I had the privilege of flying to Eagle, Colorado (Vail) yesterday. It was a great, sunny, winter flight, with huge blue skies to match. This was my first time into Eagle airport and I did feel a little out of place. I think I was the only aircraft on the field that was powered by pistons instead of turbines. I think I counted 7 Gulfstreams, 1 Boeing Business Jet (B737), numerous Lear Jets, and countless Cessna Citations and many fancy turboprops. On top of all this fancy private traffic, the airlines also bring in skiers during the winter. Delta, American, and Continental all had their Boeing 757's shuttling flatlanders back to Texas. This is a very small airport tucked into a small mountain valley, so the presence of so many large and fast airplanes kept me on edge trying to keep an eye out for them as I landed and departed.
As I was taking off to head south back to Alamosa, I did follow a most peculiar arrangement of flight. An Aviat Husky (similar to a Piper Cub) was doing formation flying with a Gulfstream for air to air photos. When I asked the tower how that arrangement worked the pilot of the Husky chimed in and said "this is a fast Husky" and the pilot of the Gulfstream followed suit and said "this is a slow Gulfstream." It seemed to be working fine, although I'm sure both aircraft were at their airspeed limits, one on the bottom end and the other on the top.
No comments:
Post a Comment