Plane spotting road trip : Day 9 July 4th 2024 Pullman WA => Leavenworth WA - 6 airfields

Pullman Washington is a beautiful university town twinned with Moscow 9 miles away to the east in neighboring Idaho. Another warm beautiful day. before leaving armed with Ronald McDonalds finest breakfast, we stopped at the jointly named regional airport with code KPUW which is between the two towns north of the highway (RR8) nearer Pullman . A brand new terminal building had just opened the previous May with three jet bridges, though the only carrier is Alaska Airlines (or their regional affiliates Horizon or SkyWest with ERJ-175's) with service to Seattle and Boise. There were active fires not too far away into Idaho, so there were a couple of fire fighting helicopters present including a Vietnam vet Huey plus two Life Flight B407's which are indigenous to the area. Otherwise there was just the usual quite large selection of GA aircraft all visible from the road which runs on a hill above the airport ramp, the most exciting being a Helio Courier and Cessna Skyknight.

 N50DV ~ Helio H700 Courier ~ Mountain Escape LLC [Pullman WA]

N6195Q ~ Cessna 320 Skyknight ~ Sunny Aviation [Kalispell MT]

Moscow-Pullman Regional Airport terminal building

N974H ~ Bell (Eagle Copters) Eagle 407HP ~ Hillcrest Aircraft Co [Lewiston ID] ~ ex N7ZB

N339WN ~ Bell UH-1H Iroquois (205) ~ USDA Forest Service [Olympia WA] ~ ex 63-12979

There is a small airport just to the south of Pullman in Staley which is just a farm strip so we didn't stop there. We headed west to Colfax, which also has a small airfield with no aircraft present, grandly named Port of Whitman Business Air Centre which you can see from the SR26 which we took through to Othello, which also has a municipal airport I also passed up on, along with Watson Fischer Ranch and Baumann Farm nearer Washtucna. There are truly dozens of tiny airstrips all through the US and it would be impossible to stop at each one on any kind of schedule. From Othello, we headed north on SR17 towards Moses Lake, the airport being a bucket list item for me as a large storage area by Boeing for their undelivered 737 Max's. I saw a sign to an airport and followed it and soon came across a few Cessna's which at first I assumed was some distant part of the main Grant County airport. However, I thought it was a little way from there and there was not a 737 to be seen. I didn't realize there was a second municipal airport with code KW20 to the west of the town, so that was an unplanned bonus. The rarest aircraft were a 1946 vintage Cessna 120 and 188 AgWagon.

N1798N ~ Cessna 120 ~ Private [Pasco WA]

N9500G ~ Cessna A188B AgWagon ~ Ephbaugm Equipment [Moses Lake WA]

We then crossed over the actual lake to the main KMWH airport and approached from the south west corner from the SR17. The size of the footprint of the airport is immediately apparent with 6 runways, two well over 10,000'. There has been no passenger service since United Express (SkyWest) ended the EAS route to Seattle back in 2010 and the now defunct Big Sky Airlines to Portland and Boise before that up to 2006.

There were indeed dozens of Boeing 737 Max's stored in various areas as I expected.  There is a large batch on the main apron where the terminal would have been in the south west corner and where the FBO now is.  I took many photos to hopefully identify some of them, but due to the heat, the haze rendered the vast majority of them useless and I ended up identifying very few frames.  It was noticeable the majority were painted for Chinese airlines and in the intermediate time some have been delivered, many of those re-painted for other carriers.  There were some frames for Southwest and United including -7 and -10 prototypes.  I should point out, that being July 4th, the place was absolutely deserted and the parking lots empty, so maybe I enjoyed unhindered and unchallenged access along the fences which would not normally be possible.  Also parked on the ramp was a 737-500 still in the colors of Russian carrier Aeroflot Nord / Nordavia now with Dynamic Aviation.  At the western most end is the Big Bend Aviation Technology Campus who have a few stored frames including a 757 mock up, an ex Fedex 727-100 and USAF Sabreliner.  The hi-light most certainly however - which was not on my radar - is a very rare Douglas UC-67 Dragon which is in great shape and potentially airworthy.

N777LW ~ Douglas UC-67 Dragon ~ Carmacks Commercial [Anchorage AK] ~ ex 39-0063 & N47794

N735T ~ Boeing 737-505 ~ Dynamic Aviation [Bridgewater VA] ~ ex LN-BRD & VP-BRP

N151FE ~ Boeing 727-22 (F) ~ Big Bend Community College ~ ex N7083U

N819BA ~ Beech A23-B19 Musketeer Sport 150 ~ Big Bend Community College

N7208U ~ Boeing 737-7 MAX ~ Southwest Airlines

N27602 ~ Boeing 737-10 MAX ~ United Airlines (The future is SAF ecoDemonstrator)

N67603 ~ Boeing 737-10 MAX ~ United Airlines

Un-registered ~ Boeing 737-8 MAX ~ Shanghai Airlines

N7226U ~ Boeing 737-7 MAX ~ Southwest Airlines

60-3493 ~ North American CT-39A Sabreliner ~ Big Bend Community College

Un-registered ~ Boeing 757-200 mock up ~ owner unknown (apparently not the college)

Looking north in the scrub is a decaying Convair 440 which you would have to be a long way airside to get a clean photo of.  Over on the eastern side of this southern "complex" is Greenpoint Technology where an infamous so nicknamed terrible teen (ln 19) 787-8 white tail is parked with an uncertain future.  Originally built for Royal Air Maroc, sold to Rwandair then cancelled and now unloved but in good condition.  You can then drive round the east side to the air tanker base with an Aero Flite RJ85 present and the Boeing facility.  There is another large batch of Max's stored over here, mostly Chinese, but this is all private property which I always strictly respect and access is very limited.  As a result I identified very few frames and no clear photograph opportunities are to be had at all.  We continued on around the north of the airfield and rejoined the SR17 north.

VP-CSC ~ Boeing 787-8 DreamLiner ~ Residence II ~ ex CN-RGC

N359SA ~ Convair 440 Metropolitan ~ ex Salair [Spokane WA] ~ ex N73155, N548Z, N118 & N8786

A friend mentioned to be that there was a Catalina at Ephrata Municipal airport code KEPH.  I had not intended to go here but only being 14 miles on the same highway in the rough direction we were going in, I decided it was worth a visit.  I am glad I did because this aircraft was sold to the Yanks Air Museum in Chino CA soon afterwards and I believe has already departed.  Being an ex USAF bomber base, it too is a vast airport with long runways, but is wide open with little infrastructure and quite windy, which makes it an ideal glider base.  This is the main activity now being the home of the USAF Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol, 94th FTS and Desert Eagle Glider Academy.  There is an assortment of gliders including a Canadian registered one with Piper Pawnee tow planes and I saw no other aircraft, not even private GA.  Apparently Ameriflight do operate cargo flights to Portland and Boeing Field.  We went in to the town and found a café for lunch.

 

N9505C ~ Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina (Steward Davis 28-5ACF EMQ conversion) ~ Yanks Air Museum [Chino CA] ~ ex BuNo 34027

N223GC ~ Schempp-Hirth Discus 2A ~ Private [Pasco WA]

N94SE ~ Alisport Silent 2 Electro ~ Private [Portland OR]

We headed west on the SR28 and passed through the town of Quincy, which also has a rather pretentiously named municipal airport with code K80T on a side street to the south of the town.  This yielded two Cessna's both easily photographable.

N3467J ~ Cessna 150G ~ Private [Eltopia WA]

We followed the Columbia River on the SR28, briefly retracing some steps from day 1.  We came off the road at Rock Island to East Wenatchee which is the home of Pangborn Regional Airport with code KEAT.  This does live up to the title with scheduled flights with Alaska Airlines - or their regional affiliates Horizon or SkyWest with ERJ-175's anyway - to Seattle.  Ameriflight also have cargo flights to Omak and Boeing Field as do Fedex Feeder to Spokane.  I always thought Pangborn was a town, but it is actually the name of a pioneer aviator Clyde Pangborn on the first nonstop trans Pacific flight which concluded here in 1931.  There was little to see here, there was a pair of Aero Flite CL415's on the far side of the airport and at the fire base on the south end a couple of helis.  There was a Rockwell Commander and Cirrus Vision Jet at the FBO with a few GA machines.

N205TK ~ Bell 205A-1 ~ Coastal Helicopters [La Verne CA] ~ ex N83222, PK-UHQ, VH-PMN, VH-PTS, HC-BHE, C-FMHA, VH-NNN & P2-HBY

N125CL ~ Airbus Helicopters AS350B3e AStar (H125) ~ Hillsboro Aviation [Hillsboro OR] ~ ex N198AH

N210HD ~ Rockwell Commander 500S ~ RV Aviation [Thatcher AZ]

Wenatchee - Pangborn Regional Airport terminal building

N386AC ~ Bombardier CL-415 ~ Aero-Flite [Spokane WA] ~ ex C-FIED

We headed across the Columbia River through Wenatchee on to the SR2 and headed west toward our final destination of Leavenworth. We dropped into the town of Cashmere on the Wenatchee River, which is home to Cashmere Dryden airport with code K8S2 (Dryden is the next town up the river. This is a beautiful part of the world, the airport is in the river valley with a short runway and there were no aircraft outside.

Cashmere Dryden airport

Leavenworth is a Bavarian village which is well worth a visit and loads of superb restaurants and lots of proper beer in proper size steins.  It was super busy being July 4th, so we actually stayed out of town this time a few miles west on the highway at the Squirrel resort which was a nice choice.  Previously we have stayed at the Obertal Inn right in the town with in room Jacuzzi's.  It is a great place and I have a lot of non aviation photos from both trips on my Flickr account - the other album being called WA & OR road trip Apr 15.

As always, all photos and detailed information on each frame are on my Flickr stream, listed in albums by airport in alphabetical order

https://www.flickr.com/photos/23870098@N04/albums/