Barstow – Daggett Airport: An Old Army Airbase Finds New Life…

It promised to be another sweltering summer day, as I departed Riverside Municipal Airport. I was flying a rented Cessna 172SP.
The temperature had already hit 87 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was only 10 am. Although my destination – Barstow-Daggett (DAG) airport – was 70 nautical miles north east of my departure point, I initially headed south – beginning a cruise-climb at 90 knots. The idea was to keep the nose low for better engine cooling and for better visibility, while allowing me to gain altitude.

Since my route was going to take me over the nearby Cajon Pass, with its high terrain, high winds (typically), and the resulting turbulence, I wanted plenty of time to climb to my cruising altitude of 7500 feet above Mean Sea Level (MSL).

Ten miles south of Riverside, I turned North and picked up VFR flight following. Surprisingly, the air over the Cajon Pass was smooth, and a glance at my GPS told me that my ground speed was 140 knots. Smooth air and a nice tail wind. Even at 7500 feet, I was close enough to the terrain to pick up the sensation of speed. All was right with the world. “This can’t last”, I thought. The party ended as I crossed over the desert city of Hesperia. It was then that I began to experience the bouncing and jolting that typify flight over the desert during the summer.

From the air, the vastness of the desert becomes apparent. Thin bands of blacktop stretch for miles across the sand. Craggy hills protrude from the ground here and there, sometimes surrounding small communities.

Barstow-Daggett Airport lies to the North of one such group of hills, along Route 40. The airport is roughly five nautical miles east of the town of Daggett, itself. Because the hills are fairly close to the airport, I over flew the field at 5500 feet MSL to an area 3 miles to the north east, where I descended to pattern altitude.

Although the turbulence was still with me as I entered the pattern, the airport’s automated weather broadcast (ASOS) indicated that the 5 KT wind was favoring runway 26. A glance at the windsock as I flew over the airport seemed to support this. The turbulence dissipated as I turned final, and I made a relatively smooth landing.