West Coast tour - Superbowl (Phoenix - Tucson)  29 Jan - 4th Feb 2008  Dave Anderson, Dave Rose & Geoff Hyde

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Having had a successful trip to the boat show last year, we thought a trip to the West Coast of America was due, with the superbowl being played at Phoenix, a large number of biz jets would be due at the surrounding airfields our trip was planned around the event. Having not been to AMARG for over ten years a significant number of aircraft had changed and also I wanted to photograph it from the air "digitally". On Tuesday 29th January all the plans were in place and it was off to Heathrow for our flight on BAW288 Boeing 747-400 G-BNLF, we had about five hours of spotting at Heathrow, nothing much of note with  ten new frames in the log, biz included Global Express' OY-ILG & VP-CGS. The long flight was uneventful, though BA's in flight entertainment system was very temperamental, poor Geoff watched Casino Royal when at 10mins before the end the system shut down, at 1715local we arrived at Phoenix Sky Harbour airport, the first aircraft seen, parked at their facility, was the recently retired Honeywell Boeing 720 N720H. It was bags, hire car off to the hotel for a few beers and bed. Over the whole log only newly logged frames are included for each visit.

Wednesday 30 January 2008

Our intention today was to have a tour of all the local airfields, log all the light and stored aircraft and check all the spotting locations to save time when we come back again, we had eight fields to visit  then drive the 150 miles to Tucson our base for the next two nights. So it was up early, we headed over to Goodyear, Luke Air Force base is near by with huge numbers of F16's based, since my last visit they are now all parked under sun shelters and reading serials is difficult, it was still only 7.30am with the sun just coming up, the following departed at during the few minutes we were there, it was time for breakfast at Denny's.

Luke Air Force Base

Nine miles from Luke is Goodyear Airport, once had huge numbers of DC10's stored today only a few remained, it is easy enough to read off reg's but photography is limited to a few, there is a small terminal used for corporate flights, one of the marshallers was an enthusiast and took us to the edge of the ramp to photograph some of the biz jets. One of the nicest schemes was Boeing 757 XA-CUN of Aladia, though it was an old Mytravel frame (G-VKND). At 9.45am we left for Glendale 15 miles up the road.

Goodyear Airport

Glendale Airport

This airport is the closest to the stadium where the superbowl was taking place in fact it can be seen about 1/2 mile away from the airport. Bombardier were setting up a small display and preparing for lot of executive movements, an easy field to read off the aircraft, we would have to check photography on superbowl day depending where they were going to be parked. At 10.15am we headed 20 miles up the road to Deer Valley.

Deer Valley Airport

I had emailed Cutter aviation, the FBO and got approval for ramp access for photo's, very friendly guys, not too much to see but again they were expecting more over the weekend. The airport has a small terminal and cafe with a roof top gallery that looks out over the apron, a popular place with the locals, lots of light aircraft based here including the Pan Am flight training school. We left at 11.30am and headed 14 miles down the road to Scottsdale.

Scottsdale Airport

A very popular airfield for biz jets, coupled with a major golf tournament that was taking place over the weekend, large numbers of biz were expected here. A very sprawling airfield with FBO's on both side of the runway and the whole airfield built around a huge industrial/office estates We had no sooner taken a few pictures when a friendly policeman turned up, we were told no photo's and the airport didn't want spotters around, he'd be in for a busy weekend! we discretely drove around and managed to log what was on the airfield. We left at 12.30pm and headed to Mesa Falcon field, 18 miles away.

Mesa Falcon Field Airport

Marsh aviation here have stored and converted Grumman S-2 Trackers into water bombers for many years, we had pre-arranged a visit to have look at the storage area and inside the hangar, the latest project they are working on for the US government is refurbishing OV-10 Bronco's for the Columbian anti drug squad. A small museum here was closed as the building was being used for a superbowl party, though most of the aircraft were packed together in a small compound. Boeing have a production plant here manufacturing the AH-64 Apache, nothing could be seen from the outside. We left at 2.30pm and headed for Williams Gateway 18 miles away.

Williams - Gateway Airport

A huge airport, which used to be an Air Force Base, a small terminal has been built and Aligiant have started schedule services, in time this will become Phoenix's second airport, viewing is easy and although numbers were not huge some interesting residents can be seen, the prisoner transportation service base their MD-80's here and Advanced Training have a dozen ex Isreali Air Force Skyhawks based, five were seen outside. We left at 3.50pm and headed 5 miles down the road to Chandler Municipal Airport.

Chandler Municipal Airport

Very much a light aircraft field with a few biz jets, most light airfields now have rows of "aircraft garages" so many residents are housed in their own sheds and only come out to fly, we only stayed 30 minutes and headed off to Tucson, the end of day 1

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