Been a while.

Initially, I started this blog to follow one particular series of flights. I think I will start adding more in the coming days with a few comments about flights in the past and other adventures.

I now live in Colorado (since June 1st of 2007) and will start graduate school here in a few weeks at The University of Denver. Here is a link to my program:

MSGIS

There is also a lot to do just west of Denver in the Colorado Rockies. I know I will include stuff about off road trips, fly fishing, and mountain flying when I get around to it. I haven't flown in the mountains yet, but I did take a ground school class on the subject and just need to arrange a CFI for the first trip.

Final Day

I left Baton Rouge this morning with the intention of stopping at Lake Charles for lunch. I did not. One, it was a bit too early for lunch, but the real reason was the thunderstorm between me and the Lake Charles area. I was scud running from Baton Rouge to about halfway to Lake Charles when ATC cancelled my radar services because "they could not hand me off to Lake Charles approach." So, seeing the iffy scud ahead, and a hole in the broken layer, I shot up south above the clouds to 6500 ft. I could see the cell was small and would be able to circumnavigate it, but I had full tanks when I left KBTR (Baton Rouge) so decided to just head down to KGLS. KGLS is one of my favorite airports in Texas housing the Texas Air Museum and neighboring Moody Gardens not to mention always having "cheap" gas. ExxonMobile has a headquarters at the airport. The storm crap was located north of my route to Galveston, TX and the second leg to San Marcos, TX. After a quick "splash" of fuel for the plane and a splash of something else from me for..., I was off into Houston's class B and onto KHYI. Climbing out of KGLS, I was cleared through Class Bravo by a busy Houston controller on my way to 8500 which barley cut it for beating out the tops of the clouds. I must say this about Houston's controllers: I have always been treated the same as the big boys as long as I keep up the pace of communication (I do) which is not always the case with Class B controllers. Dallas always seems to have something more important to do as an example. Anyway, I am back at home after a very long trip.

Here are some statistics:

Total Logged Hours: 31.6
Total Landings: 16
States Overflown: 16 + DC + Ontario Province
Countries Overflown: 2
Estimated Distance Flown: 3075nm
Estimated Fuel Burned: 310 US Gallons of 100LL
Number of DC ADIZ Flights: 4
Number of Interceptions: 0

Day 6 - 9

Well, I am sitting here in my hotel room in Baton Rouge, LA and finally have some downtime to update the blog. On Monday, I visited The Pennsylvania State University (first picture) where I met with 2 grad students and 4 professors of their Geography Department. I had a very good visit at the University and it is definitely my current first choice. The flight was uneventful both ways with no DC interception and gorgeous views. At lunch in State College, PA, I learned the local custom for eating a cheesesteak is to dip it in marinara sauce. It is actually pretty good.














Tuesday I spent the day walking around DC. I had breakfast at the Old Ebbit Grill right next to the White House (Dubya was away) and ventured out into the National Mall afterwards. I walked down to the Air and Space museum where I looked around for new additions since the last time I visited... found one: Spaceship One.






















Wednesday I took off from the DC area and headed down to Knoxville, TN via Greenbriar Valley, West Virginia. WV is very scenic as are the whole of the Appalachians. After spending the night with a friend, I took off from Knoxville Downtown Island airport and overflew the UT (Tennessee) campus and the Tennessee river.
















My next stop was Meridian, MS for fuel and a quick bite to eat. On my way, I flew over The University of Alabama. I really saw some huge football schools on my flight who all have a National Championship or two (or three... four.... five...)... UT, PSU, UT, Bama.
After my stop in Meridian, I went up intending to go to Lake Charles, LA. Well, the buildups looked too iffy, so I diverted to Baton Rouge and will spend the night here. Tomorrow, I will leave in the morning, stop in Lake Charles for a po-boy, then make my way back to San Marcos. The progs look pretty good and it should be a clear and smooth flight.

Day 5

So, I left KPTK Sunday morning after filing a VFR flight plan through Canadian airspace to KIAG (Niagra International). The process is exactly the same as a flightplan through US airspace and the only additional rule regarding aircraft operations on an overflight is the posession of a FCC radio station license. I had to divert slightly from a direct route to Niagra because of some cloud buildup. My flightpath followed the north shore of Lake Erie which is populated with agriculture and wind power generators (right). US controllers (mostly Cleveland Center) talked to me the whole flight, so I am not anticipating a bill from NAVCANADA, but we shall see. The approach into Niagra took me directly over the falls (below). The airspace around the falls is pretty busy with other pilots looking at this very impressive site, but everyone talks to each other and reports their positions. The gas at Niagra is expensive, but the people at the airport are nice and there is a restaurant across the street. After a quick lunch, I made my way south into Pennsylvania to stop at Johnstown (KJST) before I filed my ADIZ flightplan for DC. Fortunantly, in Johnstown there were two retired Navy pilots who live in DC. They talked me through the process and advised me that calling Leesburg FSS (local to DC) is the best option and assures that DC clearance will have your flightplan upon arrival at the chosen entry point. From KJST, I flew to my entry point (Westminster VOR (EMI)), was cleared through the ADIZ and Class Bravo thereafter, and proceeded directly to Tipton without any upclose and personal encounters with US Military hardware. Speaking of hardware, the image to the right is of Ft. Meade, or the NSA for the "layman." The NSA is on the approach path into KFME from Westminster. This image is only of what I gather to be the main building in a large complex of antennas and what look like radomes.









Below are a couple of shots of rural PA. It is one of the prettiest states I have flown over.

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.

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. :)

The Night Prior

Well, it is 8:20pm and I decided to create this blog. I will post the progress of my trip mostly for my memories, but I am sure to encounter some interesting places along my way that others may like to see. My biggest hope is that the weather will allow me to progress without too much delay or diversion. Above all, I am sure I will have a good time blasting through the air in the '68 Cardinal.