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Welcome to part two of three of our aviation meet-up in Phoenix, Arizona. Part one was all about the travelling my brother and I did and that days events. If you have not checked out that part yet, please go check that out before reading this.
Day 2: After a good night’s rest, it was Saturday, January 5th, 2019 and day two of the three day meet up for Dillon and I. We woke up around 10 am local time and I texted my buddies who were in the room across from us to see if they had woken up. Surely enough, they had and were about to go downstairs. I texted then back and told them that we were gonna be down in ten to fifteen minutes. They said that they would wait on us downstairs. Surely enough, it only took us ten minutes and we were downstairs. Once all downstairs, we all decided to ride the train over to the airport to meet up with the rest of our crew. Getting to the Phoenix Sky Train was a very simple task. All we had to do was cross the street and ride some to the waiting area. Once we got to the waiting area, we waited two minutes for the train. Once the train pulled in, we got on and rode the train to the terminal four parking garage. While riding it, we all talked about aviation and flying and how our careers are going. The train ride was a very short five minutes and upon getting to terminal four, we exited the train and went downstairs. Now, that might seem like that’s it, but in fact we still had to get to the terminal four parking garage. Getting to the “staging”area was not hard at all. Coming off the train, we just walked through a massive hallway and across to the other side of the terminal to the elevators that would take us up to level eight. Upon reaching level eight, we walked to the southwest side (literally where Southwest Airlines parks) and met up with the rest of our crew. The rest of the crew included: Jake Youngs, Chuck Dart, Joe VanReeth, Derin Allerd. Johan Illena, Cody Downey, Dillon, myself, Jadan Fields and Cliff Leftridge. We plane spotted for a while and saw everything from a tiny CRJ to an Airbus A330-300. While we were plane spotting, we had our aviation scanners going so we can listen to the tower and figure out what plane was taking off. After plane spotting for an hour or so, we decided to go back into the terminal and get something to eat. We got back into the same elevator that took us up to level eight of the parking garage back down into the terminal. When we got back on level three of the terminal, we all went our own ways to get some food at the restaurants that Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport has to offer. Most of us went and got chicken strip and french fries because that sounded good. We all get our food and sit a one of the big tables that is open. We talk for another hour to another hour and a half before once again heading out and continuing with the day. The next stop for the day after eating lunch was the new south concourse and terminal three. We rode the train over to terminal three and then walked from the train station to the bottom of terminal three. Once in terminal three, we walked all the way through the terminal to the elevator and that took us to the top of that parking garage. Once getting to the top of the parking garage, we set up a spotting location on the south side of the parking garage and spotted arrivals and departures off of 7L and 7R. Once again, Jake and I had our aviation scanners going so we could listen to all of the arrivals and departures. While we were up there, we took our group photo. Luckily for us, the control tower was our backdrop which made for a pretty neat group photo. After out group photo in front of the control tower, we all went back to plane spotting. As soon as we get done with our group photo, Jake informs us that a Delta Boeing 757 is about to leave from the gate. Jake, myself, Cody and Johan all run to the north side of the airport so we can see the Delta 757 push and takeoff. We rush over there and see it push back and start to taxi and just admire the sound of the engines and how sexy the plane looks. We all figure it will be taxing to runway 7L for departure like it usually does, but it instead taxied down to runway 8. We were all disappointed but once it was taking off we all became quiet so we can hear the roar of the jet engines. Once that left, we returned to the rest of our crew and just started talking. As soon as we got back to the south side, we see and hear a flight of four Stearman aircraft doing a low approach on runway 7R. That was cool to see. Shortly thereafter, I started to do some interviews for the YouTube channel. I interviewed Cody Downey and Jadan Fields. That took about half hour or so to do. After that, we did not do much except plane spot for a little bit. Around 5pm local time, we left the terminal three parking garage and walked back down through terminal three and back up to the train. We got on the train back to terminal four so we can eat. Once we got back to terminal four, we headed back downstairs into the main part of the terminal to eat dinner as a group. We decided to eat at Chelsea’s Kitchen. There was around a dozen of us when we went to go eat. Unfortunately, a few of those people had to bounce because they had to start there trip back home. Upon arriving at Chelsea’s Kitchen, we presented our leader and CEO, Cliff Leftridge, a present for everything he has done with the group. His present was a picture frame of a Fedex Boeing 767 landing while a Fedex Boeing 757 holds short of the runway. Around the picture was “Cliffisims” or Cliff sayings. Dillon and Jake presented that gift to him and I think everyone saw some tears. After that, we ordered our food and two other people, Brandon and Caleigh Richardson joined us. They are brother and sister and fly for Ameriflight on the Embraer E-120. They joined us and got some food as well. We ate and talked for a goof two plus hours. Nothing substantial happened during those two hours except a lot of aviation and personal talk. At around 7pm local time, we headed out of the restaurant and decided what to do next. We decided to go back to the Crowne Plaza Hotel where most of the non Pheonix locals where staying. We broke off into two groups and went back to the hotel. Upon getting to the hotel, we went to the bar “area” and the ones that were old enough got drinks and the rest of just chilled and continued to talk about aviation. We spent another two hours sitting in the bar “area” talking about aviation and life. We had three people ask us what our group, Blue Skies and A Tailwind, was about. The first person to ask us what it was about was a Southwest captain who is famous on instagram by the name: @captainselfie1. He asked about out group and we told him. He asked how how many people flew in and those of us that did, he asked what airline. When it got to my turn, I said SOuthwest and he asked out of where and I said Little Rock. He then told everyone that has an instagram to follow him so we all did that had one and he followed all of us back. The next person to ask what the group was about was a corporate pilot flying for some major gas corporation. He told us that his daughter was flying and how he got into which was cool. The last person to ask what the group was about came later on in the night when a new private pilot of North Dakota stopped by and asked what our group was. We told him about it and he joined the group on the spot. He sat down and told us how he got started in aviation. At around 10:30 PM local time, all of us non Phoenix locals started heading back to our rooms while the Phoenix locals went to there cars and drove home. Not much happened after that as well all went our respective ways and went to bed for our flights in the morning. This concludes part 2 of the Blue Skies and A Tailwind Meet-up blog. Be sure to come back to the last and final part, part 3 were Dillon and I unfortunately have to leave Phoenix.
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