Day 2 - 4

It's the morning of my 5th day "on the road" and the weather looks great. There is a high pressure system moving over Ohio this morning which should provide vfr conditions and tailwinds for my flight today. Before I get on to that, a little update on my stay here in the Detroit area.
My friend I am visiting here, my pledge brother Jamie "Pigeon" Willis, is a flight instructor at KPTK. I scheduled an IFR training flight with him Saturday morning. On Thursday, he put me in the frasca simulator for .7 hours. This sim is pretty cool. I was "flying" a baron in IFR conditions into Flint, MI for a couple of approaches. Even though you are sitting on the ground, vertigo is still present in the sim. After a couple of approaches, Jamie put me through some multi-engine intro events such as takeoff engine faliures and the lovely Vmc rollover at 2500 feet where I "died." A Vmc rollover occurs at stall or near stall when an engine fails. Fun stuff.
Friday I didn't fly, but went down to the Henry Ford museum where the two best parts are the car exhibit (duh) and the power exhibit. The picture on the left is a dual piston power generator for the Ford Motor Company. Very cool big machines. One of the most interesting things about Detroit is the percentage of US cars on the road. Driving around, I rarely saw an imported car, and if I did, I think there were more European imports than Japanese. After the museum, I tried my luck at the Motor City Casino. My goal was to win back my gas money from the trip from Texas. I did. :)
Saturday morning I did some approaches in the Cardinal with Jamie up in Flint, MI. Their approach control was very busy and misvectored me a couple of time. I don't mind that too much, but I wanted to shoot their ASR approach and could not. (They only allow those when they are not busy it seems.) After my 1.7 hours, I went over to Windsor, Ontario, Canada via the Windsor - Detroit Tunnel (right). I toured the Canadian Club Distillery which provides a free sample of Canadian Club after the tour. The tour costs $4.86 US, so I figure it is a deal worth it just for the whiskey. (The Hiram Walker building is cool as well) After my tour, I drove down Riverside drive to park and walk around Windsor. (The photo at the top of this post is of Detroit looking from Windsor.) I had some tasty Canadian beer and enjoyed a beautiful warm day (not HOT like at home). I went and checked out the Windsor Casino (No Smoking! :)) where I won again. I now have the fuel covered for about 9 more hours of flight. (Lucky, I know)
Well, now it is time to shower, eat breakfast, and head out to KPTK for my preflight and departure. My route today should be KPTK to KIAG (Niagra, NY) overflying Canada and Niagra Falls. From KIAG I will fly south to KJST (Johnstown, PA) for additional fuel and a close spot to file my DVFR into the DC area. I plan on landing at KFME (Ft. Wayne, MD) for my DC airport today. Blue Skys.