Kansas City-Lexington-Memphis-Kansas City in one day

[keithschult]

Whew! What a day Friday was...

The short story is: A friend asked me to fly him to two work sites that day, one in Lexington,KY, and another in Memphis, TN. We left Kansas City at 5:45AM, traveled more than 1200 n.m., flew over 6 states, and were back in Kansas City at 7:45PM the same day: 8.7 hours in the air during a 14 hour workday. This included landing at Class C in Lexington, KY, and Class B in Memphis,TN. What a ride, what a day!

We flew VFR, low, high, level & straight; followed the fog covered Missouri River, hopped over clouds, deviated to avoid IFR, had circular descents through thick scattered clouds; flew MVFR, VFR-on-top; had both tailwinds & headwinds, flight following, and ATC services in Class B & C. We saw CB anvils in clear blue sky rising above the haze at 8,500' from almost two hundred miles away in Missouri, but couldn't see more than 5 miles in haze in Kentucky under the clouds. We experienced cold & hot temperatures at the same altitude. We even experienced an immediate 15 degree rise in temperature on descent into KC at 4000'.

At Lexington, as I turned downwind for Rwy4, my tach turned 1,000.0 hours on my RV!! That's how I know the air-time from KC was a total of 3.6 hours (because of a weather related deviation).

At Memphis International, we landed on Rwy 36C behind a CRJ, ahead of the FedEx jets and taxied at almost 40 knots to stay ahead of the traffic. Then to top it off we got a brand new courtesy car with 450 total miles on it from Signature. At departure, Clnc Del told me to ask for an intersection take-off but Gnd Con said it would be a longer wait so we taxied for over two miles to get to the end of the runway, all the while watching the jets land on all three runways on both sides of us as we taxied. We took off behind a three engine jet but we were in the air so soon and climbing so steeply that turbulence was never a factor.

We started the day by taking off before dawn, watching the red sun rise in front of us, and then ended the day by landing on Rwy 29 at home with the BRIGHT yellow setting sun full in my eyes on final.

I don't make many posts but I thought I'd tell this story. All my flying is done VFR. I enjoy the freedom and I rarely am delayed by weather even when flying hundreds of miles. I certainly do fly through weather, even good weather, and have encountered many challenges over the years.

I took my camera to record the day but never used it. I was too busy working through all the varied conditions and events.

What a great country this is; to be free to do these things, and at a moment's notice too.

While I didn't build my 6A I have owned it for 4 years and have put 500 hours on it during this time flying it all over the country. I respect all of you who have built their own and I hope everyone of you gets to experience the joy of flying it anywhere you desire.

BTW: I was tired the next day but it didn't stop me from going back out to the airport for more fun!

[G Swartley]

Keith

Great story about the freedoms of this country and aircraft. Can't wait till my RV is done and I have some stories like this to share with the VAF world. Just one idea, if you have a passenger hand them the camera and tell them to click away.

Thanks for the motivation.

[Ironflight]

Originally Posted by keithschult

BTW: I was tired the next day but it didn't stop me from going back out to the airport for more fun!

It's amazing how I can fly for two or three days or so on a long cross-country to the west coast and back, and still pop out of bed the next morning to go do a little dawn patrol up-side-down!

RV's give an entirely new meaning to the GA term "Cross-country" BTW - literally, you can fairly easily cross the country!