Breakfast Club
An Affiliate of the
The Knife & Fork
Breakfast Club Visits
9 Aug 2008
by Warren McIlvoy
In case you have not figured it out by now, the July Breakfast Club event
to Globe, got weathered-out. We were able to get about half way there
but a wall of clouds prevented us from actually getting to Globe so we
turned around and went back to
With that said, the weather for our August event to
The Phoenix Approach controllers were very accommodating this morning as
they allowed us to climb to 5000' in the "west transition" which was
only 500' below our requested cruise altitude. After clearing
I maintained a course that kept us away from the sky diving activities of Eloy and at Pinal Air Park. About 20 miles to
the north of Ryan, I dialed-in the AWOS as the ATIS was out of
service and then flipped-over to the tower frequency. The controller was busier
than a one-armed paperhanger. After your initial call-up he had you tune to
another frequency who was acting as a local controller. Some poor soul was
being chastised for making his initial call-up at only 3.5 miles to the
northwest. To paraphrase the controller's response, he informed this poor guy
that he was well inside the airport traffic area and that he should do an
immediate 180 and call him back in a week. It was then
that I was finally able to report-in at about 8-miles to the north. The controller
instructed me to "remain outside the Class Delta airspace". So
here I was doing "wifferdills" with Lance
Thomas at 4-5 miles behind me. I then heard Lance call the tower and he was
informed to report a 2-mile 45 for left downwind to 6 left. I immediately
informed the controller that I was doing 360's in front of another aircraft
that could not see me. The controller advised that I could enter and report a
2-mile 45 for left downwind.
At this point, one would think that this was the end of the story but, as Paul
Harvey would say, "now, for the
rest of the story". As I turned downwind, I noted another aircraft
about 2-300 yards at my 11-o'clock and promptly informed the controller of the
situation. He said that this aircraft was "no factor" and that
I was cleared to land on 6-left. As I neared the point to turn on left base, so
did the other aircraft. I asked the controller about the intentions of the
other aircraft and his response was, "you are now #2 behind that aircraft
to land". So much for being a "no factor".
I immediately broke-off my base turn and turned sharply to the right to gain
spacing and to extend my downwind. Off all the airports and controllers that we
have been to and dealt with, Ryan has to rank at or near the top in bad
controllers.
After taxing-in and parking right in front of the restaurant, we joined with
other Breakfast Club folks on the ramp to greet other arrivals and to get some
"airplane photos". Our seating at Todd's was a little
scattered due to the normal Saturday airport crowd but the north wall is
made-up of large windows that affords a great panoramic view of the ramp and
the distant runway. The food has always been pretty good here and the menu has
enough of a selection to satisfy most everyone. Before getting my meal, I
visited with some of the other tables to get some photos of our members and to
chat a bit.
By the time we were ready to depart, the weather was starting to move in from
the east but did not pose an immediate threat to our departure plans. Departure
on 6-right was a lot less exciting than our arrival was earlier and after
crossing the canal, we turned to the north and home. I leveled-off at 6500' and
if we were 20-miles further to the east, that would
have put us at or in the ominous dark clouds. As we progressed further to the
northwest, the clouds had disappeared entirely.
We were honored to have a couple of special guests with us on this event. Iryna Matveeva and Julia Ryan. Iryna had accompanied Adam Rosenberg and she
was visiting us from
The Ryan Gang
What's Next?
In September, the Breakfast Club will
be making one of its weekend trips to Chinle
with a tour of Canyon de Chelly. We did this
once in the mid 90's and was very popular. Our October
event will see us going to Page,
To view the photos of the Ryan fly-in, just click on the link.