The job hunt is over! Mesa Airlines called me yesterday with a job
offer. In a week or two I will have my
aircraft assignment and ground school date, at which point Stephanie and I will
have enough information to make the very difficult decision of which airline to
work for (Mesa or Continental Express).
That decision will decide the course of the next several years of my
career. No pressure.
In the meantime, I have
completed the first week of my newly assigned run, AMF 452 to Lakeview.
In my opinion, this is the best run that we have out of Portland. I have averaged 5 flight hours per day this
week on this run and have seen some beautiful scenery as well as harsh
weather. The weather has gotten
progressively nicer during the week and has culminated in a 70-degree sunny day
today down here in lovely Lakeview.
This run has stops in Klamath Falls and Roseburg so I end up with five
takeoffs and landings per flight. It’s
good practice and keeps things interesting.
The approach into Klamath Falls even takes me briefly into California.
Today’s report is different
because it’s being written atop a 6400-foot mountain called Black Cap that overlooks Lakeview and the surrounding valley. I discovered this spot on Wednesday by
following signs out of town pointing to a hang-glider launch site. I am roughly 1700 feet above the valley
floor and can see at least 50 miles in most directions. It’s only a four-mile drive from the motel
on a dirt road so I think I will spend some significant time up here. It beats the heck out of the Lakeview Best
Western, which so far has not impressed me at all. I brought a camping chair from home and set it up here on a
cement platform so I could sit down and
enjoy the view. The highest point
in the vicinity is 8456-foot Crane
Mountain. This is our Lakeview crew car. As you can see, it is a miracle I made it up here.
Lakeview is in south-central
Oregon about 15 miles from the California border – a town of roughly 2500
people. A large alkaline lake called Goose Lake near here lies about half in
California and half in Oregon. I’m not
sure why people live in Lakeview except maybe just to get far away from
everything. It’s very quiet and a nice
place to spend a few hours of the day.
I imagine most people haven’t been to Lakeview. If not, you should stop by sometime.. The high-desert climate is wonderful and the
town also is the only one in the state to have its own geyser, Old Perpetual.
On the way here today I got
some nice shots of Crater Lake (and Wizard Island, the volcano inside the
volcano). Making the flight VFR allows
me to go direct to Klamath Falls (starting from about Aurora) which takes me
right over the lake. I also flew over
9182-foot Mt. Thielsen and 8744-foot Diamond Peak. On the way home, I always fly over downtown Portland on the visual approach to
PDX when I come from the south.
This week they have had me
cross-training a new pilot which has been fairly interesting. He was formerly an instructor at Aurora
Aviation. I guess four months at the
company makes you qualified to train people during their IOE. He had already passed his checkride but was
riding along with me on an actual route like I did when I first started to see
how things work. It’s been a long time
since I have done any flight instruction.
It looks as though I will be
finishing out my Ameriflight career in Lakeview which makes me pretty
happy. Hopefully I will never have to
go to Tillamook again and can instead enjoy the warm-dry weather of South-Central
Oregon.
Here is the obligatory
picture of our cat, Winchester.
