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I posted a short video of my flight in Caro 1 motorglider to the Mojave airport Fly-In. Here is the link:

Because the flight I had planned was to the Columbia airport, which is only 13 nm away, I intended to fly a detour to the south to extend my flight time. But first I had to get into the air. It was one of the busiest days at the airport lately. I had to wait for 3 other airplanes to either takeoff or land before it was my turn.

Columbia airport

I approached Columbia from the south and reported 5 nm out. Shortly afterwards someone else reported the same thing. I did not spot him, and kept looking for the other airplanes, one on downwind and one taking off on runway 17 and one approaching runway 29. It was crazy here as well. I heard the other traffic report his position twice, everytime sort of where I was as well. By the time I was on downwind, I got scared. I did not see him anywhere in front of me, to the side or above me so most likely he was behind me. He claimed to not see me either. I turned west, away from the airport and waited a bit to give him time to get out of the way and land before I rejoined the pattern. I never saw him. I landed uneventfully after half an hour and walked to the old town of Columbia.

Without the tourists, it was very quiet.

I felt like the time had been turned back 150 years.

Could be a set for a western movie

These rocks are typical for the area, probably ground smooth by a glacier a long time ago. This is part of the stage coach trail.

The return flight took only 10 minutes.

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The third race of the AirRace X series was scheduled for October 19.

I had worked for several years for the Japanese team when it was still called the Red Bull Air Races. After this was shut down, several of the pilots worked on creating a new race series, this time organized by a group of Japanese companies. Yoshi Muroya was again very successful this year and I am happy that he won the World Championship again. Check their web site www.airracex.com for links to the races that were posted on Youtube.

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The days are still hot, so I decided to fly north, to the Oroville airport, where it would be a few degrees cooler. After an early start, on the way out I stayed over the foothills and passed the permanent “TFR” of Beale Air Force base to the east.

Over the foothills looking west

Oroville airport with its two runways

When I arrived, a Sportsman was doing pattern work on the long runway 20. The wind was calm and I would have liked to land on runway 31 for less taxi time, but I followed his lead and used 20.

Caro 1 parked on the wide empty ramp in Oroville

Have you ever wondered where the guys who work on powerlines get trained? Next to the airport I found the answer to this question.

Training ground for powerline workers, part of the “Northwest Lineman College”

I went for a walk and on the return flight I decided to fly west around the Beale airspace. That brought me close to the largest landmark in the Valley:

This pile of rocks can be seen from a long distance. It is the only one in the otherwise perfectly flat valley. Now I had the sun in my face and it was hot in the cockpit even at 5500 ft. To get back to the foothills, I flew though the corridor between Beale and Sacramento airspaces. Sacramento is a very crowded area on the ground, with buildings for many square miles, that seem to spread out further every year. Ugly!

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