VAF Forums - Winds - Mustangs and Fun .. Long..

Well I am home;-) And wow what a trip!! I left S37 Wed due to the remnants of TS Fay, and I made it to Rochester,MN the first day. Low clouds and low Vis stopped me,
the funny story behind that stop was I was followed by a regional jet
and was asked to expedite my landing which I did, so I am taxing to
the FBO and this overpowering burning smell engulfs the cockpit and I
about jump out of the plane thinking I have a brake fire when it
dawns on me that a big jet just landed abeam me and it was his smoke;-
) from his tires Ha Ha!
Anyway had a nice dinner and hit the hay,had to wait until noon the
next day but took off and headed to the big city of Lisbon,ND.
As I made my way north the ground speed went south:( at one point my
ground speed was down to 135kts ouch! and to make things better the
airports I was flying by were reporting stronger and stronger winds.
When I was within 20nm of Lisbon the closest AWOS was reporting
winds 240 at 20G29 not a big deal in itself but the runway at Lisbon
is 32-14
they have a grass runway but it was NOTAMed as being closed soooo I
figure I will give it a try and worse comes to worse I would just go
somewhere eles. Well It ended up not being to bad the wind was a
crosswind but it was more like 290 instead of 240 but it still was a
steady 24+ wind. After grabbing some fuel and chatting with some
folks from Lisbon I headed further north to Rolla,ND just a scant 6nm
from the USA/Canada border and visited with my Father-in-law the
winds were howling in Rolla too but thankfully right down the runway.
Got to visit with him for a bit until the wind started to die a
little so he had to start spraying again, so whats a guy to do? I
went flying again! I actually did have a reason the current airport
manager in Lisbon gave me use of his hangar and I needed to do a oil
change so back to Lisbon for a oil change and a nice dinner.
Woke up the next morning and launched into more howling winds but
this time they were in my favor as a nice tailwind, I headed back to
Madison,WI to meet up with my lovely wife and beautiful little boy:-)
Then we drove all the way back to Battle Lake,MN(don't ask why I
did not just stay in ND:-) And meet Tim "Toby" Mcpherson and his P-
51D "Boomer" I got to go for a amazing ride it was awesome!!!! The
smell the sound the feeling of the Mustang is really hard to convey
in writing, There were many really neat parts of the ride but the
best was being in a hard climbing turn and looking down and seeing a
perfect silhouette of the Mustang in the wheat field and realizing
that I was in the Mustang!! After many high speed passes and other
fun we landed in Wahpeton,ND and I was lucky enough to get a personal
guided tour of Tri State Aviation, this is Jerry Becks shop Jerry was
the fellow who passed in the Mustang accident two years ago at Osh,
it is truly a amazing place they have something like 8 Mustangs in
various stages of restoration. They had original tool dies and forms
from North American Aviation! They had shelves from floor to ceiling
full of parts for Mustangs, T-6s and even Corsairs,It was a very,
very neat thing to see.
So today I left Madison,WI around 11AM eastern and went around the
west side of Chi town and made it into Rostraver for fuel, a quick
turn and back up to 9500' in cool smooth air and I was home by 3pm.
All in all a amazing trip in truly amazing airplanes!!
Trip stats
Fuel= I don't want to add it up
Speed= Fast (except heading into ND winds)
Hours=16.5 RV hours (and 18 driving hrs:-(
Experience= Priceless!!!