Day One

Well, it is the morning after the trip's first day and I got a pretty good sleep here in Detroit after my 9.5 hours logged in the Cardinal. Weather pretty much dictated that I fly all the way to Pontiac, MI from San Marcos, TX yesterday. (Unless I wanted to spend 2 days in Illinois) My flight followed a lane of VFR weather from KHYI all the way to KPTK. There were a few small areas of buildup I had to circumnavigate in Arkansas, but those presented no problem.


Here I am all ready to blast away into the blue.

See you back on the 28th or so A-Town.

This is Hot Springs, AR. It was very bumpy and very hot and very humid. I took this after my departure climbing back up to 7500ft.

Big cell forming in central Missouri. All of this weather will be west of my flightpath.

Commerce on the mighty Mississippi.

This photo looks west into a massive cell south of Chicago. The air at 7500ft where I am is real smooth unlike the air in that dark mass. The flight briefers said the cell was moving east at 40kts. This is the system that would force me to stay back for 2 days if I stopped for the night in Illinois.

Sunset over southern Michigan. Notice the haze layer; the midwest is by far the haziest area I have flown.

Here I am looking at a skyhawk who met an untimley demise. The pilot walked away. (Guess it was a good landing, just very expensive.)

The Cardinal at rest for the evening and in far better shape than her cousin above. On my approach into KPTK I heard the coolest line from the tower. A hawker 400 and I were both coming into 27L from the south. Here is the quote from the tower: "Hawker (Nsomething) enter downwind 27L infront of the cardinal to your left who is actually keeping up with you." Big grin on my part. :)