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May 10-11, 2013. A dozen DAFers touched down in Oceano (L52) to help celebrate the annual Airport Appreciation Day. Six of us camped out on the airport property, the other six stayed in a nearby hotel.

A hamburger grill took place on Friday night, followed by dance music from the San Luis Jazz Band. On Saturday morning, we woke up to a Lions Club pancake and sausage breakfast and a chance to look at the aircraft static display (which included quite a few Mooneys). A full 16-piece Swing music orchestra entertained everyone until a tri-tip lunch was served by the local Elks club.

Unfortunately, a low cloud layer that stuck around all morning prevented a few DAFers from flying in and joining the Saturday events. This was a nice low-key event that let everyone appreciate our small, local airports.

In the past we've had programs on how to avoid crashing your airplane, and recently had one on how to survive if you do crash your airplane, but our April dinner program focused on something different - finding the wreckage of unsurvivable airplane crashes.  It wasn't a topic that you would normally expect a group of active aviators to enjoy, but our speaker, G. Pat Macha, delivered a very informative and entertaining presentation: "Mysteries Mitigated".  Pat is the author of three books in the field of aircraft archeology, has produced a video on wreck finding and hosted the History Channel program, "Broken Wings".  Pat detailed the tedious work of finding the wrecks, and the emotional experience of connecting family members to their departed loved ones.  After Pat's presentation, the remainder of the meeting was devoted to consoling the hysterical sobbing of some of non-pilot flying companions in the audience.

28 DAFers and 4 potential DAFers in 13 aircraft flew into Laughlin-Bullhead International Airport on April 14 for an event-packed weekend orchestrated by Craig and Jody Narr. Craig and Jody shuttled everyone from the airport to our river-view rooms at the Aquarius Hotel, where an early happy hour started at 4pm. We then walked down to the dock in front of the hotel and boarded the Celebration paddle-wheeler for two-hour dinner cruise.  The food was great and the balmy evening weather couldn't have been nicer.

On Saturday morning, the Narrs and Taylors picked up a couple of large passenger vans and took us all to Oatman, AZ on historic Route 66.  At Oatman, there were plenty of shops, fat yet seemingly insatiable burros, and a staged gunfight that raised money for charity.  After riding back to the hotel, most of us had dinner at the Vineyard restaurant.  We all then walked next door to the Riverside Hotel and Casino and saw a Johnny Cash tribute show.  This was a very well-produced show that is touring internationally.

Most of us departed for Torrance on Sunday morning, but the Narrs, Falstroms and Delanes took a flying side trip to the Grand Canyon Caverns (click the photo for all of pictures).

This trip took a lot of planning and the club would like to extend a big thank-you to Craig and Jody for putting together such a fun weekend.

The March 19th dinner meeting featured Dr. Gary Fogel, an expert on the history of soaring in Southern California. Gary customized his very informative presentation to highlight some of the significant soaring events that took place in the South Bay and Palos Verdes Peninsula. The photo to the left shows Gary holding one of his many operational scale models of vintage sailplanes (Click on the picture for the meeting's photo gallery).