Last Updated Sunday March 09, 2008
With our Maule it's an easy flight over to Catalina Island, about 45 miles off the coast of California. Sometimes we just pop over there for lunch. If you go by boat it's a long days journey.
Here's Mario, Roy's flight instructor and our friend, checking out a plane taking off from the Catalina Island airport They took the top of a mountain and flattened it to make the runway. There are no natural flat spots on the island.
Some pretty big planes stop here including this one that just landed and turned around and took off again. There used to be regular service to the island on a DC-3. Now they use helicopters that can land right near the town of Avalon and save the 40 minute bus ride from the airport to town.
Catalina Island is a popular place to fly to for "Buffalo Burgers" that are made out of the bison that range all over the island. This bison probably gets more hugs than most kids. Of course they only make "Buffalo Burgers" out of this kind of bison when the Cone Heads come around.
The Catalina control tower overlooks the runway and a 360 degree view of sky, mountains and ocean. Actually the only guy in the tower can give air direction advisory, and nothing else, except of course to collect the landing fee. He operates out of the second story so the pilots don't have to climb too many stairs.
Nancy checks the propeller as we do our preflight and pull the plane out for our return trip from Catalina Island to Brown Field in San Diego, about a 45 minute flight. It takes two hours or more by boat to the coast, plus over an hour in the car to San Diego.
From our plane the mountains of Catalina poke up out of the low cloud layer as we take off to the west. Looking back at the sun going down over the Pacific as we head home. All the people on the coast are under the low dreary clouds. We are up in the sunshine. That's the tail of the plane on the right and Catalina Island looking like a shadow below it.