scard

scard

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This week, Tanya's father passed away. A very sad time around our parts indeed. He had a giant personality and touched everyone around him.
The RV9A and builder jumped into immediate action to provide "time machine" services to deliver Tanya directly to her family in the Dallas area. She was very glad to not have to suffer the long boring drive while in shock the day of his death.
The funeral is this Saturday in Winsted, Minnesota, about 50mi. W of Minneapolis. We decided to make the trip in the -9A. We see it as adding a big fun adventure to the sad set of circumstances for a good mix of things to remember for a long time. We've just barely been across state lines in the year that we've been flying so this is going to be a great big step for us.

The current plan: We are planning on departing the Austin area (GTU) around 8:30am on Thursday 6/19 for an easterly route around forecast weather over Kansas with a planned route
http://runwayfinder.com/?loc=kgtu;khro;kirk;kfcm (Thanks Dave, great tools) The route will probably be adjusted a couple more times before tomorrow morning.
We are planning an "extra" fuel stop so that I have hours of fuel to fly around possible weather or whatever else may come up since this is our first time to set out for truly long distance. We have built in lots of extra time just in case. Given that this is truly a "gotta' be there" trip, I figure that worst case is we put down somewhere and get a car and start driving. Also, Tanya is perfectly prepared to use a commercial ticket on Friday from just about anyplace if the weather totally shuts us down.

Our APRS tracker will probably be moving all day on Thursday if you care to peek in on our progress, the newbie adventurers of necessity.
 
Very sorry to hear about your loss Tanya. You two have a safe trip - I have flown Texas to Minnesota more times than I can count in the past 30 years, and the extra fuel, willingness to deviate, and the abort plans are just what you need.

I've said it many times - the best thing to have in your flight planning kit if you "have to be there" is a refundable airline ticket....or a credit card to buy one!

Fly safe,

Paul
 
As someone who often uses your build log for referrence...sorry to hear of your wifes loss. Enjoy the trip, hope the weather co-ops....and the fun travel brings some positives to a tough time.
Cheers
Rick and Tanya (not the same one) :)
 
Wow, we made it! I don't think I really realized what we had with the RV9A until today. Simply amazing to navigate from south to north around all the thunder storms, without getting a drop of rain on the airframe. The APRS track worked perfectly the whole way, even in some pretty remote places. The flight track changed many times along the way for weather avoidance. I can't say enough about having XM weather radar. I'm not sure they charge enough for that service :). Also, it is priceless to have two full time crew members. Most of the way, Tanya flew the airplane, and I worked the weather and navigation plan and options. It was kind of bouncy and things were changing pretty rapidly around us. We felt like it really did take both of us to do this comfortably.

This machine we put together in the garage is a WAY better mode of transportation than the airlines. The adventure has been had with complete safety all the way. In another day or so I'll start thinking about how we're going to get home, but for now, it doesn't matter, the high of success prevails.
 
Thanks for the update, Scott. Susie and I send our regards to both you and Tanya. Glad you got there safe.

You're right about that XM WX, it changes the safety factor by a factor!

b,
d
 
Glad the trip worked out for you two Scott. Now that you've learned the secrets about RV's and long cross-countrys, I bet you're goign to find it's hard to stay within the borders of Texas....

Paul
 
AltonD said:
Looks like he made a detour to see the swollen Mississippi.
Click to expand...

I suspect this is the reason for the detour:

storms.jpg
 
Wachted every minute (almost)

Hi Scott,

Glad to see that you both made it. I had one Firefox tab opened to NOAA's NexRad and another on your ARPS track. There were a couple of times I wondered what your strategy was. ;)

It's one thing to know about XM and its capabilities, it's another thing to really see (via aprs) XM and its capabilities. Quite impressive. I hope you've got some really cool pics of the storms in the distance - some of those sure looked impressive on NexRad.

Say, do you turn aprs off right before landing or is it just the signal not being received?

Take care and safe trip back,

/\/elson
 
Scott,

I watched as well with one screen open to your flight track and one screen displaying the radar along your route. I could just imagine what it was like as you left northern AR and headed across MO & IA and wondered what I would be doing if in the same place.

That extra crew member made a big difference I'll bet!

Gald you made it safely! I'm sure you'll remember this trip for a while!

Now if the Google APRS tracking map just had a Nexrad overlay like the "Wunder Map" on the Weather Underground - That would make for some interesting track watching.

Scott H
 
Yeah, the weather was actually pretty crappy most of the way. We stayed below and just steered around the large storms. The first set of storms that we used the XM to steer around were coming SE out of the Dallas area. They were big and ugly. Once we got clear of those, we did our first solid turn north (in east central Texas). At that point we were already praying to the XM radar gods for the super useful imagery.
Our first fuel stop was in northern AR. Coming out of there, more storms in our path so we set course around them to the east and got back on track. The next stop was planned for northern MO at Kirksville, but we got stopped in our tracks by a very large line of storms (they are way more scary when you are up there working with them). We put down about 20mi south at a small field in Macon to get the final fuel and evaluate the situation. There were flight crews in Macon that were doing runs to survey the the flooding along the river. They provided some great local knowledge about good divert locations in clear air for our next leg if we needed an escape route. That was a very fast fuel stop. Got fuel, bathroom, checked the weather on the computer, checked over the plane, hatched a plan, called mom, and got back in the air within about 10-15min. before the storms swallowed us up on the ground. That is the direct east track that you see in MO. Then we just steered around the super huge storms. They are getting bigger and bigger in my mind as I talk about them :). Most of this time, I had my head down in charts, freqs., panning & zooming the XM radar data on the map, adjusting waypoints in the flight plan (in the GNS430) etc., and Tanya was on the stick with eyeballs out. This worked really well. In Iowa, as we were navigating around the NE side of the storms, we ran through a corridor about 15mi wide with big storms on the left (using the XM radar image) and the presidential TFR on the right. We only cleared each by about 7mi.. Probably a half hour later and we wouldn't have made it through that spot. We would have been putting down somewhere until the TFR expired.
We worked with Minneapolis approach coming into the class B, and pretty much stayed below it. I let approach know that we were "unfamiliar" so maybe we could get a little extra help given that we were both starting to get a little tired from the 8+hrs in the seat. We actually didn't find any time to listen to the XM radio or other such unimportant things. It was pretty much all hands on deck the whole time. The Flying Cloud airport looks like a very neat mid sized flying community. It was a little smaller than I expected for an airport with parallel runways. The FBO had our car ready, the line crew understood that I didn't want them touching my airplane and helped me push it into the arranged hangar space.
It will be interesting to see what mother nature puts in front of us for the trip back on Sunday.

Yeah, my family was doing the same thing with one browser window open with the weather radar and one open with our track. My mother commented that she felt like she was watching an episode of "storm chasers". I explained to her that we always had a perfectly clear escape route to the east.

David, once you get low enough in a lot of these places, the radio is just unable to hit the neareast receiver. I have its power tied to the nav lights, which are *always* during flight for us.

Oh, yeah, I flew the landing and takeoff into and out of Macon since it was "smaller" than we had planned 3000'x60' and we were much heavier with more aft CG than we are used to. Tanya is really great about giving up command when I ask, "can I take this one". On takeoff, (quick hot turnaround), I was so focused on the weather that I let the CHTs climb quickly to 420+. That is where I have the EIS alarm. This was only the second time ever that we have seen the big red light start flashing at us. Nice to know it works. I lowered the nose and started a turn back to the field, we were only about 3mi. out, knowing immediately what the situation was but taking no chances. The temps immediately dropped and I turned back on course. I think my comment was something like "that instrumentation and warning works".
 
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Glad you guys made it safely and you have my deepest sympathy for your loss.

It was neat watching your APRS track--it really helps me visualize flying my own plane one day.
 
I noticed one of your stops was in HRO Harrison, AR. If you come back through the same way I can have a car waiting for you at the airport so you can get something to eat in town if you would like. I don't mind at all, I live 15 minutes from there and will just leave the keys in the FBO. 870-741-1155 work and 870-715-2769 cell.

Sorry for your loss, I sure know how that feels. My wife's Dad passed away about 2 months ago and my Mom passed away a month ago.
 
Home safe

We are back home safe and sound. The return flight couldn't have been any easier. The wheels left the ground in Flying Cloud at 8:30am into cool smooth air. Tanya planned the return flight to put us a little more west to be sure to clear forecast development to the east. The XM radar was just there to provide reassurance and amusement this time. "Yep, see those clouds over there about 45mi. east, they have big rain the lightning <chuckle>." as we pass them. We picked up a nice tail wind 15-25kts. that was just better the higher we went. We ended up at 12.5k' sucking on O2, eating a big fat Subway sandwich. Only one fuel stop this time. It just doesn't get any better than that.

I'm still blown away with this machine that we built in the garage. The capability that it provides and simply watching it work really touches my soul. Many thanks to all those that sent private messages. It is very comforting knowing there are always friends close by. I had my phone loaded with a few of your phone numbers. Even in a little tiny town in Minnesota that most have never heard of, offers of hangar space, cars, and morning coffee, out of the blue! We're going to be making our way back to that area more often, and I'm planning on taking some of you up on your generosity, if only to put a face to the name. Next time we'll hopefully be able to plan a little further in advance with better circumstances.

An RV is an amazing machine. Keep pounding those rivets.
 
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Scott and Tanya,
Please let me add my condolences for your loss.

This was a terrific post on the utility and power of the RV/XM Weather combination. I congratulate myself on the decision to get the 396 just about every long cross-country trip that I take.
 
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