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America the Beautiful

Imagine joining ICE with visions of fighting terrorism at the hot spot borders of our great nation...then being sent to an isolated spot on a two lane road to Canada, probably for being a jerk.

Ironic, I'll bet there's some guy working the southern border, burnt out from YEARS of effort trying to stem the tide and feeling like he's making no progress who would give his eye teeth to work off the last few years till retirement, while still making a valuable contribution, in low-threat, small town America. Not to mention I bet that government salary goes a long way in a little town.
 
Major thread drift........

Hey, we're just discovering bits of America here too. :) Gotta do something waiting for the next episode.

{edit to add] BTW, Scott says he's got 160 freshman and sophomore students in his classes this year. 160! And he's doing these while paying attention to their educational needs. Amazing.
 
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Interesting scenario

I think we need to back off the Customs agent a little. We don't know what his marching orders are when it comes to his responsibilities. I haven't looked up the AFD to see what is going on. Was something missed?

Yes the guy could have been nicer for sure. We just don't know what was going on in his life. We all have bad days. That job is not an easy one. I deal with them in my work and they are very dedicated professional trying do a good job under very trying conditions.

Now, we await, "The rest of the story."
 
When landing runway 15 you are in Canada for a short time on down wind, base and final. US Customs and Canadian Customs are right across the road on Hwy#89. I'm sure many pilots land there and meet friends to go fishing and hunting in Canada. Great pictures and great thread, thanks for sharing.

Jim Fogarty
RV-9A
 
BTW, speaking of Scott's observation in the last graph about Polaris.

The company can't find enough workers. They have to fly them in from Mexico and the state/city/company are trying to build housing for them.

Talk about finding America. It's tough trying to run a company in the middle of nowhere. It is an amazing company that they still base operations there.
 
What we have here is a failure to communicate. Also, an improper interpretation of the rules from the Border Patrol.

Intrigued by Scott's story, I contacted the Minnesota Division of Aeronautics at MnDOT. They own the airport.
Actually, anyone can land at Piney-Pinecreek without permission. That is the definition of an airport that is open to the public. We visit Piney-Pinecreek on a fairly regular basis and Customs and Border Patrol always comes out to greet us. If they don't I walk over and talk with them before doing anything else. Pilots should be sensitive about landing at border airports. For a while the FAA had a temporary flight restriction that required the filing of a flight plan for all flights operating in the vicinity of the border. I just looked for it and couldn't find it, but border security is serious business and Customs and Border Patrol is not the welcome wagon. It is their job to be suspicious of people they encounter.

There is nothing at Piney-Pinecreek except the airport and a border crossing. As a pilot, I wouldn't choose Piney-Pinecreek as a destination because there is no place to get food or aircraft maintenance, there are lots of nice airports in the area: Roseau, Warroad, that are welcoming and would have been a better choice. International Falls is a particularly fun airport to visit. The Einarsons are always welcoming and no airport in Minnesota takes better care of you. The only reason I would choose Piney-Pinecreek would be if it was along my route and I wanted quick access to Customs.

So I would apologize to your friend as I'm sure you did for the less than Minnesota like welcome he received. As for other pilots wanting to visit Piney-Pinecreek Airport: I recommend that they file flight plans and make announcements over the CTAF of their intentions. There are requirements that they stay in the aircraft if clearing customs at Piney-Pinecreek. If they are not clearing customs I recommend they talk with the Customs and Border Patrol agents before doing anything else. I also recommend that they only go there in daylight hours for two reasons. It is less suspicious, and the mosquitos are vicious at night.

Sincerely,

Rick Braunig
MnDOT Office of Aeronautics

Again, BP is incorrect that "the airport doesn't open until 9." The airport is always open to Americans traveling only in the United States. Its the BP office that doesn't open until 9.
 
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Those photos of the Thrush really take me back. Ours were Turbo-Thrushes. Incredible machines. We used them in west Africa to combat a disease that robbed so many of their eyesight. Who knows, perhaps our paths crossed at one point as Ghana was one of the countries where our machines plied their trade.

Thank you for sharing your excellent travelogue, Scott. It gives much pause for contemplation.
 
Bob Odegaard

This installment was also a little emotional for me. One of my neighbors owns the only flying Super Corsair in the world. One of my other neighbors flew the plane. Bob Odegaard owned the only other Super Corsair, the one in the crash.

He was hanging around with my neighbor at Oshkosh in 2012. I ran into them and was introduced to Bob. He wanted to know what I flew and we talked about RV's. I told him I make it a 3 week vacation and head to South Dakota from Oshkosh. He said he was from North Dakota and invited me to come up anytime. He gave me a card and told me to call anytime. He said, "you've got a place to stay, a place for your plane and we'll have a great time."

I traveled to South Dakota and considered going up there for a couple days to see his place. I didn't. The fishing was so good in South Dakota I stayed, vowing to go next Summer. A decision I regret.

Bob Odegaard was truly one of the nicest people I've ever meet in Aviation. Bob owned many aircraft but another plane familiar to all of us the Yellow Jelly Belly DC3 that was often at Oshkosh.

Scott, thanks for writing about this amazing journey. You've managed to visit places that represent the best of America and the best people of America. Thank you!!!
 
Great reading

Scott thanks its been interesting following your progress on google earth. I could see the graveyard for example. Real people stories. Got to always remember its all about people at the end of the day. Good bad and ugly.. I have so much repect for the vintage warbird craftsman. Your "stumbling on such momemts is what your adventure is all about and those sharing with you!
 
Thanks, I'm really enjoying this tour of the real US of A. (As opposed to the fake versions often depicted by Hollywood or slanted news stories.) I was privileged to taxi by the Descending Dove when it was parked at Central Jersey Regional. I stopped and admired - didn't realize it was on this great journey I'd later be reading about. Haven't seen a better looking RV-8 either.
 
I did a little more research on this airport where Scott had trouble and I noticed two entries in the AFS. (1) it is NOT an entry point airport and (2) It is a "landing rights airport."

That's a term I've never heard of before, but here are the major provisions of a landing rights airport. It does not seem to make a distinction from those crossing a border to those simply exercising their freedom to fly in their own country.

Has anyone ever heard of this?

In the simplest terms a Landing Rights Airport is simply an airport you can land at and clear Customs.
The major difference between an LRA and an airport designated as an International Airport is you must have CBP permission to land at a LRA if your point of departure was in a foreign country.

Think of it this way. An "International Airport" will most likely have a full time permanent staff of Customs folks. To provide better service, CBP will also allow international arrivals at certain other designated airports. Landing Rights Airports. These certain designated airports most likely do not have permanent full time staff. You must make arrangements to land there with CBP so they can arrange to have an agent on site at your proposed arrival time.

Since the OP stated the agent commented that he would need to move his airplane because there were other aircraft on the way I am going to guess there were international arrivals scheduled that day and when the agent showed up he was surprised to see an aircraft already there and probably assumed it was one of his international arrivals landed early, which is a no no.

Could the CPB agent have handled it better? Yes.
No I don't work for CPB, just done lots of international flying while landing at smaller airports.
 
Alternate thread title:

Hangars and Cliffhangers: A mission trip fueled by coffee, burgers, and sweets.

:D
 
Airplanes, People and America

and generosity of indigenous peoples.

Over the last forty five years of aircraft ownership, and flying all over this wonderful country, I have found the people of the GA community to be friendly and generous just as Scott experienced. I'm not surprised Scott only had to use his tent once during his month long trek.
 
Flyng Across America

Not timely, late but wishing I'd have informed you of a phenomenon known of since the 70's or before, "The Kindred Lights." Strange, erie, seen out in the country shelterbelts, off + on ...for @ Odegaard's, other locals to comment. Clyde Ice was from Pierre/ Ft.Pierre. Spearfish, S.D.airport named Clyde Ice Field, after him.
 
When we flew our Lewis and Clark flight, the folks at Mustang Aviation in Pierre met us at the counter after the line guys help tie our planes down, with the following question which I have never heard at an FBO. "What kind of beer would you like?" How is that for service!!

Thanks for sharing this journey.
 
Ditto on Mustang Aviation. They took care of me and my airplane really well when I overnighted there on my way back from Oregon in 2014. I liked the city too.
 
Flyng Across America

Recall only 1 restaurant in Faith, N. side of Main, might even close early. Game & Fish H.Q. out of there often. Close friend used to HQ out of Faith, backseat Cub coyote gunner. 1 x his 12 ga. (barrel pointed down + to L.) ,shell ejected down into the rear stick. Clipped the gear off on the hill,. pilot trying to set her down. Told me," I never told him it was my shell in the back that..." Surprised a Cub landed, funding approved, S.D. G+F there now fly Aviat Husky.
 
That was when Bruce told me that it was going to be $40 to keep the plane in the hangar that night. I told Bruce that, no, thanks for the offer, but after buying his boy lunch that afternoon, I wrongly assumed that he was letting me park the Dove in the hangar as a return favor. I told him I was willing to take my chances with the foul weather, but that I could not afford to pay the fee. Bruce understood.
I don't know what galls me more... Asking for the $40 after going to the effort to get the plane in the hangar, or asking for the $40 after you bought his son lunch. :eek:
 
Flyng Across America

Photo #1 in Buffalo, dude in T shirt, jeans, cap walking. On his L. shoulder is field stone bldg., that being First Northern Bank. Having had a savings & checking acct. there 33 yrs. this wk., V.P,. friend of mine. Dad was Pres. in the early 80's. Photo #4 Occidental Hotel. Goes back to right after 1890 state hood. Still, horsehair couches, chairs, photos. Couples come from afar, wk. ends reserved for their 25th, 40th wedding anniversaries. On Th. eves, still have an open mike for jam session, any music, any musician, anytime. Many outside, arriving too late to get in. Not mentioned if tanks topped in Buffalo from Faith, as cheapest fuel in 250 mi. ($3.90 SS this wk.) Jim, older / retired, ran Buffalo for many yrs. Bruce, Austin newer. Re. the $40 after you're in, I'd a done the same. IMO, seems anytime new ownership, management, etc., always more con changes than pros. @ least Austin doesn't take after his Old Man.For those ever over nighting in the region again, perhaps bring up Sheridan, 35 N., as an option.
 
Flyng Across America

On another site, I viewed a photo of a pilot who completed an E.A.B. in Twin Bridges. I told him I sold my 1st EAB to a rancher from Twin Bridges, Spring 2011. He then sends me 2-3 pix of it in a hangar, thereby finding it is still there....interesting, as the owner had another place S. of Tuscon. Known by & visited by many, as location of "blue ribbon" trout streams.
 
When I entered the little shack at Shafer Field, I was met by the musty pall of ages and ages past, and the cramped height of the ceiling made me feel like a man who, after growing up and living a long happy life, returned to one of his grammar school classrooms and discovered that reality had shrunk the coliseums of his imagination into tiny tombs of dying memory. Instantly, I found myself squeezed into the America of the 1970's:

Charm and intrigue in the style of William Faulkner's southern gothic. Somewhere
around the above post (#114), I began to expect we might find a body along the way.

I guess a haunted Victorian will do.
 
I don't know what galls me more... Asking for the $40 after going to the effort to get the plane in the hangar, or asking for the $40 after you bought his son lunch. :eek:

Or asking for $40 after offering to let Scott use the pull put bed for free, instead of making him camp out in a storm. ;)

But I do agree that the price should have been mentioned prior to pulling the plane in the hangar.

I'm always willing to pay to keep my plane in a hangar when I overnight somewhere, and I have always been charged (and gladly paid) $50 for the privilege. One time I couldn't use the hangar I was promised at Glendale AZ, and I had to rush back to the airport when I saw the tables, chairs and umbrellas from the pool area go tumbling by our hotel window in a gust front.

~Marc
 
customs

He then spent over five minutes explaining to me that, because the officer had no way of knowing from which direction I had flown in---either from the U.S. or from Canada---that his treatment of me was not only warranted, but justified since, as he said, ?This is an international airport.? He told me that calling ahead was standard protocol for international airports on the U.S. border and that I should have done so to avoid what took place that morning. Adding to that in defense of Miller, the supervisor told me that the airport didn?t open until 9:00 a.m., and that landing before that time warranted the actions I described.

I live in Michigan (with Canada bordering all around us) and have landed at many of our small International airports with "Customs". I have never heard of the BS that this officer is telling you. The only hours of operation they have listed are the hours of the customs office. NOT the airport. You only need to phone them to set up an appointment if you are flying in from a foreign country. That way an officer can be prepared to run you through customs when you arrive. Otherwise the airport is used like any other GA airport, and we have ZERO contact with customs officers.
If any of what this officer and his supervisor told you was true, then they need to touch base with the FAA and have ALL airport directories updated with this critical information. I am finding more and more that customs and TSA and the FAA are not speaking to each other and are not on the same page.
 
Flyng Across America

Re. Twin Bridges, the St. of Mont. chose a town off the beaten path, more so even back then, as opposed to a larger W. or S.W. Mont. town..to keep the Orphanage quiet. In viewing the photos, some young ladies appear H.S. grad. size or age. Hmm. Were the boys kept separately somewhere else - given co-ed rules, reg's. or state certification? As the parents rarely ever returned, why wasn't there an avenue for adoption, if signing off on papers? Perhaps even a rule abstaining from an employee, staff, from taking a special interest + taking one home. One would think a high % would like to hear or see someday how some of these tuned out in their future adult lives. Unfortunately, more Q's than A's.
 
Three weeks of searching and I found it

... that de Saint Exupery quote from Airman's Odyssey that this instantly reminded me of.

"When I entered the little shack at Shafer Field, I was met by the musty pall of ages and ages past, and the cramped height of the ceiling made me feel like a man who, after growing up and living a long happy life, returned to one of his grammar school classrooms and discovered that reality had shrunk the coliseums of his imagination into tiny tombs of dying memory. Instantly, I found myself squeezed into the America of the 1970's:"

?I remember the games of my childhood-the dark and golden park we peopled with gods; the limitless Kingdom we made of this square mile never thoroughly explored, never thoroughly charted. We created a secret civilization where footfalls had meaning and things a savor known in no other world. And when we grow to be men and live under other laws, what remains of that park filled with the shadows of childhood, magical, freezing, burning? What do we learn when we return to it and stroll with a sort of despair? marveling that within a space so small we should have founded a Kingdom that had seemed to us infinite-what do we learn except that in this infinity we shall never again set foot, and that it is into the game and not the park that we have lost the power to enter?? ? Antoine de Saint-Exupery
 
I think I saw you down there!

NRHpIo.jpg
 
like falling into the arms of an old-flame lover whose beauty had only improved with time, whose passion now burned with my own, as if our having been held apart by a prison of years and geography served only to stoke and swirl the heat of our desire, our sweltering desire to fulfill a long-awaited promise to reunite and express that passion as only true lovers could.

Man, your life must have been a lot more interesting than mine.:D
 
Mountain Home Air Force Base. Having served there from 1981-1985... USAF veteran to see the base...

Scott, interesting how paths cross, when you were at Mountain Home I was starting out my own USAF career at Fairchild AFB in Spokane, WA. On the back side, I was at Mountain Home working jets, Eagles mind you not Aardvarks, on that exact same ramp from 1998-2005; closed out my 24 years of service with a retirement ceremony the Boar hangar. Good times. :)
 
Flyng Across America

Buck-wow. Murphy didn't even know his real name until enlisting in the Navy. Married an Orphan, story of bathing infant. A travesty of cruel, sadistic staff techniques: whipping a bed wetter. One would surmise that this would make them so nervous, augmenting the problem, not reducing it. Afraid of the dark? Put the boy into dark closets. Hanging children up on coat racks. Shoes tied to their hands when sleeping. Other examples apply. No staff training or understanding utilized, like behind the Berlin Wall, Czech Rep., or GI POW's. Not an orphanage, but a concentration camp. Mad & sad not common simultaneously by most. Buck to be commended for this link.
 
Nice write up. I was stationed there from '92-'94. The F-111s were just leaving and the F-15's and F-16's were just showing up. Most looks the same, except there appear to be buildings on the ramp where the airplanes used to be parked.

I did fly out of the airport in town a few times (it does still look remarkably similar), but two people in a C-150 didn't get very high. I had to learn to play glider pilot to get any altitude. I got tired of the wind and heat and hung it up until I got to Washington.

Thanks
 
Have to add my 2 cents. I was stationed at Mountain Home AFB from 1995-2000. I was in AMMO or 2W051A. I think that was my AFSC. I also recognize the Wolfpack picture, in fact have a Wolfpack clock on my office wall. Was stationed at Kunsan Airbase in 97-98. Good times gentlemen.

For my private practical I flew to Brownwood, Texas. I was early, and while waiting for the DPE I walked around outside and discovered an F-111 static display with MO on the side. Amazing how life comes back full circle.

Cory Bull
 
Nice write up. I was stationed there from '92-'94. The F-111s were just leaving and the F-15's and F-16's were just showing up. Most looks the same, except there appear to be buildings on the ramp where the airplanes used to be parked.

Thanks

Steve, I think what you're referring to are shade hangars. ACC put them up at most bases over the past 10 years or so to park the jets under cover.
 
Out of curiosity I checked the old flight records for the tail number of that jet on a stick - logged a 3.5 in it on Sep 5 '86 while going through the RTU. Rented a house with a fellow student in Grand View - you've brought back some mostly fond memories (except getting fouled off the range while flying with the DO as my WSO). Was back there for the last two years of 111 operation and got to (had to?) fly the airplane with my name on it to the boneyard. Have been enjoying your posts.

Dave
N102FM
 
Scott--

What a wonderful trip you had and thank you so much for posting it here for us to enjoy vicariously. I don't want to take away from your thread here, but I thought you might like this video I took last year with a religious theme. The music was composed in 1797 and apparently the original Mormon settlers sung it. It seemed appropriate for a flight out of Brigham City, UT. Welcome home!

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
 
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Great trip!

Thanks so much, Scott. I really appreciate the sharing of your fantastic trip with me and the VAF crew.

My building-batteries are now overcharged ... can't wait to get my bird in the air. Please let me know if you head out to KHAF .. the fog's gone now for the summer.
 
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