I've long been fascinated with the Mojave Air & Space Port, the home of Virgin Galactic and just a stone's throw away from Edwards Air Force Base.
I've skulked around the airport a bit in the past, but I always wanted to go to its monthly "Plane Crazy" event, which would give a little closer access to the runway (and maybe get a better view of the airplane graveyard). I've had it on my calendar for years and years.
And then I joined a bus tour to a PST: ART exhibit in Hinkley, California with the Center for Land Use Interpretation (based in Culver City)—and lo, our lunch stop was at the Mojave Airport's Voyager Restaurant. (It was likely named after the record-setting Voyager aircraft, which departed from Edwards Air Force Base and flew around the world without stopping or refueling before landing at Mojave in 1986).
And wouldn't you know it, it was Plane Crazy Saturday, sponsored by the Mojave Transportation Museum.
I'd really wanted to get out onto the tarmac to try to get a bit closer to the airport's commercial plane boneyard, which I'd spotted from a couple of other vantage points. That's where some commercial jets are stored during a change of ownership, while others get stripped of their valuable parts or just scrapped altogether.
But it's those special days when plane owners and pilot hobbyists bring their kit aircraft out for static display, like a Cessna Skyhawk...
...and other colorfully-painted fixed wing single engine planes.
The green-and-white Cessna 140A that was parked outside is a single-engine, piston-powered aircraft that was built in 1950 and designed for pilot training.
It only seats two: a pilot and their passenger.
This model debuted in 1949, offered as an improvement over the Cessna 140—among other tweaks, covering its wings in aluminum instead of fabric (!).
Like most of the other planes, it's owned privately—so there's probably no chance you could convince the pilot to give you a ride if you just show up to Plane Crazy.
But at least we got to look inside at its design-forward cockpit panel, which features "piano keys" the pilot presses instead of flipping traditional switches.
This Cessna Skylane 182Q from 1977 (above), however, could seat a total of four people (including the pilot) and still be classified as "lightweight." This model (though not this particular plane) is still sometimes used by the volunteer pilots of the U.S. Air Force's civilian auxiliary, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP).
It was a beautiful day at the airport, with the Tehachapi Mountains looming in the close distance. But it probably wouldn't be worth a special trip by car to Mojave, California based on the laurels of the Plane Crazy event on its own (unless one of those experimental fly-ins was happening).
But that area of the Mojave Desert is fun to visit anyway, with the nearby Borax mine and museums in Boron and the unbuilt landscape of California City.
And the Voyager Restaurant is a fun stop to make, even if you're just passing through. (Check out the cool cartoon illustrations of planes on the wall as soon as you walk in, above.)
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When coming over Tehachapi Pass from Bakersfield there is a point where the desert landscape spreads out below, including the aircraft boneyard; a remarkable sight of a remarkable site. When my wife was a practicing attorney, then professor and dean of a law school, was in a group that went to other law schools to assess their quality. One of the group members we met developed a business where he would go out to the boneyard with his equipment and empty the fuel tanks of the planes that had flown to the boneyard. I wish that I could go with him.
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