Sun Valley Idaho (SUN)

As determined as Clark Griswold was to get his family to Walley World in the movie “Vacation” I have started to feel the same way when it comes to flying my family. I am sure all new pilots go through the phase of being comfortable behind the controls of an airplane but uncertain about taking their young family flying. Having a pilots license for almost a year now I have only flown my wife twice and my little boy once to Nampa for breakfast.

So today was the day, we’re going to Sun Valley!! Our little guy did great he just hung out in the back seat playing with is toy repeating “airplane airplane airplane” then fell asleep. The wife and I had a couple good talks and the chance to reconnect a bit while sightseeing and taking pictures. It felt good being able to show the wife the south fork of the boise river that I had told her about after a previous flight earlier in the summer.

The funny thing about Sun Valley airport is that they control tower is blind and deaf, we’re talking the Helen Keller of airports. The airport sits in a hole, so the radios are hit or miss and they don’t have radar. So I’m flying my little putt putt airplane at 100 mph trying to dodge Bill Gates in his G4 going 500 mph and tower cant see or talk to either of us – awesome way to have fun, right! Additionally the way Sun Valley airport is setup forces planes to land and take off in opposite direction, meaning we’re eye-to-eye with departing traffic playing a variation of “airplane chicken”. Lastly its like a big whirlpool of wind – more on this later.

So i’m long final, maybe seven miles out, I see the airport and I hear “Gulfstream 123 ready for take off”…. “Gulfstream 123, wait Cessna on final”. I think to myself poor guy is probably going to waste $1,000 in fuel sitting their waiting for me, but then thought it was kinda funny as I slowed down to 80 kts (sorry Mr. Trump, go fluff your bangs because this is going to take a while). Knowing the winds can be tricky I get a wind update, I cant recall the numbers but I remember two things, 180 difference in direction between the two reporting stations and I’m landing with the wind in my favor, what happened next was a surprise…

I’m five feet above the runway, my controls are soft and I’m going fast. It takes about two to three seconds to figure out what is going on when something new or unexpected happens and my brain was buzzing. I look at my airspeed thinking I must have screwed up, nope good. I look at the runway and think “wow, fast”. Then it breaks through I’m landing with a tail wind, “wow, fast” I think again. Then touch the main wheels down and remember a previous landing when my nose wheel touch early while I was quicker than normal turning me hard and fast while scaring the hell out of me. This experience is at the front of my mind while I keep that nose high off the ground, until it gently fell to the ground. Looking around as I’m pulling off the runway for the waiting G4, I notice my landing took three times the distance and the wind sock indicates a 15 kt tail wind. Fun!

Mexican food, gondola ride to the top of the mountain, a long walk and a short nap; we’re ready to head off into the sunset – literally. The sun was directly in our eyes on the flight home, Aiden was upset to be locked in the car seat and we learned the hard way that without a four hour nap he really ‘hates’ airplanes. I enjoyed watching the wife sing “Old McDonnald” to Aiden at the top of her lungs over the deafening noise of the engine, trying to calm him down and thought how being middle aged isn’t all that bad if you spend your weekend outside of Costco and Target and in the air.

Tips:

1. SUN has courtesy cars provided by Hertz!
2. The town seems to have no food between 4 and 6PM
3. Do not crossover the gravel pit when heading East, tower wants you on the East side of the valley before cutting to the North.

Questions:

1. When the sun was directly in our eyes it was difficult to see through the windshield, how do you compensate for this?
2. Tail wind landing tips, what could I have done differently?