I managed to wake up early this morning and decided I’d try to into the air before it got really hot. The forecast high in Reno was 103.

I completed a couple of quick errands on the way to the airport, did a thorough preflight since it had been 3 weeks since my last flight and was number one for takeoff at about 8:45 am.

By that time I was already sweating. I thought I might visit one or two airports in the area but instead I just climbed up to try and find cool air.

We’ve been getting smoke from California fires burning SW of us The smoke has been messing with out air quality but hasn’t been really bad yet – only to ‘unhealth for sensitive groups’ a couple of times.

I ended up cruising around for a while at 12,000 feet in the cool, smooth air but never reached the top of the smoke layer. I have a couple of photos below. I just looked at ForeFlight and the temperature has reached 99 deg F at Stead giving a density altitude of 8500′. Not conditions for the faint of heart.

I noticed a couple of visiting aircraft on the ramp when I drove in this morning – Canadair CL-415 ‘Super Scoopers’.