Coffee Chronicles ...and Let's Go Flying!

Hey Coffee lovers! How was your weekend?

We enjoyed ours, capped off with church on Sunday where we hooked up with some Chroniclers. 

During the week, I got a text from a newly-minted pilot pal who needed to clock some hours to get his Instrument Rating.

“Let's go to Catalina tomorrow. Flying at 9am out of Chino”

I don’t know about you all, but I just love to fly. Probably just about as much as I love to ride my motorcycles. BUT, over the years hanging out with some of my pilot pals at the hangar, I’d heard some stories about the airport over on Catalina. Pilot lore. Listening to their tales, shared around the campfire, KAVX was one of those ghost stories that sent chills down my spine. So I was a little apprehensive.

“Uh, Catalina? Do we have to land?” I asked, worriedly.

I can’t remember the reasoning.  All I really heard was Charlie Brown’s teacher at a certain point, but he explained that yes we’d have to land as a requirement for blah, blah blah. None of which did a dang thing to calm my anxiety. But somehow he talked me into it. It wasn’t that hard, because …well flying. I think I’ve already disclosed this; I like to fly. 

The hard part was convincing the HB. I don’t think she’s aware of the stories about Catatlina’s airport, but she was less confident with my pilot buddy’s flight experience. 

“How long has he been flying?” …and “You better not be clowning around up there!” …and “How long has he been flying again?”

Finally, she relented and said, “Ok, but he better bring you back in the same condition as I am loaning you out to him.” 

I showed up the next day, bright and early just in time for pre-flight with my sunglasses and good attitude. 

Airplane? Check.

Pilot? Check.

Destination? Check. Check.

And we climbed in. I forgot to mention this, my pilot buddy? Dolph Lundgren? Yeah, I call him that, because he’s the spitting image of the villain boxer in one or two of those Rocky movies. He’s also the size of a Yeti. Not the ice chest. The mythical Abominable Snowman. Two regular sized humans could probably have fit in the cockpit very comfortably. Literally the seating area in the thing was smaller than a VW Bug. The Yeti took up all of his seat and he needed to utilize about 20% of my chair too. The only way for me to fit comfortably was to put my arm around the back of his chair for the whole flight back and forth as if we were on a date. And I did so willingly, because …well flying. I covered that earlier, right?

Everything went very smoothly. The take off, the sights, the whole flight. I gotta tell you, I was impressed. When the Yeti is on the ground popping out from behind trees and playing hide and seek from cameras and Yeti hunters, and stuff, he’s kind of a goofball. But you put a pair of sunglasses, a backwards baseball cap and a headset on him, he gets down to brass tacks.

We landed on Catalina and if you thought the trip over was cool, look at what landed just before us! A DC-3! And one of the cleanest, shiniest DC-3s I have ever seen! Mostly in pictures, because I don’t think I've ever been up close to one. It was a thing of beauty!

I took a few pictures and sent them to my other pilot pals. They were all green with envy. Who’s got two thumbs and the cool kid now? This guy!

You guys remember me telling you about my pals, Captain Jeff (RIP, my good friend) and Captain Carmen San Diego? How every time I went up with them, something would happen? Crazy windy over the Cajon Pass…plane crash at El Monte…and on and on? Captain Jeff and Captain Carmen San Diego called me their very own little black cat. 

First of all: racist. Wow. Second of all, I now know the common denominator was not me at all. It was Captain Carmen San Diego! AH HA! He is the real bad luck cham! 

Now maybe Captain Bunny and his wife, Captain Cutie won’t be afraid to fly with me. Have you ever seen the show Blue Bloods? They’re like the pilot version. Captain Bunny’s dad? A pilot. And their son, Captain Devil Dog, is a pilot too. 

So, yeah, anyway, that was a really good day, because …well flying, right?

Drink ‘em if you got ‘em!

#coffeehousechroniclels