I got the GT3 down to Manchester finally on Saturday, although it was an interesting drive in places due to some snow. But it was a long day, finally getting back at 4am Sunday morning. It was an unprepared trip really, the battery died on the GT3 on Friday night, which left the drivers window slightly open and of course it started snowing as soon as that happened. So, I stuffed a towel in the gap, decided to call Green Flag first thing and got it jumped. I’ll next see it in a few months when its had a pampering by Ninemeister
So, this week I’ve been working on some pictures from 2007 as I’ve been unable to get anywhere. The trip to the USA in 2007 was probably one of the best USA ones we’ve done (myself, Ant, Nigel and Pete). It started in Dallas and ended in Los Angeles. We travelled via Roswell , doing about 500 miles in a day spreading the driving between us. It was a weird 2 days (as it should be in Roswell). Getting there it was a brilliantly hot, sunny day, driving through the oil and gas fields, the smell of methane everywhere – to awaken the next day to snow, lots of it! Roswell was dead, it was Thanks Giving week, everything was shut. But the storage area at the airfield was still easily viewable and we spent a few hours going around it, be it in freezing conditions – I certainly hadn’t packed for snow, even though it was November – we were heading to LAX after all and its always hot there. I haven’t uploaded any pictures from Roswell or Dallas onto my site yet, in fact I decided to delete all the Dallas pictures – it had been cloudy there all the time and American Airlines silver against grey sky looks rubbish so I decided to clear some memory. The Roswell ones are pretty much the same, but I may salvage a few
From Roswell we drove to Tucson, another 4 to 500 miles and to nicer weather. Leaving the Roswell area we passed a petrol station with a sign “Last fuel for 450 miles” – we decided to fill up just in case.
Tucson brought us to Davis Monthan AFB, Pima and Marana. We’d booked a flight with Double Eagle Aviation, which ended up being two flights of two hours for two people. But it was still great value for money as we overflew DM, Marana (including a taxi around) and a landing and taxi around Avra Valley. Ant and Nigel went first, then it was me and Pete, with me in the front. Pete had to hold the window open for me so that I could take all the pictures, reaching through from the back. He’s not the best flyer and with the stretching, the bumping around and the circuits he was a bit queasy at the end of the flight – he managed not to chuck up though. I’d had a disaster over Monthan. Getting into the aircraft I must have knocked the settings dial on the camera, putting it into manual mode, f22/2000s. Luckily after 20 or so shots I checked to see how they’d come out and realised that the total black image was wrong – if digital cameras are good for one thing, its that. Imagine if it had been slides still? I’d never have known till I got them all back. As it was Thanks Giving weekend the airspace was dead and we were pretty much able to do what we wanted
DM from above is a site to see and I recommend taking a flight if you can. Marana was just as good. Even back on the ground at Tucson, we taxied past the ANG base to get a good view of the F16s
planesandstuff 