2005 Wickenburg Pancake Fly-in

I had such a good time at the Wickenburg fly-in and car show last year that I decided to take Susan with me this year. The show date was Saturday October 31, 2005 and we decided to fly north from Chandler until we were near Cave Creek, then head west into Wickenburg. We left Chandler at 8am for the 65nm flight and climbed to 2500ft under the Phoenix Class B and skirted between Scottsdale and Mesa Falcon Field control areas. Once beyond the city we were able to climb a little higher to clear the mountain foothills near Cave Creek.

We made our turn to the west and settled in for some sightseeing. As we approached Wickenburg we crossed directly over Lake Pleasant and got a few photos while we tried to adjust Susan's headset. Turns out that she completely disassembled them while trying to get it adjusted! I reached into the rear seat and pulled up one of the back seat headsets for her to use the remainder of the flight.

After crossing the lake we tuned to the CTAF frequency and listened to the traffic as we set up to enter our right downwind for runway 23. The scenery out the window was gorgeous!

It was another beautiful day with about 65 degrees that time of the morning and clear blue skies with only a hint of clouds on the horizon. After landing we parked on the taxiway out of the way of traffic as the ramp was already full! Again this year we were the only Cozy to fly in. We got in line for the pancakes, talked a few minutes with Ray Kouns and then walked the flight line and looked at the beautiful cars on display as well. This year Susan and I bought matching T-shirts as mementoes of the day and after about 2 hours decided to head on home. We packed up the Cozy and took off, but decided to go around for a high speed pass as we exited the area. This was the first time I'd done this, so it was exhilarating to see the crowd pass by just a few feet below us as we zipped along at 165 knots! Well, this didn't sit too well with Susan as she started to feel a little queasy, so I decided one pass was enough.

We had left the girls with my parents who took them south of Chandler about 20 miles to a church they were having a class at that morning. We told them beforehand that we would "buzz" the church at about noon so we headed south out of Wickenburg, passed under the Class B again, only this time over Glendale and then headed toward Casa Grande to the south.  Right on time we flew over the church and circled to give the girls and my parents a chance to come out and wave to us. We had a pretty big crowd as we came over the second time as the whole class decided to wave to us! We rocked the wings as we climbed back to 2200 feet to set up for the landing in Chandler just 5 minutes away. The landing was uneventful and Susan was glad to be back on firm ground - the low level flight was a bit bumpy and she was feeling the effects of it. We're already looking forward to next year.