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.
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