Rainbow Bridge - Mexican Hat - Salt Lake City
The next day (May, 21st) we departed from Page early heading
Lake Powell and the famous Rainbow Bridge. We then flew
westbound to Monument Valley and a village called Mexican Hat
with a stone sculpture which resembles a sombrero.
From there we headed NE to our destination of Salt Lake City.
Before getting to SLC we had to climb to 11500 ft in order to get
over some high mountains Shortly before the descent to SLC we
went through our worst experience in this fortnight: we encountered
a very strong turbulence causing our luggage to be thrown against
the ceiling of the plane. If we hadn't fastened our seatbelts really
tight we would probably have broken our necks. After such an experience I would strongly recommend everyone to fasten their seatbelts
during any flight, even if the "fasten seatbelt" sign is switched off, as one cannot see these clear air turbulences (CATs) which can be
really harmful.
Soon after that bump we encountered another problem during our
flight; the GPS which had led us reliably to all our way points
failed exactly when we needed it most on our approach to SLC.
SLC International has a very large Class B Airspace which we
didn't want to enter, as it was our intention to land on the Bountiful
Skypark Airfield (BTF) north of the SLC International. In order to
achive this a very steep descent was required after passing the
mountains on the east side of the city. In such cases a GPS is
realy useful during an approach, it gives you the exact direction to the airport as well as a moving map display with all relevant airspaces.
In the situation when we relied on the GPS most it failed due to poor GPS coverage!
In the end we found our way home, but it was a quiet busy approach as the airport came into sight very late and - to our surprise - it was
located in the middle of some refineries and between large gas tanks ! Could you imagine a European airport having such a
location ? After this turbulent flight we spent the evening in the hotel and tried to relax and prepare the days ahead.