Cruising along from Houston to Washington D.C. ( and back again a few days later), the most difficult part being staying alert and awake as the hazy but VFR weather gives little challenge to the brain. The autopilot holds altitude and course far more accurately than I can, and if I were to hand fly it, I?d just decrease my efficiency, burn more gas, and make the flight a little longer, so I settle in with my bag of cashews, a few cookies, a bottle of water, and the XM radio - my latest favorite program being the comedy channel, as it stimulates the mind in a way that listening to a piano sonata just won?t do?..
Long solo cross-countries (the kind of things made possible and attractive by the RV?s speed and range) do raise the issues of what to do with your time along the way. I scroll forward and backward along my projected course line, looking at XM METARS and the radar returns, scanning ahead for the need to deal with weather with course deviations or possibly air-filing for IFR to the destination. I find that flying first thing in the morning makes it interesting to watch your destination or fuel stop (600 miles or more ahead) start out VFR, then go IFR in early morning scud, then come back up according to the forecast in time for you to land. I deal with rising morning cumulus by climbing - if I try that in the afternoon, I?ll likely get in trouble because the tops will be higher than I want to cruise, so the strategy changes about noon - but that?s OK, as the ceilings have generally risen to allow good terrain clearances underneath by then. (If not - see the part about air-filing for IFR!)
There is still something a bit unsettling in launching towards a destination VFR that is not yet VFR, but knowing that you have three hours to get there, and that it will improve quickly is something that you can get comfortable with when you have the endurance to deal with it - and a good ?plan B?. I suppose one answer to the boredom issue with long VFR flights is to file IFR and continuously deal with frequency handoff?s and the like, but I still prefer freedom and solitude when I can choose it. Again, the trick is to never get yourself painted into a corner with no place to go, or not enough fuel to get there. If you?re climbing to avoid building Cu, make sure that your destination is still scattered so you can get down at the other end (or pull out that frequency for Flight Service so you can air file?.).
Watching over the airplane in high cruise with a fully-monitored EIS/EFIS system doesn?t take much energy. If anything bad happens, you?re going to get an alarm - but it is fun to scan through the various system information pages and (if nothing else) learn how they work, and how much information we have at our fingertips today. I have brought up the mpg page on my EFIS and played around with leaning and speeds to see how I can maximize this economy parameter. Or do the same thing with SFC?or simply try for maximum range. It isn?t hard (if you climb high early) so see a four-digit range number (better than a thousand miles) - but I?m going to be slowed down to get it, so the endurance is going to get really long. As in all things - a trade.
I like to run two flight plans - the one I am using is usually in my 430, and feeds the EFIS as the External plan. I can also do an Internal plan and have it in standby so I can watch my progress relative to it. Generally, the External plan will be a simple VFR ?Direct to? type of thing - the fuel stop, and the final destination. The Internal plan will be a VOR-to-VOR IFR type plan that I can switch to if I need to go that way. It gives me more intermediate information to check fuel against (fuel at each waypoint being automatically generated by the EFIS) to see if I need to stop early - or if I can safely eliminate a stop. Cool things, these computers?..
Ah - the ?time to go? has finally clocked down to less than an hour - time to think about a descent, and tidy things up around the cockpit. When I am driving on the highway, I get that ?almost there? feeling when I have 100 miles to go. In the air, it?s a time less than an hour. Don?t know why - those numbers just work for me. Maybe living in Texas, with long distances, has conditioned me that way. At any rate, I enjoy the end of flight process because it usually means calculating descent times and looking for the best way to come down from ?on top?, or through scattered clouds and layers. Heading home to the gulf coast in summer, it almost always means avoiding a thundershower or two - something which the XM weather makes a non-event these days. On this recent return from D.C., I had no weather at all to deal with until I got about 60 miles from home, and then a couple of minor jogs worked me around the few cells near the coast. Sometimes, I?ll even use the showers to help wash the bugs off - if the tops aren?t too high, meaning that the energies are low!
Cruising along with XM audio in the ears, the autopilot on, and not much else to do - it sometimes seems a little boring. But then I remember that I am generally saving time over using the airlines, and I still have my knife in my pocket, so it?s hard to beat! This week?s trip (Houston to D.C. and back) was about 1050 miles. In a few weeks, I?ll do Houston to SOCAL (about 1100 miles)?opposite directions, even length trips. Both of them beat the door-to-door times if I took the airlines. That plus a few little aileron rolls now and again remind me just how wonderful these machines are!
KLVJ - KEZF via KJFX - 6:55 (headwinds)
KEZF - KLVJ via KJFX - 6:25 (MORE headwinds)
(KJFX still has the best fuel price enroute - lower at the full serve than the self serve!)
Paul
Long solo cross-countries (the kind of things made possible and attractive by the RV?s speed and range) do raise the issues of what to do with your time along the way. I scroll forward and backward along my projected course line, looking at XM METARS and the radar returns, scanning ahead for the need to deal with weather with course deviations or possibly air-filing for IFR to the destination. I find that flying first thing in the morning makes it interesting to watch your destination or fuel stop (600 miles or more ahead) start out VFR, then go IFR in early morning scud, then come back up according to the forecast in time for you to land. I deal with rising morning cumulus by climbing - if I try that in the afternoon, I?ll likely get in trouble because the tops will be higher than I want to cruise, so the strategy changes about noon - but that?s OK, as the ceilings have generally risen to allow good terrain clearances underneath by then. (If not - see the part about air-filing for IFR!)
There is still something a bit unsettling in launching towards a destination VFR that is not yet VFR, but knowing that you have three hours to get there, and that it will improve quickly is something that you can get comfortable with when you have the endurance to deal with it - and a good ?plan B?. I suppose one answer to the boredom issue with long VFR flights is to file IFR and continuously deal with frequency handoff?s and the like, but I still prefer freedom and solitude when I can choose it. Again, the trick is to never get yourself painted into a corner with no place to go, or not enough fuel to get there. If you?re climbing to avoid building Cu, make sure that your destination is still scattered so you can get down at the other end (or pull out that frequency for Flight Service so you can air file?.).
Watching over the airplane in high cruise with a fully-monitored EIS/EFIS system doesn?t take much energy. If anything bad happens, you?re going to get an alarm - but it is fun to scan through the various system information pages and (if nothing else) learn how they work, and how much information we have at our fingertips today. I have brought up the mpg page on my EFIS and played around with leaning and speeds to see how I can maximize this economy parameter. Or do the same thing with SFC?or simply try for maximum range. It isn?t hard (if you climb high early) so see a four-digit range number (better than a thousand miles) - but I?m going to be slowed down to get it, so the endurance is going to get really long. As in all things - a trade.
I like to run two flight plans - the one I am using is usually in my 430, and feeds the EFIS as the External plan. I can also do an Internal plan and have it in standby so I can watch my progress relative to it. Generally, the External plan will be a simple VFR ?Direct to? type of thing - the fuel stop, and the final destination. The Internal plan will be a VOR-to-VOR IFR type plan that I can switch to if I need to go that way. It gives me more intermediate information to check fuel against (fuel at each waypoint being automatically generated by the EFIS) to see if I need to stop early - or if I can safely eliminate a stop. Cool things, these computers?..
Ah - the ?time to go? has finally clocked down to less than an hour - time to think about a descent, and tidy things up around the cockpit. When I am driving on the highway, I get that ?almost there? feeling when I have 100 miles to go. In the air, it?s a time less than an hour. Don?t know why - those numbers just work for me. Maybe living in Texas, with long distances, has conditioned me that way. At any rate, I enjoy the end of flight process because it usually means calculating descent times and looking for the best way to come down from ?on top?, or through scattered clouds and layers. Heading home to the gulf coast in summer, it almost always means avoiding a thundershower or two - something which the XM weather makes a non-event these days. On this recent return from D.C., I had no weather at all to deal with until I got about 60 miles from home, and then a couple of minor jogs worked me around the few cells near the coast. Sometimes, I?ll even use the showers to help wash the bugs off - if the tops aren?t too high, meaning that the energies are low!
Cruising along with XM audio in the ears, the autopilot on, and not much else to do - it sometimes seems a little boring. But then I remember that I am generally saving time over using the airlines, and I still have my knife in my pocket, so it?s hard to beat! This week?s trip (Houston to D.C. and back) was about 1050 miles. In a few weeks, I?ll do Houston to SOCAL (about 1100 miles)?opposite directions, even length trips. Both of them beat the door-to-door times if I took the airlines. That plus a few little aileron rolls now and again remind me just how wonderful these machines are!
KLVJ - KEZF via KJFX - 6:55 (headwinds)
KEZF - KLVJ via KJFX - 6:25 (MORE headwinds)
(KJFX still has the best fuel price enroute - lower at the full serve than the self serve!)
Paul
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My x-country attentions, activities, and thought patterns are every bit the same as yours .... nice to know I'm not all wet. Oops ..maybe there's two of us that are all wet ! 
