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Flying RV-6 from IL. to Ca.?

m3tt5

Active Member
I would like to fly my RV6A to long beach California from Illinois first week of December. I'm on no schedule. Just wondering if this can be done, looking for advice. I have many hours flying my RV but never taken a really long trip.
 
As Steve said, it is a bunch of short trips and have a good heater.

I stopped counting after 20 trips West to East and back. Now I live in the East.

Typically the Southern Route has been the easiest with the most possible places to stop. Pick up I-40 in Texas and head West.

Typically stops for me have been BGD (but DUX and DHT also work) then West over ABQ or LVS with fuel stop at SJN (or INW). You may want to stop at LXT for your first stop depending on where you are in Illinois. LXT has crew car with a Hampton and Outback near by if you need to spend the night. BGD also has cars and inexpensive nice hotels a few miles away.

Watch the Wx for a few weeks out. I like this and this for long range planning. Will also look at WUnderground.com for select points along the route.

I moved my RV-6 from SoCAL to PA in November 2013. Rosie has made late December trip across the USA a number of years ago so it can be done when there is no need to be there NOW. If you are in a hurry, I suggest DRIVE or take a commercial flight.
 
Sounds like a great trip. I have visited my brother in San Diego a couple times. You might want to take the southern route thru ABQ to avoid the high country in December.
 
Was told by a pilot much wiser than me that has made several trips cross country (Dan Ross) that it is a good idea to plan airports that are not just cheap fuel, but have services, cars, restaurants, and hotel rooms. I planned a route and picked airports about every our that would be good stops. My flight planning had 2.5-3 hour legs, but I had pre planned alternates along the route. I found it was overwhelming to plan the whole route at once. Weather and other factors could change your route. Just did one leg at a time, and kept the plans very flexible.
 
Check out Scott Chastain's and Vald's posts this summer ... Flying from IL to CA should be a straightforward task, just a few short hops will get you there. Negotiating LA airspace for the last 50 miles will be the most challenging part I would think!
 
Nothing too hard about LA airspace. It looks worse than it is in reality. Just call up SoCal Approach around Palm Springs and they will gladly hold your hand along the way into LGB. I've never been denied VFR flight following in this airspace. If it is really busy, just keep calling them.

I've done several longish cross country flights now, and from San Diego to Oshkosh this summer was my first multi day trek. It is very doable if you do like others here have said and just make it into smaller flight legs and be prepared to go where the weather is agreeable. From IL to LA, just follow the old Rte 66, except you may want to go a bit farther south than Flagstaff.

I use Foreflight and skyvector for my flight planning, along with various weather briefing sources (official and unofficial). Always good to have more than one opinion!
 
NAAA and I would just like to take a long trip in my RV so this gives me a reason to go. Really would be neat to take a picture of my RV in ca.
 
Watch the Wx for a few weeks out. I like this and this for long range planning. Will also look at WUnderground.com for select points along the route.

gary, i use weathermeister but have never seen this lay out. can you point me to something new here? thanks.
 
Watch the Wx for a few weeks out. I like this and this for long range planning. Will also look at WUnderground.com for select points along the route.

gary, i use weathermeister but have never seen this lay out. can you point me to something new here? thanks.

It is a BETA page that I think everyone can access without a subscription.

The paid subscription has an OUTLOOK tab that has some of this and some additional maps.
 
This is a great trip that can be a lot of fun. As others have said, go the southern route for better weather. Lots of geologic points of interest along the way; my favorites are Winslow meteor crater, Shiprock, and of course the Grand Canyon. Another advantage of this route is that it avoids high mountains. Quite a bit of very remote desert though so make sure to take appropriate precautions (and bring water).

Last time I made the trip the worst weather was in Illinois. I ended up parking the airplane near near the Mississippi River and driving the last part home (returned for the plane a week later).
 
Great tips thank u I'm by Burlington Iowa if I could just get south wouldn't it be warm the rest of the way
 
Prior to flying my newly-purchased RV-8 from Texas to Massachusetts (1641 statute miles), the longest XC I ever made was 300 miles. I made the flight in two days and it was utterly glorious.

On the first day I scheduled fuel stops when my estimated fuel consumption was about half a load (i.e. 20 gallons). This was to meter what the gauges and my calculations were telling me vs what was actually burned, leaving me with a good reserve. The airplane was new to me then.

Since you have flown your plane for a while I'll assume you have that data available (gauge vs actual).

I planned on it taking two days. At first I was going to fly from Paris Texas to KORF, but once I got into North Carolina, I was running out of daylight and so I cut it short by landing at Hickory NC. Very nice little airport.

The rest of the trip went without a hitch the next day. Once I crossed the Hudson River I was on familiar ground and I was smiling.

So as others have said, if you think of it as a series of short hops, factor in some alternates, be sure you get Flight Following (if you can), there's nothing to be worried about. One big difference between my flight and yours is that there were airports galore all along my route. I'm not familiar with the Midwest/West so I don't know how that factors into your flight planning.
 
I did it a couple of times from WI to San Diego. Great trip! Take the southern route. You will be shocked how desolate it is out there so as others said, take precautions with some survival gear.
 
Route

Great tips thank u I'm by Burlington Iowa if I could just get south wouldn't it be warm the rest of the way

Not necessarily. Last year on 1 Dec driving from El Paso to Dallas there was some ice and snow in the higher elevations. The good news about that part of the country is the bad weather rarely lasts more than a couple days.
The Dallas-El Paso-Tucson route can be flown a couple thousand feet lower than the I 40 route thru ABQ.
 
I did a similar south route KIXD..KCAO..KAEG..KCRQ and the return trip KCRQ..KSOW..KTCC..KHSD..KIXD in a rented T-Tail Lance in the summer, what a PIG! I opted for 7000ish runways due to the dissmal takeoff/climb performance, many more options in an RV! My family and especially me had a BLAST flying ourselves a cross country. As others have said plan in advance but nothing in concrete. If you are semi-flexible with time and route you will easily make it safely and have an awesome adventure at the same time!
 
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