoy
Last month, the Breakfast
Club went north, or more exactly,
northeast, for what was supposed to be cooler weather. That is not precisely
what we got. It was more of the heat that we normally get here in the valley.
This month, we went south to get away from the oppressive heat. Ordinarily, in
Heading south out of Scottsdale, you can almost
always count-on getting the "west transition" but today we got the
"east transition" and once south of South Mountain, we "resumed
navigation" directly towards Nogales. Once outside the Class B airspace, I
tuned-in our air-to-air frequency to see who was going south with us this
morning. The first voice to respond was one that I have not heard for almost
two years. Don Downin, aka BC-10,
spoke-up with the morning's greetings. For those new to the Breakfast Club
circuit, Don has a pristine, Cherokee 140 with a 160 hp conversion, and
it is all polished aluminum with red accent stripping. His aircraft has been
featured in several aviation magazines and he has also won numerous awards for
his efforts. It was sure pleasurable to hear an old, familiar voice. There was
also some other frequent voices on the line as well as some that I had never
heard before. From their position reports, I thought that I would be the last
to arrive at
After passing Picacho
Peak to the west, I came abeam Pinal County Airpark that has evolved
into a vast storage facility for aging airliners and other lest efficient
aircraft. I believe that there is a company there that does retrofitting and
refurbishing of many of these aircraft that eventually find their way to
upstart and small foreign carriers. It has been rumored that back in the 60's
and 70's, that there was an outfitter there that was a cover for the CIA and
was involved in what could best be described as a skunk works. Just a tad to
the south and well off our left wing, lies Marana Northwest Regional
formerly known as Avra Valley. A little
further south, the
We are now about 20 miles northwest of the airport and as we listen-in on the
traffic calls, I can determine that there is one other aircraft ahead of me,
one in the pattern doing touch and goes, and another aircraft approaching from
the west. As I cross midfield, a bright red, low wing aircraft passes in front
of me about a 1 or so out but is a bit faster than I am. I gave him a call to
let him know that I would follow him in. The terrain north of the airport rises
perceptibly and poses an odd illution as you descend
on left downwind for 21. By now, most of the other Breakfast Club
aircraft have landed and tied down so we parked in one of the few remaining
slots well to the south of the terminal building. There were still a couple of
spaces open and I directed the late arriving aircraft to those spaces.
Angies Café is to your
right as you enter the terminal building and is separated from the terminal lobby
only by a low, wooden divider. The seating is all table and chairs and they
were all filled as I walked in. I and a few other Breakfast Club folks
commandeered a couple of tables and a number of chairs from the lobby and set
them up along the divider. This is kind of an "out of the way" place
so the crowd in the restaurant was a bit surprising. You place your order at a
walk-up window at one end of the restaurant and the coffee and hardware is
located adjacent to this window. I asked one of the folks behind the window
about the sudden crowd aside from the Breakfast
Club folks. He said that the restaurant at
Ryan was closed again and a group that stopped there, decided to make
the short to
An amiable gent by the name of
Larry Tiffen manages the airport, operates a
flight school there, and co-manages the restaurant with his wife although I did
not see her there. Though the service was a bit slow, it did however, allow me
some time to visit with a few of the other tables to greet many of the Breakfast Club folks
and to welcome some new folks. I stopped at the table with Don Downin and met a few of the other folks that Don had
invited to come down here with him. A number of the folks opted to make an
early return back to the valley but I wanted to walk the ramp to drool over
some of the beautifully restored aircraft that came down with us. Alan Dicker
is the proud owner of two beautifully restored, his and hers, Swifts;
his red one was here today. Dale Herseth had
his polished aluminum Cherokee 140 here and it looked remarkably a lot like
Don's. And next to Dale's 140, was Don's gleaming, "Silver Eagle" Cherokee 140. Both of them glistened in the bright
sunshine. The mirror like finishes of both aircraft reflected the suns rays to
the point that they could cause radiation burns if you
stood to close to them. Don wanted to take some pictures of what was left of
the group using the 140's as a back-drop and then we walked down the ramp to
our aircraft to repeat the process. As Don a I were
talking, he stated that he only flew about 4 hours last year. He also
articulated that hew spent about 60-70 hours polishing the Silver Eagle. I
asked him if he noticed anything wrong with that equation? He said that at
times, he has been tempted to paint the Silver
Eagle but then he suddenly came to his
senses. He further stated that he is very proud of the Silver Eagle but
added that he would never do it again.
As many of us were still lingering out on the
ramp, some one remarked about how green the hills were in the area. This part
of the state had gotten a lot of much needed rain and the geography reflected
the results. Though the sun was warm, it was considerably more comfortable here
that it was in Kayenta a month ago. All to
soon it was time "load em up" and head back
north but it was still a very pleasurable day especially when you get to meet
some old friends and drool over some gorgeous old airplanes.
The Nogales Group
What's Next?
On the 13th of September, the Breakfast Club
group will be traveling to beautiful
Click on the Nogales link to view photos of this fly-in event.