Trip to Yuma for bird watching

Today I had another back-to-back flight with Toddy and Gilbert, so we decided to head over to Yuma - a fairly large International airport just on the Arizona/California border, that is also home to a US Marine Corps fleet.
We had a pretty good flight going over (I flew us over there) - had a couple of laps around the hold then flew the VOR approach to rwy 17. All went pretty well, and soon we were parked up and heading in for a sit down and a drink. But not before Toddy demonstrated to Gilbert how much bigger the British are over the Americans (and Mexicans)



When we came back out we spotted an Osprey coming in to land, and as it happens it parked up right next to us to get fuel. It kept the rotors spinning while it fuelled up, which meant we couldn't leave the parking area until it cleared off. This delayed us, but meant we got some good piccies:



It eventually buggered off, throwing up a huge dust storm in its wake, and we headed back out fo rwy 17, with Toddy in control.



Once we took off, we were able to see all the military aircraft lined up: F-16s, C130s, Harriers, Apaches, FA-18s - it was awesome.




We left the area and headed back over to Goodyear. Toddy had a practise at the NDB approach at Mobile airport, then back for a full stop landing at Goodyear. All in all it was a pretty good trip - and the good thing is we have to go back there solo as part of the cross country trip for our CPL test. Magic!