A trip to Denver for the Porsche Aircraft Experience

I (Michelle) got to take a fun little trip over to Denver today. One of my coworkers, Phil, owns a couple of airplanes, as well as a private field with a grass strip. A little while back, he received an invitation to the Porsche Aircraft Experience in Centennial, Colorado, which is just outside Denver. He asked around at work to see if anyone wanted to go along for the ride, and a couple of us thought it sounded like a fun way to spend a day, so we signed up to go with him.

We watched the weather all week to make sure it would cooperate for the trip. Phil called over this morning to say we were good to go, and we'd be wheels up at 08:00, so I hopped in the car, picked up our other coworker, Don, and we all gathered at Phil's airport, Eagle Field, outside Bentley, KS. We piled into his 1970 Piper Comanche and were on our way to Denver in no time.





We arrived in Centennial a couple of hours later, parked the airplane, got our ramp passes, and headed over to the Porsche show. The first thing we did was sign up for our reserved auto-cross times, and then we spent some time looking at the airplanes on display. We grabbed lunch at the show, and then got shuttled over to the auto-cross track for some driving.





Two of us (Don and I) were slightly dismayed that only Boxster S's and Cayman S's were offered for our driving pleasure, but Phil was quite content (he was there for the airplanes, not the cars). We got over it pretty quickly, and each took a turn driving the track with one of Porsche's driving school instructors. Phil took a Boxster S, and Don and I each took a Cayman S around the track. We got to drive a couple of laps on our own, then we each got to ride along with an instructor doing the track. It was fun, but I wasn't all that impressed with the car. It's supposed to be a competitor for my new car, but it didn't really compare. I guess that just means that I'm a happy BMW customer!




After our driving, we went back over to the show again. We finished making the rounds with the airplanes, and I took a few minutes to look over the new Porsche Panamera Turbo that they had on display. We eventually all made it back over to the air conditioned comfort of the FBO, chilled out for a while, checked the weather, discovered that there was a thunderstorm brewing, and decided to head back home.






We had to divert to the north a bit to avoid running into the building storm on the way home, but it didn't add much to our flight time. We made it back to Phil's field at a little after 17:00, and Don and I were both home by 18:00, just in time for dinner.



I have to say that it was pretty cool to get out to the mountains and back in only 10 hours and still have time to have fun in the middle of the day. Thanks to Phil for extending the invitation and for flying us out there for the fun!