By STAN KASPRZYK

FlightLog Archive

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Aircraft Flown

Comanches and AeroDogs - Jan 2025

My friend Kevin recently had his annual completed on his Comanche 250 in Tulare, CA, at Johnston Aircraft Service, a Comanche service and repair center for the west coast. Kevin's schedule and Northwest weather had delayed his Comanche pickup, leaving his bird away from home for 45 days.

Since I’ve made numerous California to Washington cross country flights, and also gave Kevin his initial checkout in the Comanche, Kevin asked if I’d join him to help return the Comanche to Puyallup from California. I was already going to say yes, but Kevin sweetened the offer with a ticket on Alaska Air from Seattle to Fresno, overnight accommodations to allow for an early start to our return, and all ground transportation needed.

We met in the late afternoon at SeaTac and enjoyed the new spacious facilities at the AMEX lounge, with a great dinner menu and a smoothie and ice cream bar included. After an uneventful flight in First Class down on an Alaska ERJ-175, we got an extra ‘tenth’ in the air when the Alaska flight crew added power at 200 feet on final and went around. We saw that another incoming Alaska flight was slow to leave the runway, so we enjoyed an extra Fresno night aerial tour.

The next morning, after breakfast and a ride from Lionel, the Chief Mechanic at Johnston, we arrived at the Tulare airport (KTLR) under clear but cold (30º) skies. The Comanche had been parked outside overnight, so our planned early departure had its first delay, as Johnston Aircraft Service’s new owner, Mike Schoenau, taxied the Comanche to a nearby hangar for de-icing.

Kevin and I checked out Johnston’s main hangar, and I crawled around a dusty but good-looking Stearman at one end of the hangar. The front section of the upper wing had some noticeable damage, and the local crew noted that it needed some serious repair work. I noticed some great nose art on the Stearman, with a giant decal for ‘AeroDogs - Home of the Famous Flying Wiener’. When Mike returned, he told us the ‘AeroDogs’ patch was from his former restaurant that was built in a former USAF T-29, a military version of the Convair 240. I had flown in a number of T-29s during navigation training courses at the Air Force Academy, but not the one that became ‘AeroDogs’, tail number 50-0193. AeroDogs has changed hands, and the T-29 in Tulare was known as 'Richard's Lunchbox' until 2016, and is now 'The Flying Taco'.

Kevin and I had planned on one local flight, just to give a final condition check after the annual and extended time on the ground. We took off after a thorough pre-flight, with a brisk climb in the cool conditions, but both immediately noted a strong left rolling tendency. We immediately headed back to the pattern for an uneventful landing, and found that the rudder trim had been set far to one side, and no obvious aileron issues. We took off for a second local flight, but even with the corrected rudder trim, the left rolling tendency was still there. Mike and the other mechanics then measured the aileron alignment, tweaked the aileron connections and made a few more minor adjustments. I asked Mike, Johnston’s owner and mechanic, to take the next flight with Kevin, after which they quickly returned with thumbs up for normal flight control feel and no rolling tendency.

Finally, we blasted north just after 11:00AM, much later than our planned ‘early departure’. The weather for all of California was severe clear, with 100 mile+ visibility, but our concern was Oregon and Washington weather, with both mired in low clouds and fog that had been slow to break up over the past few days. At our cruise altitude of 10,500 feet, we were only burning 10 GPH, so we decided to overfly our planned mid-flight lunch stop in Medford, OR and continue to press as far north as possible, keeping track of the scheduled clearing of the fog and low clouds. We enjoyed testing out Kevin's new Starlink antenna in-flight, and were rewarded with impressive data rates once the link was established, allowing Kevin to conduct a few business on-line meetings. I tested out the Starlink by FaceTiming with Ma and Theresa, showing them views of Mt. Shasta as we cruised by. Nice capability! Kevin just placed the antenna on the Comanche's glareshield, and we're looking at further mounting options. Boom Supersonic's T-38 chase designed an interesting bracket solution.

Most of Oregon's central valley stubbornly hung on to low clouds from Grants Pass all the way north to Salem, with a VFR break finally appearing over Portland. Washington had similar IFR conditions as the Oregon valleys, with only Kelso opening up to VFR as the afternoon progressed. We decided to overfly Portland and land at Kelso, refueling to keep our options open, allowing Kevin to join another work meeting, and get a detailed update on the Puget Sound area forecast. Although our goal was Puyallup (KPLU), their weather stayed stubbornly Low IFR all afternoon, with only nearby Tacoma Narrows (KTIW) having their ceiling rise to just above approach minimums. With sunset approaching we quickly launched from Kelso, picked up our IFR clearance, and proceeded to Olympia, then on to the RNAV 17 IAF at JUYCU. Kevin hand flew a smooth RNAV approach, descending into the clouds at 1800 feet, breaking out just above minimums at 750 feet to a smooth landing on the already dark runway 17.

Dinner at the HUB topped off a great day of flying! Thanks, Kevin, for a chance to stretch my winter wings and cruise in your Comanche again!