Saturday, January 27, 2018

Sun City Sundial, an old WWII Airfield near Surprise, AZ and Sunset Self Portraits

Friday, while my FIL was doing a very light workout at the Sundial Rec Center in Sun City, I wandered about outside to take pictures of the center's name sake.



Picture taken at 12:05PM
The Sun Dial is a bit off.  :)

Saturday mid-morning through 1:30PM, explored the area near the regional landfill which had looked promising in terms of trails and off road opportunities.  I encountered more fenced off areas than I hoped for so exploration was limited.

Still I did manage to explore what used to be the Wittman Army Air Corps Auxiliary Field back in WWII and is now the Luke AFB Auxiliary Airfield.  Per the following link, it's only used now for practicing approaches by light aircraft without actually landing as the surface conditions are pretty rough.  LINK

Source: Google Maps
The complex in the bottom right is the Ford Arizona 
Proving Ground.

 Posing Scarlett by the end of the airfield where one can
see old light fixtures? and a series of yellow painted arrows.

source: google maps



We rode on the air strip, very rough conditions even where pavement remains.  I did manage to spot what I assume are the remnants of a tower :


My location per google maps where I
took the last pic.

The rest of the area was fenced off or was part of the easement used by nearby giant power line towers which stretched out to the horizon on the west.

A dissapointing area, but then again, I am pretty near Surprise, AZ and the nearby Phoenix Metro area too.


 Shot in Auto mode




All but one of the sunset pics shot using "sunset mode" to bring out the reds and oranges.

4 comments:

Trobairitz said...

You may have been a little disappointed with the airfield but the sunset was gorgeous. That should have made up for it.

redlegsrides said...

The airfield wasn’t great but still neat to explore....glad you liked the sunset pics

RichardM said...

“We rode on the airstrip” Did your FIL rise in the sidecar?

redlegsrides said...

We is Scarlett and I...my FIL isn’t up to riding the sidecar at present.