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Las vegas to the grand canyon.

There are tons of helicopter and tour plane operations at this airport. There is no taxiway, so you have to use the runway to taxi. After I started my engine, I patiently waited on one private plane and one tour plane both of which had departed on runway 35. The wind was favoring 35 and judging by the wind sock, it was gusting to 15 knots from about 320 degrees. After the tour plane took off, I took runway 35, and that upset another tour plane that was lining up on runway 17 for some unknown reason. The wind didn't favor this runway and the last three operations were on 35. The pilot said something unintelligible and then said he couldn't land with me on the end of the runway. I continued to taxi to the end of the runway - no place else for me to go. I noticed the windsock was showing some strong activity that would make anyone with any sense want to use runway 35 rather than 17, so I advised the tour pilot that he'd have a strong tailwind if he landed on 17. I took off and saw the tour plane in an extended base leg for 17. I turned crosswind and got the heck out of there.

The flight back to North Vegas was nice, too. I was eventually told to overfly the airport at no lower than 3500 and to make right traffic for 12 Right. The wind was from 070 at 6 with some gusts that I felt on short final. I managed to get her down safely and had a great time doing it.

I only recommend going to 1G4 for the experience of landing at an interesting airport, no so much for the tours. All told, this was a great day of VFR flying in severe clear weather. 2.0 hours of cross country with two take offs and two landings other than the three that I did for the check ride.

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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on October 8, 2007 12:29 PM.

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