Jim's New Mexico Trip

Friday, September 5th Jim took off for a work trip to New Mexico in their company plane. The 23 year old pilot Brian picked him up from the Chandler Airport and headed off to Glendale to pick up a co-worker and her husband. They made it to Glendale just fine and took off but had to turn back around to the Glendale Airport when their battery died in the plane, leaving them with no avionics. Jim hand pumped the landing gear down. Once the battery was replaced they headed off for a smooth flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico. They stayed the night and Jim lead a drivers meeting at Cactus’ NM office. Than on Saturday, September 6th they headed back to Glendale. When they arrived at the Albuquerque Airport they were not able to go out to their plane because John McCain, Governer Palin and their Staff along with a ton of Secret Service Agents & Security Guards were out on the runways. Once they were gone they got the go ahead to take off for Glendale. When arriving in Glendale they could not get a landing gear light to come on that lets you know that the landing gear was down. They had to circle the airport and fly by the tower to have them look to see if the landing gear was down and in place and the Glendale Fire Dept. was called out to the runway incase they were to have any problems landing. They made it to the ground safe and sound and I had to go pick up him and the pilot, Brian in Glendale. Jim handled this all a lot better than I handled hearing about it. I hope the next time he has to fly to NM that Cactus buys him a ticket on South West and not Cactus Air. :)