On the Road Again- Without Willie

I'm so far behind that I may never catch up. So, I've got an airplane in the back of a 26' Penske one way rental truck in basically Spokane, Washington. All I need to do is drive this rig home. Easy, peasy. Just how crazy am I? I ended the first night in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho which is practically next door to Spokane- but still in another state which was my most basic requirement for stopping for the day. This was nice, flat uncomplicated driving which was exactly what I needed- practice for hauling my precious cargo. It also turned out to be the end of my cell phone reception for about a day and a half. You never miss the phone so much as when it just won't work. Day two was up and onto Montana- one big ass big sky state. With mountains. Lesson one was that the truck does not really like going up the mountains. Much diesel got burned during this lesson as the truck crawled up the mountain. Lesson two was that on Sunday it is entirely possible to get exactly no radio reception. I had always assumed that on Sunday, of all days, no matter where you are in the good old US of A, between FM and AM on the radio dial, you could always at least get a station with some fire and brimstone preacher yelling about eternal damnation or some such thing. Nope. It is entirely possible to get nothing but the rumble of the diesel engine lumbering along. By great fortune and excellent random timing I did connect with an old college friend who lives in Helena, MT, which was exactly on my GPS directed course, and during my all to short visit she figured out that I had not planned this drive very well and took me to her library where she checked out a 27 disk book on CD for my driving entertainment. A 27 CD book!!! Holy shit what had I gotten into? The book, Game of Thrones, was absolutely perfect for driving and I pulled into Ithaca as disc 25 finished up. Thank you Tamara. I dare say that I probably pushed on a bit further each night just to finish another chapter. Anyway day 1, at least my first full day on the road, ended in Billings, MT. Along the way I stopped at an official state sponsored rest stop to use a pay phone- pay phones are just about gone from the American landscape like the buffalo- and the bill for that collect call just came in- $30.00 for 10 minutes. Ouch! Billings is not my favorite MT city, cruddy room, cruddy restaurant. No need to hurry back. In general the weather for this drive was nothing short of spectacular, except for the smoke. There was smoke on the horizon and in the air from Montana to Ohio. I never did see the fires but they had to be something special to behold to make smoke like that. Day two was just lots and lots of driving- Billings to St.Cloud, Minnesota. In North Dakota I got back cell reception- yeah!!! Being able to communicate was more important than actually calling someone. I kept listening to my book, now deeply engrossed in the story. There were 2 places along the hiway in ND where the water being held back by sandbags was actually higher than the road. And this was months after the mighty Mouse river had roared. I pushed as hard as I could, trying to get to Minneapolis so that I might visit my brother-in-law and his lovely wife, but I flat ran out of steam by St.Cloud and had to call it a day. Or night. This might have been a mistake because the next morning I found myself firmly stuck in Minneapolis rush hour traffic. The other drivers were nice enough but my god who the hell wants to sit in traffic like that? Ever? So much for my schedule. The GPS went crazy resetting my time to the next waypoint. Of course, once past Minneapolis the road opened up and the miles rolled on by- until Chicago. Chicago pm rush hour that is. Its like a graduate course for the Minneapolis drivers. Once again the other drivers were great and very forgiving- which I needed- but I can't imagine just what is it that allows a person to justify this kind of agony on a daily basis. No thank you. Day 3 ended in Burlington, Ohio. I was trying for Toledo- I wanted to yell out "Holy Toledo"- but, seeing double and feeling fuzzy, it was another done day. Never too tired for a cold beer and I sure deserved this one. Wednesday, the day four that wasn't supposed to be, and I'm up and out before the dawn. Home. The thought of not having to sit in that truck anymore propelled me onward. Sleeping in my own bed- please. Hugs and kisses- you betcha. Work- well it does pay the bills. I don't recall most of this last leg of the trip, it was just something to get done. Small party at the New York state line. 2:30 pm and I rolled up to my office. The trip was over.

Back To Work- Picking Up an Airplane

One of these days I'll figure out how to arrange the pictures in the order that I want. OK, picking up the plane. Friday,September 9th, a 5 pm flight out of Ithaca, landing Spokane at 10:30 local time. beautiful late summer weather, nothing to worry about, right? Delta airlines decided to give me a run for my money right out of the gate- literally. There are no commercial passenger planes based in Ithaca which means that in order to take a flight out of Ithaca, another flight must first make it into Ithaca. The inbound flight that would become my outbound flight was late coming in but they knew where it was and everything should be fine. That may have been true in Ithaca but now this plane would be late getting into Detroit and that's where the trouble began- just as we were approaching the motor city, ATC gave us a 20 minute hold. Now my entire lay over time was gone. Fortunately I kind of planned for something like this and all I had with me was one legitimate carry one. I ended up in a dead run to my next gate, boarding only a couple of minutes after the last boarding call. Looks like no dinner for me. Ultimately the whole thing was no big deal and I ended up in Spokane as planned. I had booked a hotel room at the closest hotel to the airport terminal that I could find- 100 yards is pretty close. One cold beer and a total collapse. This worked well because by Saturday morning I was fully on Pacific time. The truck rental place opened at 8:30, so of course I was there by 8. A beautiful blue sky day- you could find a cloud if you wanted one. I brought my GPS from home and once I had my destination programmed in it was time to hit the hiway. GPS selected a different route than I had anticipated, but what the hell, I gave it a shot. Hunters, WA does not readily appear on a WA state map- its too small. Northwest of Spokane by about 80 miles, along side Lake Roosevelt. Crushingly beautiful country, golden wheat fields as far as the eye can see. And lodge pole pines as I cross over the hills. Not very many people. In Hunters I met up with my nephew, Kevin Timmreck, who I've hired for the day to help me. Kevin lives in Ione, WA about 60 miles northeast of Hunters. Together we found our final destination. To say off the beaten path cannot do it justice. The sign said "primitive road" and meant it. Good God we were out there. But just a bit ahead, in front of the house, there was Mrs. Sipes waiting for us. She directed us out to the hangar and runway and for the very first time I laid eyes on N5215H- my new plane. I also got to meet Robert Sipes, the soon to be previous owner of the plane and his son Stephan. A quick examination of the plane and the log books and a small business transaction took place. Now she was mine. The Sipes' were great- they made the whole pick up the plane deal work with their great attitude and willingness to pitch in and work. And work we did. Taking the wings and tail feathers off an airplane looks to be a fairly simple affair- on paper. 97 degrees out, 15% relative humidity. You can't sweat because every drop of moisture has been evaporated from your body. I don't think anybody peed all day. Nuts and bolts that hadn't been disturbed in who knows how many years aren't happy when you come after them with a wrench. The left wing made a strong argument to stay right where it was. The horizontal stabilizer didn't care for our plan to remove it. But will, determination and absolute need won out and the plane did indeed come apart. So there we are with a wingless plane and a truck- now how do we get the plane into the truck? Stephan came to the rescue with some massive 4x10x13' planks and then the sheer brute force generated by a small group of hot and tired men put that plane in the back of the truck. The wheel chocks were screwed to the floor of the truck to keep the nose of the plane as tight to the front wall of the truck as possible and the wings were kind of hung on strapping on either side of the truck. Everything else was loaded as best possible to minimize potential damage and we were ready to roll. 6 hours start to finish. Not too shabby for a first time plane in a tuck guy.

Oh No! Here we go again.

work. sometimes it is just another one of those four letter words not meant to be uttered in polite company. work. work just sucked me back in and buried me with too much to do. the whole true cross country trip started to become something of a dream. I really did make that flight, right? A weekend day flight here and there, out for breakfast with friends, a couple of grass runways under the wheels, but no grand adventures. The credit card bills started rolling in and a true accounting of the trip was at hand. no avoiding it, a whole lot of expensive airplane 100LL gas got burned and now was the time to pay up. my hoped for trip to Oshkosh, the pilot's mecca, no longer on the calendar. No regrets about the trip that is now behind me, truly none at all, but that one grand adventure can't possibly be all there is to look forward to this year.

good news; new adventure is at hand! and oddly, weirdly, coincidentally, by some strange cosmic twist of fate, the alignment of the planets, global warming and the constant movement of the magnetic north pole, I'm headed right back to Spokane, WA. it makes me smile just to think about it.

the new mission, because it really is a mission, is to bring back a 1949 Piper Clipper. It would be lovely to fly this pretty little plane back to NY but now that I know what that journey entails and since I don't know this new plane at all, the wings are coming off and the whole plane is going into the back of a box truck for the long ride home.

so, the adventure is at hand. a commercial flight out, a seriously long drive in a rental truck back. lots to do, to plan, to prepare for. far from my base of resources I must be on top of everything from moment one. I can hardly wait. details to follow.

life is good and the livin' is easy.

Epilogue Uno

The lawn got mowed first, before it grew so much as another millimeter. First after hugging the dog. We unpacked, cleaned the cat box, did the laundry, watered the plants, grilled our dinner, downloaded pictures onto the computer and read the mail. We are home again. The trip went really well, in some ways even better than hoped or planned for. The plane performed perfectly, we managed to avoid the real bad weather and we stayed on the big picture of our schedule- I was home in time for work on Monday. The pleasant added bonus is what we learned along the way. I learned all about 21374 flying at altitude, about mountain passes and clouds, about wind and landing, about leaning the fuel mixture for more than economy, that Sprint/Nextel does not have a signal between Oshkosh and Spokane, and a little bit about the flooding thru the heartland of this country. Marlys learned an awful lot about flying- not manipulating the plane thru space, but flying. When you learn to fly its hard to learn about flying because its all new and you're so busy trying to handle the plane. Marlys now knows all about clouds and weather, fuel, parking and tie down, courtesy cars, flying time versus clock time, airspeed vs. ground speed, maps, charts and GPS, Air Traffic Control, holes in clouds, getting on top, what rain looks like before you get to it. She became a very good navigator and second in command. Now the trick is to keep her in practice.

Day 8- eight days a week

Eight days a week- thank you the Beatles. The Last Leg. Homeward Bound. Marlys beat the alarm clock up- 6 am and we're moving. The taxi to the airport will be here at 7:30. We make it to breakfast in the motel lobby, fresh waffles too good to resist although neither one of us seems particularly hungry. Flight planning indicates that we will be on the ground in Ithaca in 2 hours and 27 minutes. I'll believe that when it happens but we are getting just a bit excited to get going. The taxi arrives early and we are on our way. Luck is with us- when we arrive at the FBO we find the fuel guy refueling a jet. This is good because he wasn't scheduled to start his day until 9 am and we must have fuel- he refuels us second. More good luck, the price of fuel at this airport has gone down twenty cents a gallon since last Sunday. The weather is hazy, once again a light wind right down the runway. Mornings are good to us. The forecast calls for a tailwind all the way to Ithaca. Minutes later we are up and away- headed right over Canada as a shortcut to NY. This means that we need a discrete code on the transponder to be in Canadian airspace, much like an IFR flight. 5,500' and absolutely smooth sailing. No less than 110 knots over the ground- sometimes as much as 120. Canadian ATC is great, the lake crossing uneventful. One hour and twenty five minutes after takeoff we are in NY airspace. Can this be true? We are exactly on time with our flight plan. Our good luck keeps rolling on. In spite of our good ground speed, time seems to drag. The Finger Lakes are a navigator's dream- so easy to see, to recognize to pinpoint your location by. I've got Keuka, there's Seneca, I think I see Milliken's smokestack. Thirty miles out from Ithaca we can hear the scenic flight tour pilots calling out Taughannock Falls- we radio the tower. It's Father's Day and that means the fly-in pancake breakfast at East Hill Flying Club. We had hoped to make the breakfast and now it's all going to work out perfectly. Lots of plane traffic, the tower is really working hard. We call out a 3 mile left base for 32 and get cleared to land. It's all so familiar now, I've made this landing hundreds of times before. Smooth and easy, roll out to Foxtrot, to the ramp with you tower. We taxi to the hangar, move the car, unload the plane, load the car. The plane's leading edges and the windshield finally get the cleaning they deserve. I call my Dad to wish him a happy father's day, Marlys calls her Mom to let her know that we have arrived. It's done. This great adventure is over- at least for now. What should we do next? Well those flyin' flapjacks look pretty good.....

Day 7- Does this make a week?

Early morning is a pilot's friend. Thruout this trip the early morning weather was about the best of the day. 7 pm or so and things tend to settle down again, but that's a bit of hit or miss. 7 am is almost always great. Good thing we are morning people. Day Seven, day two of the trip home, and its up at 6, a light breakfast with my mother-in-law and off to the airport. A spectacular day opened up in front of us, clear blue sky, a light breeze down the runway from the east and we were on our way, destination St. Cloud, MN. At 5,500' the air was smooth and the flying easy with a slight push and ground speeds around 110 knots. Effortless, I had the wing leveler on, feet flat on the floor. One eye on the weather though because there was definitely a line of storms in the area of Minneapolis. About 2 and 1/2 hours in it became clear that a little better examination of weather conditions was the prudent thing to do and so we landed in Alexandria, MN a tad short of our original goal. A nice young lady refueled the plane while we de-fueled our bladders. The weather picture was probably the most confounding one we had the entire trip- there was pleanty of nasty weather out there but where was it going and when would it get there? The answer my friend was blowing in the wind ( sorry but MN is Dylan's home state) so we did what seemed like the only reasonable thing to do- file IFR and go. Well it was more like go and file IFR in the air. Regardless, the ATC guys vectored us around the weather with a minimum of cloud time and we broke out about 100 miles from Oshkosh, WI, our new destination. Easy, Peasy. Another stop, another bathroom break, more fuel. Ladies and Gentlemen, the absolute winner for cheapest fuel along our route of travel, and some very accommodating people to boot, Basler Aviation, Oshkosh, WI @ $5.39 per gallon full service. Lunch, another look at the weather and it was very apparent that we needed to cross Lake Michigan today or get ready to sit for what looked like a week waiting for the storms to run out of rain- and thunder and lightning. Conditions were what could be best described as hazy, which means that there isn't much view forward, like to the end of the prop or so it seemed. This time we filed IFR on the ground because we wanted another someone paying attention to where we were over that lake- its about 55 miles wide where we crossed and that's an awful lot of cold water to go swimming in. Yes we had our life vests close at hand. 21374 was running perfectly, I would not have gone this way if she was running otherwise. Destination St. Clair, MI. Once again easy, peasy. The toughest job was finding the field to land. When traveling from East to West the time changes work out in your favor- you get to land before the FBO closes and the fuel guy goes home. Traveling from West to east, not so much. We missed the FBO and the fuel guy by 40 minutes. Beautiful night in north easy Michigan and it would have been lovely to camp out, but we wanted a bed and a shower and some food, and a beer wouldn't hurt either. Fortunately, Marlys brought along the GPS from her car and we were able to look up the hotel and the taxi lickety split and before long Mikey, professional driver, had us in his cab and on our way into Marysville, MI. I love Mr. Garmin and I don't begrudge him one penny of all that money he is making while keeping me headed in the right direction. Mikey set us up for the ride back to the airport the next morning and directed us to the best restaurant in town. A couple of cold ones, black russians for Marlys, a meal that couldn't be beat, a comfy bed and this day comes to a close. Home is less than 3 hours away.

Day 6- R&R

No flying today. high wind, rain, low ceilings, thunderstorms in the forecast all combined equal a day off. Time to do a couple of little things for my mother-in-law, catch up with Minot, ND, see the dikes that hold the flooding river at bay as I write this. I visited the Dakota Territory Air Museum to visit the Ercoupe plane that I'm going to win in their annual raffle. Positive thinking is always good. envision what you want and go get it. I stopped by 21374 to attempt bug removal. all the leading edges of 21374 look like a battlefield- blood and guts smeared everywhere. I cleaned until the rain drove me indoors. The forecast for tomorrow is so much better, I do believe that we will be on our way. It feels really good to not sit all day.

Day 5-Already?

Time to head home. A breakfast that couldn't be beat at the cafe in the terminal at Felts field. Flight planning while waiting for the fuel guy from the FBO to show up so we could pay for our fuel. Ladies and Gentlemen a new world record has been set- $6.26 per gallon. Now I don't feel bad about the 200 miles I put on the courtesy car. Planes flying all about in the pattern- before 8 am. Felts is definitely the busiest field that we have encountered. Skies look good for departure but the forecast for Missoula is a bit shaky and I'm not to eager to repeat the mountain pass adventure. We opt for out and up, destination Great Falls, MT. beautiful blue sky, sunshine and sparkling ice crystals in the air @ 20 degrees outside. it turns out that 14,500' is really the upper limit of climb for 21374 with 2 people and full fuel aboard. the clouds were higher. I did have O2 and the pitot heat on and went IFR when it became apparent that we were going to have to fly in the clouds for a bit. nothing but mountains below does make a difference. the wind was blowing 15 knots, gusting 20, right down the runway at Great Falls. Absolutely the best FBO of the trip- Holman Aviation. Beautiful facility, impeccable service, friendly people. Fuel for the plane and people and off we went, headed for Glasgow, MT. Finally a great tailwind and we saw ground speeds as high as 132 knots. That's about as good as it gets in 21374. Fuel and pee break at Glasgow and onto the final leg of the day, destination Minot, ND. Level at 5500', smooth as glass under the overcast. Oddly the most impressive view of the trip so far was on this leg- flooding as far and wide as the eye could see. A true natural disaster. Once again the wind was right down the runway, 15 knots gusting 22. The line guys tied 21374 down and topped off the tanks, today's flight is over. 2 time zones conquered, one to go. Marlys's mom picked us up and took us out to dinner. Tomorrow's forecast- not so good, but, as usual, we shall see.

Day 4- all at once

5 am sharp! Up and at 'em. 6:15 at the plane, loading the luggage. Taxi at 6:30, up and away. Crystal clear skies, 34 degrees- windchill 33, the lightest of winds right down the runway. Could not have been more perfect conditions for flying. Off the departure end of the runway is a huge open valley- and a very impressive view of the mountains that must be flown over. 20 minutes later and 21374 was at 11,500 feet msl! Not bad for a 37 year old plane. Not once did this lovely plane offer any complaint, hesitation, or disagreement for anything that she was asked to do. Anyway, off into the mountains we did fly. Suffice it to say that flying over mountains is a learning event for a flatlander like me, and the learning has to be quick, direct and correct. The price for indecision, inaction, or inattentiveness is extremely high. The view was mind boggling- east coast eyes can't relate to so much everything. Our destination was Missoula, MT. Everything was going just fine and then the ceiling started coming down about 30 miles out from Missoula. We found a lovely hole to fly thru and popped out in the valley looking right at the airport but the first seed of doubt was sown. While getting refueled at the FBO we talked with a local flight instructor who gave us the same advice I had already heard in regards to the next leg of our trip- just follow the highway out to Couer D'Alene and it will all work out. This CFI added" you'll probably get squished a bit by the clouds, but that's kinda normal". So, trying to take advantage of the good weather in Missoula, off we flew once more for the final leg of the left hand side of the true cross country trip- look out Spokane, WA. Into the valley of Rt 90 we flew, mountains on either side. Beautiful country, highway below for an emergency runway, cloud deck above- but above enough to make sense to do this. Mullan Pass is the midpoint of this route, and all was going well as we passed thru. "Got this thing made", I thought. And then the clouds started coming down, and so we went down, and the valley seemed to get a bit more narrow. and the clouds came down, and down and oops we were in the soup. Uncomfortable redefined is flying in the clouds in a winding mountain-lined valley. IFR training to the rescue- full power and go UP. we broke out above the clouds and the hills and not 2 minutes later the whole valley opened up and down. Lesson learned, not to be repeated. Couer D'Alene was about to be rained on, so we made a left turn and there was Spokane, and better yet, historic Felts Field. A fabulous lunch at the Cafe in the old terminal building, a courtesy car from the FBO and we were on our way. We found the hospital where Marlys's brother Ken is recuperating from his 4 wheeler accident and surprised him half way to a heart attack when we walked in. This might have been the best spent time of the entire trip. Being so close we then had to drive to Ione to visit Marlene and Kevin, who are holding down the fort at Ken's Bar while Ken recovers. Second best spent time of the trip. 75 miles back to Spokane to collapse into a Motel 6 bed. The right hand side of the true XC starts tomorrow.

Day 3- part done

So much has happened in so little time and yet some things seem to last forever. Tuesday had us stuck in Lewistown, MT. Shortly before we arrived the winds started to build and at touchdown they were blowing 25 degrees crosswind at 25 knots! landing turned into work, even taxi-ing was difficult. the wings were rocking during fueling, the temperature dropped, the sky got dark and a small but persistent and loud voice in my head said "you ain't goin anywhere". We tied the plane down and, thanks to the very nice folks at the FBO, took the courtesy car into town for lunch. As it became clear that the wind was in no hurry to calm down, we called it a day and took a room. I could not envision trying to fly across real mountains with 25 knots on the nose- especially since I was still wondering just what flying across the mountains would look like at all. Oh well, early to bed and live to fly another day.

Day 3 part 2

Ok we are stuck on the ground in Lewistown, MT due to very high winds. fun, fun, fun.

Day 3- Part One

well some dumb guy left his computer at the computer desk at the FBO in Eau Claire Wisconsin. Fortunately it was found and is being mailed back to me at home, so updates from the trip will be difficult. Today I'm using a computer at the uiblic library in Lewistown, MT. So a quick update is in order. Monday morning we left Oshkosh, WI under threat of thunderstorm. We flew up to Eau Claire, site of the tragic computer incident, fueled up, got a weather update and headed out northwest, around Minneapolis to avoid the thunder boomers. we cleared the Bravo and headed to Watertown, SD for fuel and lunch. It was incredible to see the aftermath of the flooding thru out MN and SD. From Watertown we flew to Rapid City, SD, refueled and did a quick tour of Mnt. Rushmore from 8,000 feet. The last leg of the day was up to Belle Fourche, SD, just south of the Montana state line. All along the way we have experienced nothing but great people, amazing sites, and HIGH fuel prices. Oshkosh has been the cheapest at $5.39 per gallon.

Departure Day- Part 3

well the i pad is giving me problems. I haven't figured out how to load my pictures, and yes I did buy the adapter. Anyway, shortly after high noon the skies lifted and we made a bee line for the airport where things didn't look quite so good. We loaded the plane, performed the pre-flight inspection and took off, trying to stay above the terrain and below the clouds. It quickly became apparent that I would have to get on top of the clouds if I wanted to stay out of them and so we climbed up to 8500 feet and flew in the beautiful sunshine, with no view of anything but cloudtops, all the way to St. Clair, MI. so much for a pure sightseeing flight. The air was cool and smooth, with 15 knots of wind on the nose. not so good for ground speed, but a nice flight. we refueled in St. Clair
at $5.95 a gallon and immediately headed west again. this time we had a bit of a tailwind and we were on top of a broken ceiling of clouds at 6500 feet, mostly for altitude over Lake Michigan. That is one big lake. some pilots won't risk the crossing in a single engine plane, and we did have our life preservers along, but the plane performed flawlessly as usual. 30 minutes later we were on the ground at Oshkosh, WI. it was so strange to land here with no other planes in the air! we got a lovely room at the Hilton and had dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant in town, Durangos. these guys known their way around a margarita! so now, full, tired and very pleased with today's flight I'll call it a night.
ton and ha

Departure Day- Part 2

It's 11:30 am and still in "no go" conditions. We could not be more ready. The weather refuses to co-operate. A look at the radar shows that the rain has passed thru and the ceiling is coming down anyway. There seems to be some hope for an early afternoon departure, so now the mission of the moment is to recalculate plans for today. If we get to go, where will we stop and where will we stay? If today becomes a washout, how does tomorrow look? Oh, the agony of too much time to think about it all.

Departure Day- Part 1

We're off to a good start. Patience 101, wait for the storm to pass. The radar paints a pretty picture of green and yellow, with just a touch of red thrown in, moving quickly from the southwest. Time to have breakfast, double check our double checked list, try to relax a bit. Nervous energy making that task all but impossible. I can see clear skies behind the storm front all the way to Wisconsin for sure. The Dakotas are in question but, as usual, time will tell. Oshkosh may end up being the perfect place to call it a day. Too bad Airventure is a month away.

Weather

The real issue in flying a small airplane is the weather. It's the one thing that cannot be controlled or influenced in any way. We can choose to go or to not go but that's about it. Weather forecasts more than one day into the future are nothing more than a guess. Maybe a scientific wild ass guess, but a guess none the less. The only weather that is assured is the weather that you are in in any given moment. So what does a pilot do? Well for starters we look at the forecast- it might be a guess but its a starting point. We look for weather trends, what has happened, what is happening, what is forecast to happen. We look to where the weather has come from to see what else might be on the way. We check the weather all the way from one end of our proposed flight to the other. We allow for getting stuck on the ground. We pray it doesn't happen. We fly whatever portion of the trip we can safely fly whenever we can fly at all. We navigate around the known bad weather. We look out the window to see what lies ahead. We pay strict attention to Mother Nature. We get weather briefings from air traffic control, we talk to other pilots, we work every inch of the system that we can. We NEVER fly into a thunderstorm. If running out of fuel is stupid pilot trick #1, then flying into a thunderstorm has got to be stupid pilot trick #2. And when everything is perfectt we get CAVU- ceiling and visibility unlimited- conditions with the wind on our tail. So far the forecast for our trip looks do-able. We shall see......

91.103

de
The FAA seems to have all the bases covered. In Section 91, Subpart B- Flight Rules, lives 91.103 which says "Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight." All available information. Now that covers a lot of real estate. Navigational charts are updated with a new version every 56 days. GPS data bases are updated every 28 days. So all those charts that I purchased along with all those lovely electronic navigation devices that I have in the plane must be absolutely current because how could I possibly become familiar with all available information if I don't have the most current information? I even had to make a one time purchase of the western half of the USA for my GPS because my normal subscription service only covers from the Atlantic coast to about North Dakota. And then there is the plane itself- it must have current re certification of the transponder and altitude reporting system. This is the equipment that makes my aircraft specifically identifiable to air traffic control on the radar screen. Generally speaking this is a very good idea and it is required when flying thru the airspace surrounding the busier airports. It is possible to do this trip by flying around the airspace that requires a transponder but that would call for us to fly a mighty zig-zag course and ultimately limit where we could go which would also minimize our options for fuel, food, hotel rooms and bad weather landing spots. I am all about having options on this trip. Bottom line, I will be 100% current with "all available information" for this flight.

Navigation

Having a desired course is great but how do you know that you are on that course. Or even where you are at all- there are no roadsigns in the sky. Navigation, my dear Watson, is how we know where we are. In the most simple terms we would pick a compass direction that we wanted to go in, point the plane in that direction and fly until we got to wherever we were going. There is a magnetic compass that you can see just over the instrument panel and a gyroscopic compass in the instrument panel. Navigation tends to be not so simple. The big bugaboo is the wind. The wind can push us all over the sky, speed our travel over the ground or seriously slow us down. In my part of the world, the prevailing wind tends to blow from west to east. This is all very important because in an airplane time equals fuel burn and we must have somewhere to land and refuel before we run out. Running out of fuel while flying is stupid pilot trick #1 and I have made a personal commitment to avoid performing this affirmation of stupidity. There are plenty of other stupid things for me to do. So, in our flight west, how hard the wind blows in our face will ultimately determine our speed over the ground and that will determine how far we get each day. We will seek out the altitude with the most favorable winds to minimize this issue but small airplanes can only go so high and this will limit our ability to maximize the winds at altitude. And yes the wind blows at different speeds and directions up high. Back to navigation- sometimes the wind blows across the plane at on angle or another and actually causes the plane to drift off course yet the compass heading will remain unchanged. The compass just knows a direction- it doesn't care if we are on course or not. The first navigational upgrade to the compass is the chart, a map of the ground from the sky's point of view. Charts allow us to pick landmarks that confirm where we are. The problem with charts is that sometimes everything looks the same from the air. One town will look a whole lot like another, which river is that, that must be hiway 123 and so on. Sometimes there are no discernible features that stand out for hours of flying. So along came radio navigation, where we fly from one station to another along a course by following a signal and that works fairly well but has limits for distance and is basically line-of-sight- terrain can block the signal. Well, just like in your car and cell phone we have GPS in the plane. You can see two of them in the picture of the instrument panel of 374. The unit in the center of things is a certified navigation and communications device and the one to the right is a battery back up unit that also has sirrius radio and weather. I plug in our course and the GPS draws a pretty pink line from point A to point B and so on, keeping track of time, speed, our next way point, information about the next airport, altitude, and on and on. GPS is absolutely the cat's ass for navigation. The ultimate answer to how will we navigate the 1900 nautical miles from Ithaca,NY to Ione,WA is with it all- eyes out the window, chart on our laps, VOR tuned to the next station and the GPS programmed from A to B. I'm thinking we will get there.

The Course of Course part 2

One other flight planning consideration of this trip was the lake crossings. While I no problem flying over water, I don't care to push my luck and so I looked for points of crossing the lakes with the shortest distance over water in mind. I also didn't care to file for a landing in Canada so I looked for the shortest path across the great white north. I try plan for no more than one hour of air time between airports on my course and I try to have multiple airports available to me between 3 and 4 hours of flight time for refueling options. With altitude and good leaning technique I can get 5 hours of flight time between fuel stops in 374, but I prefer the 3 to 4 hour scheduling. That's plenty of time between pee stops! Crunching all these criteria together got me the course you see here. The green blobs are the bad weather today. I have ordered up perfect CAVU weather for this trip. Day one should put us into eastern South Dakota. The terrain will not be a factor on day one, but the course adjustment to the north after Rapid City(KRAP), SD, day 2, is to account for rising terrain. The course into KMSO was selected as being comfortably handled in 374. Maintaining at least two thousand feet above ground level (AGL) becomes a big deal in the planning process with a normally aspirated gas engine. With the cool, dense morning air @ KMSO the flight over the Rockies should be no problem, and having the interstate below us makes for a bit of a safety net if needed. And with all that planning I still have to be prepared for the unexpected.

The Course of Course

Once the decision to go west was made, the question became exactly which way and when? First came the when. I picked the June date for a bunch of reasons. I am hoping that we will be flying after the spring thunderstorm season and before the heat of summer. This should make the flight smoother and get the most out of 374's ability. The chosen week in June is just before the official start of summer giving us nice long days for flying. Early June should also be before the big vacation rush making accommodations a little easier to secure. And this should all happen before the busy season at work gets rolling along. Taking the northern route across the country was an easy decision- its pretty much a straight shot west. I have a brother-in-law living in Ione, Washington whom I have never visited and with Ione having an airport and my brother-in-law owning a bar there I had my destination. The big considerations in planning the exact route for this flight were how far can we safely fly between fuel stops and bathroom breaks, how high can we fly, what do we want to see, where will we spend the night, pilot fatigue and what's out there to bump into? I talked to some mountain flying experts and some fellow pilots who live in the western states and they all agreed that when flying the northern route west I would do best in my plane to cross the Rockies at Missoula, Montana(KMSO) and to follow the road. I like to use the flight planning on the AOPA website- I find it easy to use and easy to edit. I like to fly from airport to airport on a long cross country flight, it increases the options and that can't be bad. It also makes for an easy double check of my navigation, gives me something to look forward to, and it never hurts to practice spotting airports. I knew that I wanted an early morning launch from KMSO to get over the Rockies, so that became the end-of-day 2 destination. I also knew that I didn't want to plan more than 8 hours a day in the air. I also wanted to fly over the lowest possible terrain for as long as possible. And as long as I was headed that way anyway, I thought it would be absolutely stunning to fly over Mount Rushmore. Talk about your photo opportunity.

true XC begins

So what the hell is "true XC" anyway? The FAA defines a XC (cross country) flight in 61.1(3)(ii)(B) as "that includes a point of landing that was at least a straight line distance of more than 50 nautical miles from the original point of departure:" Yep, I'm not thinking about that definition, but this trip will exceed that paltry standard on the very first leg. I'm talking about a true cross country as in across this country. Starting in New York state and ending in Washington state meets my definition of a true cross country flight.
OK so why a true XC flight? I wish I could tell you that I had some high and lofty goal in mind, some great noble cause to fly for, some deeply personal significant milestone to mark but I don't. This flight will happen because I can do it, because I have a deep burning desire to do it, because I don't want another year to slip by and have the deed undone, because I'm tired of reading about people making this trip in planes far less qualified than mine and having a great time doing it, because I need an adventure worth writing about. Because it is there.
This trip takes off on June 12th, weather permitting. Weather permitting because there is absolutely no point in flying across this beautiful country if I can't see all there is to see. Weather permitting because my one lone passenger, she who will spare me from the endless hours of solitary confinement in flight, my loving and oh so understanding wife is much more comfortable that way. And that is good enough for me.
In the next few weeks I'm going to try to take everyone thru the preparation that goes into a flight like this and then I'm going to post up the daily trials and tribulations of the flight itself. With plenty of pictures of course.

see ya.