The Time Between

From new pilots to old pilots its hard to beat a short day trip to a close by airport, take in the scenery, get lunch, and just relax. A common day trip for many pilots that live in Saint George, Utah is to fly over to Page, Arizona to take in the scenery of Lake Powel.

Saint George to Page is a 99 Nautical Mile Flight and offers amazing views and several other airports along the way such as Colorado City and Kanab which also makes this route very suitable for a student solo or for an introduction to flight training for a new pilot. Its advisable to take this flight early in the morning during the summer to avoid the thermals and mid-day turbulence over the desert. Be aware that because of the mountainous terrain its possible to encounter light to moderate mountain wave turbulence depending on the winds, again go early in the morning. Flying Higher to avoid the mountain wave is a great option but during the later summer months, be aware that its monsoon season in Utah and Arizona so there can be low level clouds and afternoon thunderstorms preventing you from flying above the turbulence or outright flying at all.

The day that I went, there was little to no cloud cover in the morning and a favorable tailwind from Saint George heading east to Page. The RV-12is is perfectly suited for these short-hop scenic flights because of its bubble canopy allowing for almost unlimited 240 degree views. With the favorable tailwind, the RV-12 completed the morning flight in just under 45 minutes and burned under 5 gallons of fuel.

There are a couple things to note about Page. There are a few commercial operations there like Grand Canyon Scenic Airlines, which operates between Las Vegas and Page offering both air tours as well as transportation to ground based tours in Page, and chartered flights for private individuals. Its not uncommon to see executive and cabin class aircraft, including small jets, arriving and departing. Its easy to Identify one of Grand Canyon Scenic Airlines planes over the radio with their call sign, “Canyon View”.

Another thing to note is that when looking on the maps and charts, you will see that the designated runway is listed as 15-33, but upon actually arriving at page you can clearly hear and see that the physical markings on the runway is 16-34. With the current conditions of the day, you could hear pilots call out “Runway 34” as the runway in use. This is also reflected in the NOTAMs for Page as the runway has “non-standard markings”. There is also a permanent runway closure of runway 07-25. You cannot see most of the old runway as it has been built over with hangars and in case of emergency would not be an advisable place to land.

For the RV-12, Page’s 5950 ft. long runway is way more than enough space to land and provides ample length if we had to abort a take off later in the day. In Light weight aircraft its easily doable, even on calm days, to exit the runway on taxiway A4, but it might be more practical to get off at A2 as that points you straight into transient parking and tiedowns and gets you away from jets that may want to get out of the executive terminal, Million Air Lake Powell.

But that favorable tailwind in the morning turned into a stiff headwind just before noon, and clouds had begun to develop along our flight path back to Saint George. All of this occurred in just barely an hour because when we landed in page, we got a car and went into town for breakfast. By the time we finished eating I could see that cloud development had started west of Page which cut our stay a bit short as we wanted to get back to Saint George before any more significant weather had developed. While our RV-12is is mighty capable, it is not equipped for instrument flight rules nor is it allowed to fly through clouds per its limitations because it is a Light Sport Aircraft.

For the flight back, I opted to climb significantly higher at 12,500′ MSL for a short portion of the flight to get away from the lower level desert turbulence but this proved to be a bit of a challenge because the cloud bases were around 10,000 ft. MSL and topped out higher than 12,500 ft. Thankfully the cloud development was not so significant that it stopped us from progressing. There were large enough gaps between clouds to maintain significant clearance and fly an almost straight line back to Saint George until we were over Kanab. Just past Kanab, cloud development was more significant and it was necessary to descend below the bases of the clouds. I opted to then begin a shallow decent about 3 miles west of Kanab to 8500 ft. MSL and once we were back over Colorado City another shallow decent into Saint George.

Overall Page is a wonderful destination to fly to and offers ample scenery to boot. Page’s staff are friendly and there is a crew car available to pilots or an Avis rental for more long term use beyond just a few hours. Parking space is no issue, is very reasonable on pricing for overnight accommodation and there is no charge for transient parking for a few hours. Fuel prices are a bit higher but its full service only and there isn’t much else around that area. Page is absolutely worth the stop.