Flagstaff - KFLG?

azpilot

azpilot

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azpilot
Has anyone here flown into Flagstaff Arizona? KFLG?

My 9 year old son is on fall break. I'm thinking of flying up to KFLG on Sunday and taking him to the Lowell Observatory. He loves all things science and has been asking me to take him flying.

I've never been into KFLG. Any recommendations, hints, or tips on navigating the airport? It looks like Wiseman is the only FBO. Is there any free transient parking I can use? What about getting around town? I'm thinking we'll just take an Uber from the airport to the Observatory. It looks like it's just a few miles.
 
Been there several times, beautiful place. Wiseman is it, very nice folks, can't offer too much more help, you might try the FBO Group with Enterprise for a rental as Uber might take a while. This time of year high DA won't be a big problem, but your still pretty high so be mindful of it. Also this time of year winter weather is already setting in and ice can be a threat at required altitudes. Enjoy.
 
Flew there several times. Wiseman FBO was the first FBO I'd been to with cloth towels in the bathrooms. They always have coffee, tea and water and cookies out for their patrons and the resident cat is always on hand for a pet or two. The air traffic manager there is one of my best friends. Be mindful of the density altitude.
 
Just wanted to report back on this to everyone. I had an awesome day trip from KCHD to KFLG yesterday. I took my 9 year old son and we toured the Lowell Observatory. He loves anything science related and just ate the whole 90 minute tour up. Ride share options in Flagstaff are spotty, but we used it to get around. I didn't want to spend $60 on a rental car. But by the time I was done, I'd spent nearly that much on three rides to get to the Observatory, then to food, then back to the airport. In hindsight, I should have just got the rental car. The FBO folks at Wiseman were great and very helpful.

The Delta airspace at KFLG was much less busy than the Delta airspace at KCHD that I'm used to flying in. That was a nice change. It sounded like just one gentleman was working Tower and Ground. The pace of everything was just a little bit slower and I felt like I was talking to a human being instead of a fast talking robot (no offence to any of the ATC folks that post here). It was also kind of cool to see an AA CRJ landing right after we shut down and were standing there on the ramp, which is an interesting contrast given the lower volume of traffic.

Taking off from KFLG in the afternoon I was very cognizant of the density altitude. Let's just say I was very glad that the runway at KFLG is 8800' long (including the displaced threshold). But it certainly took us a while to get up to speed, rotate, get into ground effect, build some more speed, and then start climbing. My son slept just about the whole flight home.

Great trip!
 
The Pluto planet/non-planet debate is a touchy subject to the locals around Flagstaff, as you would expect. The tour guide at the Lowell Observatory (completely unbiased, of course) told us that if the new IAU criteria promulgated in 2006 were strictly followed, only Mercury and Saturn would still qualify as planets.

I do have a bit of a rooting interest in this story; I attended a class taught by Clyde Tombaugh at New Mexico State University in 1967. He discovered Pluto largely based on the comparison of photographic plates, one taken on January 23, 1930, and the other six days later on Jan 29. The latter was the very day on which my father was born.
 
Pluto should absolutely be a planet
 
Pilawt said:
The Pluto planet/non-planet debate is a touchy subject to the locals around Flagstaff, as you would expect. The tour guide at the Lowell Observatory (completely unbiased, of course) told us that if the new IAU criteria promulgated in 2006 were strictly followed, only Mercury and Saturn would still qualify as planets.

I do have a bit of a rooting interest in this story; I attended a class taught by Clyde Tombaugh at New Mexico State University in 1967. He discovered Pluto largely based on the comparison of photographic plates, one taken on January 23, 1930, and the other six days later on Jan 29. The latter was the very day on which my father was born.
Click to expand...

I was actually somewhat surprised at the neutral position our tour guide took. She was an astronomy student at NAU and basically said, "We don't care what everyone calls it as long as we keep getting funding to study it."
 
20211010_115958.jpg

The nonprofit that runs the observatory has a genius way of tracking who supports which definition. You can see where my son voted.
 
"planet" is winning nearly 3:1 vs "dwarf planet"

20211010_120006.jpg
 
2b235fbb-4f0e-544c-a60b-f36b69529e80.preview-300.jpg


And yes, Flagstaff is a cool little airport, except when it is windy. Then it can be a real handful.
 
Pilawt said:
Sign at the entrance to the observatory
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I can't imagine the patience required to go through all of those comparator photos and trying to find this little dot eventually called Pluto. They gave us side by side pictures with arrows pointing to the little dot moving and I could still barely see it.
 
azpilot said:
So how do you feel about Ceres?

I would agree though that the criteria of "clearning the neighborhood", is just far too ambiguous to use as definition for what is a planet vs. 'something else'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood
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I can appreciate the desire to come up with a set of rules, but even the "clearing the neighborhood" is going to have some subjectivity to it.. at some point you have to ask yourself "does it have enough gravity to hold itself together in a largely round/spheroid shape? Does it follow a routine orbit around a star largely independent of other orbiting objects?" <- that's a reasonably sniff test. While small, Ceres and Pluto would fit that bill

"Dwarf planet" just sounds like an unnecessary delineator
 
Pilawt said:
This one?
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Yes, that one. Our guide told us that those films constituted a one square inch portion of the ~11 x 17 exposure. They'd look at the plates one square inch at a time and try to find changes.

I absolutely would not have the patience for that. lol
 
I may just be an astronomy luddite, but, the whole "what is a planet" debate seems a little silly, it's like debating "what is hot"..

Whether we call Pluto, Ceres, etc., "planet" or "dwarf planet" or whatever has no material impact on its scientific value
 
Tantalum said:
I may just be an astronomy luddite, but, the whole "what is a planet" debate seems a little silly, it's like debating "what is hot"..

Whether we call Pluto, Ceres, etc., "planet" or "dwarf planet" or whatever has no material impact on its scientific value
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This was the exact point of view our tour guide took.

I guess the one bit of value that it has is that all the discussion and debate draws attention to astronomy. The increased interest of the public helps to support funding of organizations (both private and public) that want to study and investigate celestial bodies.
 
azpilot said:
I guess the one bit of value that it has is that all the discussion and debate draws attention to astronomy. The increased interest of the public helps to support funding of organizations (both private and public) that want to study and investigate celestial bodies.
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Fair point. I especially like the competing tip jars someone posted up thread!
 
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