Hello IFC
Over the course of the month of June, I decided to go out to local airports and do some spotting. The pictures shown here are from two airports in particular; KSTS and 0Q9. On a side note, I would like to send some pics into jetphotos (not necessarily these). I’d really appreciate it if someone that has some previous experience with sending in photos would pm regarding what I need to do…
KSTS background
Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport (KSTS/STS) is a small commercial airport serving the county of Sonoma. It’s located some 7 NM Northwest of Downtown Santa Rosa. It is named after Charles M. Schulz, the famed cartoonist of the Peanuts comic strip, who lived in Santa Rosa for more than 30 years.
0Q9 background
Sonoma Skypark (0Q9) is a small privately-owned airfield located 3 miles Southeast of the town of Sonoma, California. It is primary used for student training and tours of the area.
We’ll start first at Sonoma Skypark. Here is a shot of the taxiway looking Westward. This is the only taxiway at the airport, and runs parallel to runway 8/26.
Just over the mountains is the city of Petaluma, where there is O69 (Petaluma Muni). Next week I’ll try to get some pics from over there.
Up next is a couple shots of a 1946 Taylorcraft. I have personally flown this beauty, and let me tell you, she flies better than any other plane I’ve flown, and that includes some pretty modern aircraft.
And here it is just after touching down.
Now we move to KSTS. The first aircraft I spotted coming in was this Army Helicopter. I don’t really follow military aircraft so I’m not going to go in depth on this one, however, I can tell you that it came from Travis AFB, which some 50 miles southeast of Santa Rosa. If anyone wants to identifies it for me, I’d appreciate it. I’ll even give you a virtual cookie!
Here we have a Alaska E-175 coming in from San Diego. Fun fact, I flew this same route, on this exact aircraft (N400SY). It was the first E175 route to KSTS ever. Sadly, I wasn’t as into aviation as I am now and didn’t really care.
And here it is on the return leg back to SAN, where it would later fly to SNA because the flight after that was from SNA to SEA…
Meet Henry One. This the the Sonoma County Sheriff department’s brand new Bell 407 GXP. After over 25 years of leasing aircraft from private companies, the sheriff’s office decided to finally buy their own. So, in June of 2018, they finally took delivery of their very own chopper. And it looks beautiful.
The last couple of pictures I’ll be sharing with y’all today are of some Cal Fire tankers.
This one of the Grumman S-2T air tanker that Cal Fire has based at STS. They use this specific aircraft for the initial attack attack phase of fighting fires. They drop retardant on the fires and keep it from spreading until the “type 1” (C-130s, MD-87s, Avro RJ85s and L188 Electras) and VLAT (Very Large Air Tankers such as the DC-10, and 747-8) can get in and fight the fire head on.
This here is Beechcraft King Air 200. It is used as a scout. It goes off and circles the fire, monitoring it as other tankers dump thousands of gallons of retardant on the fire.
#overedited
