After getting some lunch in St. Anthony, my uncle and I hopped in his Mooney once again and we flew up to West Yellowstone. This ended up being one of the more memorable flights we've done because we flew over Yellowstone National Park as part of this cross-country and beheld some of the most incredible sights from the air!
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| A memorable flight on N9716M! |
As usual, after arriving at the airport, we did our pre-flight, hopped in and got the engine started. We also did our run-ups right where we started up before taxiing over to Runway 22. We just held short for an Ayers Thrush coming in to land in the opposite direction on the adjacent dirt runway. Once the Thrush was clear, we got rolling and got airborne.
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| We held short for this Ayers S-2-G10 Turbo Thrush (N440AT). |
After getting airborne, we cleaned up the airplane for climb out, made our crosswind turn and departed the St. Anthony pattern to the north via the downwind leg. Like last night's cross-country flight, it was now a matter of maintaining proper management of the engine, flight controls, and instruments as we made our way to West Yellowstone and Yellowstone National Park.
We stayed 2,000 feet above the ground as per special airspace rules over the National Park. Once over Yellowstone, my uncle took the controls and I grabbed my camera. First we flew over the famed cone geyser, Old Faithful. And we timed it right because she went off while we were circling! And of course, I got some incredible shots!
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| Old Faithful going off! |
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| Note the Old Faithful Inn in the bottom of the photo. |
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| No doubt, my uncle and I had the best seat for this iconic geyser! |
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| We knew we timed it right because of the large crowd gathered on the main boardwalk. |
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| Seeing Old Faithful from the air brought back childhood memories from when my parents took me here all those years ago... |
My uncle told me that he's circled over Old Faithful a number of times and he's never seen it go off from the air until today. I for one am grateful that he and I got to share this incredible moment as pilots! After seeing Old Faithful, we set off to look for the Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest hot spring in the United States and third largest in the world. And it didn't take us long to find it! I was absolutely blown away from what I saw!
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| The Grand Prismatic Spring from the air! |
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| It's one thing to look at this on the ground, but it's truly a different perspective from the air! Views like this just goes to show what one can see as a pilot! |
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| The vivid colors in the spring are the result of microbial mats around the edges of the mineral-rich water. The mats produce colors ranging from green to red and the amount of color in the microbial mats depends on the ratio of chlorophyll to carotenoids and on the temperature gradient in the runoff. In the summer, the mats tend to be orange and red, whereas in the winter the mats are usually dark green. |
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| The Grand Prismatic Spring discharges 560 gallons of water per minute! |
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| The contrast of the varying colors makes Grand Prismatic absolutely beautiful. |
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| Seeing this reminded me that flying as a pilot is not about the destination, but the adventure that lies in between. |
After the sight-seeing, it was back to the business of flying. After a quick touch-and-go at West Yellowstone Airport, we headed back to St. Anthony; we followed the Snake River before entering the left downwind for Runway 4, where we landed. After clearing off the runway, we taxied the Mooney back to the hangar and shut the engine down. We then did our post-flight and secured the airplane in the hangar, calling it a successful flight; my third logged-flight in a complex airplane!
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| I give this flight an astounding thumbs-up! |
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