Comments on the Eclipse

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Rich
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Comments on the Eclipse

Post by Rich »

This turned out to be quite an Aviation event here on Oregon. Something like 400 aircraft flew into Madras and 130 into Salem (as examples) for the spectacle. Madras and Bend each got a temporary control tower. Madras made perfect sense, but Bend was well outside totality, so I don't get the need for a tower. The temporary control tower at Madras did help mitigate frequency congestion on 122.8, which is too widely used in this region.

And right after the Eclipse, apparently everyone at Madras needed to leave right away. Super long lines on the taxiway at Madras idling away awaiting takeoff.

But wait, there's more: A couple hundred more planes flew in and remain aloft to watch the Eclipse from the sky and then returned to wherever. A few very impressive screen shots of Foreflight and ATC radar displays showed all the traffic circling around the Salem area and then the madhouse heading back to (mostly) Western Washington and the Portland area. From all accounts ATC collectively did a wonderful job handling all the ground and flying traffic.

No midairs or even reported close calls, but there was one fatal accident on Saturday - a guy flying into Madras from California crashed in a canyon only a couple of miles short of the airport. The only fatality in the whole country in the last several days.
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pietromarx
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Re: Comments on the Eclipse

Post by pietromarx »

The fatality was a member of the local tech community based out of San Carlos airport. It is really too bad.

http://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/ ... as-airport
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Re: Comments on the Eclipse

Post by CFIDave »

FltPlan.com reported 17% more flight plans were filed on Monday -- the day of the eclipse -- than normal for that day of the week. So apparently lots of people flew their GA planes to be located on the line of totality.

In my case, I flew our DA62 from VA to pick up a couple of family members at a small town north of Atlanta, and then flew everyone to the St. Louis area to stay at my mom's house right on the path of totality. Monday afternoon thunderstorms formed only 5 miles to our north, but they and the high cirrus clouds that were partly obscuring the sun moved out of the way about 60 seconds before totality -- so the view was perfect! And then to make the experience even more surreal, an airliner flew right across the eclipsed sun -- it was temporarily so dark outside that you could see the plane's flashing strobes. The experience of totality was well worth the trip. :thumbsup:

Flying everyone back to Georgia that evening, I got a stark reminder that the moon was on the other side of the earth: it was a totally moonless, very dark night. Since I had to land at an unfamiliar airport nestled in the GA mountains (KJZP), you can bet that I took advantage of an LPV instrument approach despite VFR weather.

If you missed this eclipse, there's another crossing the US in 2024 -- I hope to be able to fly to it also.
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Re: Comments on the Eclipse

Post by Rich »

Although the fatality made the news, remember this was a very busy couple of GA flying days and many hundreds of flights across the country happened with no incidents. :D
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1911Tex
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Re: Comments on the Eclipse

Post by 1911Tex »

And I flew my "Diamond Eclipse" as well.....into the air with the greatest of ease!
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Re: Comments on the Eclipse

Post by Sandy »

I took my son, David, his wife, and their 4-week old daughter, to see the total eclipse at Triple Tree Aerodrome (SC00). I had never even heard of that airport before, but it was truly amazing. It's operated as a 501(c) non-profit educational entity, with its own control tower and a 7000' x 400' turf runway. Lots of volunteers... all super friendly. They do a lot of RC and General Aviation events. I estimate that there were between 600-800 airplanes there. If you've never heard of it before, and I'm guessing many here haven't, as I had the only Diamond on the field, so take a look at http://www.tripletreeaerodrome.com

Even though my home, in Atlanta, was due to have a 97% coverage, it turned out that the difference between the slightest sliver and totality was truly "night and day".

Sandy
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Re: Comments on the Eclipse

Post by CFIDave »

Sandy wrote:so take a look at http://www.tripletreeaerodrome.com
Triple Tree is a beautiful private airfield with a runway made of the same grass used for golf course greens. We flew our DA42 into there a few years ago for their big well-attended annual September fly-in, with an L39 jet landing on the grass right behind us. (Find our DA42 at 2:13
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqqfUO2s0dQ)

If you ever want to land your DA40 on grass without worrying about damage to your wheel pants, this is the place to go.
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Re: Comments on the Eclipse

Post by RMarkSampson »

Sandy,
You obviously spent too much time looking up and missed the Eclipse on the ground. :) I flew my DA-20-C1 to Triple Tree as well. Tampa to Boca Raton to pick up my daughter attending FAU and then up to TT - and back to Tampa. What a great experience - and you are right, you need totality to fully experience the eclipse. Your eye simply cannot stand directly looking at even a sliver of nuclear fusion - so you need complete coverage by the moon to enjoy those two minutes of corona-watching without the sun-watching glasses.

And yes, I did join the conga line of departing aircraft immediately after totality. I can even pick myself out in the AOPA Live video broadcast waiting my turn at a Bravo departure - they did a nice broadcast from several airport in the path of totality including TT. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/aop ... 12548e695e Only a sliver of the moon was eclipsing the sun by the time we got airborne 40 minutes later. Triple Tree is opening its field next month again on 6-10 SEP for its annual fly-in. I've been twice before. A great event to visit for a day, or even camp overnight - and without the departure conga line. Everyone should consider making that a destination.

I'm definitely up for 2024 - perhaps we should pick a couple of airfields where Diamonds can congregate.
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Re: Comments on the Eclipse

Post by Joey »

There was a large GA presence in Columbia SC too (CAE). Eagle aviation hosted a great pre-event buffet then had a section of Tarmac roped off for viewing. They had a full parking area as did the other fbo. There was a navy E-2 Hawkeye in the pattern during the total eclipse: I wonder if he logged a few minutes of night time :D the only bad part was the 35 plane conga line taxiing out for takeoff after the eclipse; there was an hour wait for takeoff. I went out for dinner instead!
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Re: Comments on the Eclipse

Post by Colin »

At the Madras airport in Oregon the congo line was so bad that people were walking their planes for all but the last bit of it. Sort of cool photos of that exit happening.
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