Scottsdale Breakfast Club

An Affiliate of the Arizona Pilots Assn

The Knife & Fork

Breakfast Club Revisits Lake Havasu/Makai Café

12 Nov 2011

by Warren McIlvoy

A couple of years ago, the Breakfast Club held a fly-in event to Lake Havasu where we actually landed at the Lake Havasu Airport (HII). On a previous occasion, we landed on the airstrip on the west side of the Colorado River that was part of the Chemehuevi Tribal land and is close to the casino and restaurant that is located along the shores of the river.

After breakfast at the casino, we took the boat ride across the river to the boat docks that are adjacent to site where the Makai Café (Makai.com) is located. As I recall, the cost of the round trip boat ride was something like $1-2 and was a very pleasant trip. On our last visit, we landed at HII and parked at Desert Skies Aviation (Desert Skies Aviation) were they loaned us the use of their two vans. Through some searches and recommendations, we selected a place called the Makai Café for our morning breakfast location.

We were so impressed with the folks at Desert Skies Aviation and the Makai Café that we wanted to do it again this year. The route from Deer Valley is pretty simple with one slight exception, the Luke Airspace extends almost to Wickenburg so a call to Luke Approach got us squawk code and then simply watched the scenery slip by. Other than the usual ridge lines and broad valleys, there is not much to get excited about. The one landmark of note is Alamo Lake that seems to be out of place as it is situated on the edge of nowhere and not in a scenic mountain valley. Alamo Lake is a favorite of fishing enthusiasts as it is the only fishing opportunity for at least 50-miles in any direction.

From Alamo Lake, one can easily spot Crossman Peak that is just to the east of Lake Havasu City. Our route takes just a slight jog to the south of the mountain and then a slight jog to the north to get one back on course for the Lake Havasu Airport. We often refer this airport as the “new” Lake Havasu Airport as the old airport used to be located on an island that was created by the channel that was dug following the re-construction of the famed “London Bridge”. With the arrival of the bridge, the land became more valuable for business and tourist attractions than it was for an airport.

The traffic patterns for HII are all on the west side of the airport so approaching from the southeast requires us the cross over the airport at 500’ above the pattern altitude of 1800’ and continue in a northwesterly direction until it is safe to descend and enter the 45 degree entry to the left hand traffic pattern for runway 32. This is normally quite easy but today I had to contend with two solo student pilots flying Bonanzas on solo flights that were approaching from the south over the Colorado River. I spotted one of them as I was descending into the turn to the 45 but did not locate the other as they must have been further south than indicated by their radio call. I followed the first Bonanza to the runway and after exiting the active, I taxied to transient parking area for Desert Skies and was promptly marshaled-in to an area where all of the Breakfast Club aircraft could be parked together.

Desert Skies had two carts working with us to both park the aircraft and to take fuel orders. I had called them earlier in the week to let us know that the Breakfast Club would be arriving and that we would need their two vans to get us to the restaurant. As such, they offered us a .10 per gallon discount on the fuel and as a way of thanking them for the use of their vans; I believe that all of us purchased some fuel. The parking was not very far from the Desert Skies office but they offered us a lift to the office in the carts.

The two vans were just enough to get all 15 of us to the restaurant but Desert Skies said that if anyone else showed-up that they would let them use one of their personal vehicles to get into town. The ride was a little over 10-minutes and it was not too difficult to find the restaurant as we were here a couple of years ago. The Makai Café is located on the lower level of the Island Mall Shopping Center. I had reserved seating on the patio dinning area as it offers outstanding views of the London Bridge and the boat docks along the channel. One would be hard pressed to find a more scenic dinning area for a Saturday morning breakfast.

After a very good breakfast meal, many of us opted to stroll around the boat dock area and take-in the ambiance of the area with a planned rendezvous at the vans in about 15-minutes. After arriving back at Desert Skies and paying our fuel ticket, we made the mandatory pit stop before heading out to the ramp. The weather that was a bit questionable early in the week, turned-out to be just gorgeous. A couple of folks suggested that we make this an annual fly-in event. I thought that would merit some serious consideration.

The Lake Havasu Entourage

• Warren & Jeri-Ann McIlvoy in 93MB, BC-1 & 1.5
• Jon Shawl and Ken Elias in 57TF
• Richard & Marcia Azimov and Jordan Ross in 6864Q, BC-2 and 11
• Richard Spiegel and Paul Fortune in 15040, BC-3 & 201
• Larry Jensen in 14LJ, BC-65
• Greg Coomans and Rich Kupiec in 2493Q, BC-48 & 47
• Jim Palmer and Eric Durbin in 9313H
• Steve Loyer in 8968M

What’s Next?

To wrap-up a fun year of fly-in events, the Breakfast Club will return to Sedona, Arizona and the new Mesa Grille. This will be our first event to SEZ since the old restaurant was torn down. The new 2012 Breakfast Club event calendar will be posted following this event. That’s all for now but remember, fly safe.

To view photos of this fly-in event, click on the view album link below.