Flight to Pinacate

It was not unusual for Virgil to call on a weekend if he was able to schedule a charter flight. I worked for him when I had time off from flying for the Air Force. Being single I usually had no problem leaving at the drop of a sectional chart.

This flight was different, though. Three guys from Texas show up in suits and ties with polished shoes and want us to fly them to a mine in Mexico. They were evasive about the exact location except that it was not far below the border.

Virgil told me they were shopping for an airplane but they wanted to find out first if the plane could operate out of their landing strip at the mine. That made this ostensibly a demonstration flight, and explained Virgil's interest in coming along. He hoped to make a sale.

I wondered why they showed up at our place, 90 miles from the Mexican border, when they could have found an aircraft dealer in Nogales or Tucson.

While enroute I learned two of the three were partners, and their mine was a volcanic cinder cone. The third man was their attorney. He carried a thin black briefcase.

One of the owners explained that the cinders were used as aggregate in concrete blocks and the entrapped air provided insulating qualities. Also he said the blocks were so light they would float on water, and the low weight cut down on shipping costs.

I asked if they ever found precious gems among the cinders. One of the men said they did, but it was rare.

We flew south across the Papago Indian Reservation and skirted the east side of Baboquivari Peak. Sasabe lay off my left wing tip when we crossed the border. All I saw of the small community was a smatterig of shanties and dirt streets.

After paralleling the Mexican highway toward Altar for about 10 minutes, they directed me to turn west toward the Pinacate Desert, an area with no towns and few roads. I never knew what landmarks they used. Neither of them could--or would--show me on a sectional chart where we were going, but the two partners kept putting their heads together and looking at a roadmap. Every few minutes they gave me a new heading.

Finally one of them said, "There it is up ahead, just to the right." He pointed toward a cinder cone about 200 feet high, some 15 miles away. More cones and lava beds extended to the horizon, broken by an occasional smattering of green along scarce arroyos. The area resembled a moonscape clothed in shades of gray with occasional tints of red.

I throttled back and let the airplane drift toward the desert floor. At a couple hundred feet I leveled and circled the cone.

"There's a road on the east side," one of the men said. "We can land there."

The road failed to impress me. I wondered if anyone had ever landed there. After adding a notch of flaps I eased to about 20 feet above ground and did a slow flyby to check it out. The road consisted of two wheel tracks with scattered bushes up to waist high on both sides. It meandered across the desert like a cow trail; not a good place to land an airplane.

I wondered why these guys were looking at a Piper, an aircraft with wings below the fuselage when they needed something with high wings that would clear most of the bushes--preferably a tail dragger like a Cessna 185--better yet a 185 with a STOL kit. (Short Takeoff and Landing)

Virgil apparently sensed my doubt so he announced he would make the landing. That suited me just fine. I was not too keen on the possibility of wrecking an airplane with my boss in the right front seat--especially in one of he most desolate places in North America.

He throttled up the 300 horse power Lycoming and banked away in a lazy oval pattern. When he rolled out on final approach he added full flaps and began slowing the seven-passenger Cherokee. The straightest part of the road looked like two football field-length sections butted together with a dog leg in the middle that angled off aout 20 degrees to the left. No place on the road went more than 100 yards without a bend.

Virgil worked the throttle and elevator, staying just above a stall--wheels touching tops of bushes, until he reached the exact spot he wanted. When he chopped power the landing gear eased onto the dusty road. Once solidly down, he raised the flaps to protect them from banging against bushes crowding both sides of the wheel tracks.

Mesquite trees flew by at eye level just feet beyond the wing tips. Creosote bushes drummed against the wings, and once Virgil swerved to avoid a palo verde tree. At the dogleg he stood on the left pedal and took a shortcut across the desert until we joined the road again. He kept the control wheel tucked into his gut and worked the brakes to burn off speeed. We skidded around the last curve before rolling to a stop.

It was not really hot but my armpits were damp when we climbed out of the airplane.

A pickup soon appeared and took us to a portable building a quarter mile away at the edge of the cinder cone. A conveyer belt and skip loader stood idle behind the building. I saw no one working and little evidence of past labors.

Virgil and I walked around and kicked a few rocks while the four men met in the small building. After 20 minutes they came out and announced they were ready to go.

When I opened the airplane door, the first thing I noticed was the attorney's briefcase on the back seat.

I did the preflight inspection and we all boarded. Virgil taxied down the road and stopped short of the first curve. He did the engine run-up and we both scanned the sky for other airplanes, and the road for animals or vehicles.

The attorney sat in the third row of seats with the briefcase clutched against his chest. I wondered why the black valise was now so important, when minutes before he had been content to leave it in an unlocked, unwatched airplane.

Virgil brought in full throttle, releasing the brakes. When we began rolling he pulled the wheel back, adding a touch of up elevator.

Jabbing at the right brake momentarily, he powered around the first bend and we hurtled down the dusty trail. At the apex of the dog leg he veered through the bushes and back onto the road. The airspeed climbed and when Virgil saw the right numbers he pulled on flaps and tested the elevator. The nose eased up and the struts began lengthening, wheels gradually losing contact with the ground. I tried to conceal my sigh of relief when the bumping ceased and the bushes began falling away.

The nearest international airport was in Tucson, some 30 miles out of our way. The attorney mentioned that we would lose more than an hour if we went there for customs. "We didn't go through on our way down," he said. "I see no reason to now. Besides we don't have anything to declare."

I felt uneasy, but I was not the boss. Skipping customs going south certainly did not make it legal to avoid them coming back. Virgil said nothing so we flew straight home.

The next Saturday he called again. The men from Texas were back and wanted to fly to their mine. Like before they showed up unannounced.

"Virgil," I said. "I sure don't want to squelch a deal for you to make a sale, but I don't think those guys intend to buy an airplane. I think they are using us, and I don't know what's going on. I have a bad feeling about the whole thing.

"You know," he said. "I don't feel right about it either. I figured I could trust your judgment."

We never heard from the Texans again.

Story ID:	4013
Written by:	James Baker (bio, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Writers' Circle
Story type:	Diary/Journal Entry
Location:	Pinacate Desert Sonora Mexico
Year:	1968
Person:	Virgil