My good friend Jim Casciani, sent me an email titled 'Dreaming and Remembering.' Below, in his characteristic understated style, Jim describes the dream, or is it a nightmare?
Do you remember the trip to Baja with Hans, you and me? We were flying at an altitude of several hundred feet looking for Melling Ranch. The ranch, our destination, has a landing strip in the desert mountains, 50 miles from any paved road. We were running out of sunlight, and became a bit concerned. Oh, I forgot to mention, we were also running low on fuel.
We could not find any ranch or airstrip. All eyes were looking. Hans was saying, "I think it is over there", you were checking instruments. You instructed me to check the RDF position which I had done only once before in my life. Hans was trying to be heavily involved from the back seat. We were getting increasingly tense. After what seemed to be a L O N G time, we spotted the dirt airstrip.
It was in a canyon. You make the landing-checks and go down for a landing, knowing there was little room for error. If I recall correctly, Saguaro cactus passing 30 feet away at 60 MPH did pucker me up. On touchdown, the recoil bounce was impressive! Nonetheless, control was maintained. It was great to be down. When we were unloading, we noticed that the white running light, on the bottom of the plane, could not take the rough landing and was dangling by its wires.
Great times.
Disclaimer (just in case I ever want to renew my pilot's license): We were not low on fuel.
