Bill Stratton
Member
Flight 5572, A travel story.
Long write up but it was a long trip.
FLIGHT 5572
Let the Adventure Begin
Its 08:55 June 16th 2009 and I have just pushed the throttle full open on My Genie, my RV-8. I am departing runway 18 at Cannon Creek Airpark in Lake City, Florida headed West. Four to five seconds after the throttle is advanced the tail comes up and a few seconds later I am airborne. When I first started flying the RV-8 I was so far behind the airplane it jumped off the ground before I was ready. Now when I advance the throttle I think, is the tail ever going to come up, is this thing ever going to get off the ground. I fly 13 nm West to Flying Little River Airpark and rendezvous with Jerry Cornwell (RV-8), Captain Ron Maier (RV-8), and Jim Driscoll (RV-6A). Jerry and Jim live at Little River and Captain Ron is from Portland Maine. He flew down to Florida a couple of days ago to meet up with us for our trip. We join up in a loose gaggle and head West. First fuel stop is M11, Copiah County airport in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. We are cruising West at 8,500 feet. Its hazy but no clouds. One hour eleven minutes after takeoff we are in Alabama and at 2 hours and 4 minutes we are in Mississippi. Two hours and 48 minutes after takeoff we are on the ground at M11. We refuel the planes, have lunch and then head West. It is very hot and leaving M11 Jim?s electronic goodies in his panel have soaked up the heat and nothing works except his back up steam gages. Jerry and I have kept our panel?s simple with Van?s cheap steam gages and everything is working fine. After we get up to some cool temperatures Jim?s panel comes back to life. We are headed for XA85 Cougar Landing. It is a beautiful grass strip 5 miles NW of Waco, Texas. It is owned by Mike and Bonnie Anderson and they have graciously invited us to spend the night. After 5 hours and 32 minutes flying time for day 1 we are on the ground at XA85. We got Mike?s contact information off of the RV hotel list. Mike and Bonnie are wonderful people and I can not say enough about the hospitality they provided. Thanks Mike and Bonnie.
Day Two. We say goodbye to Mike and Bonnie and climb to 4,500 feet. We are on top of broken clouds 31 minutes from our first fuel stop MKN, Comanche County-City at Comanche, Texas. Texas is still pretty and green in this part and being in an RV-8 that you built yourself sure is a fantastic way to see America the beautiful. We land at MKN with the wind really blowing but it is right down the runway so no problem. After a quick refueling we are once again headed West. The sky is clear, 2490 RPM, 156 Knots groundspeed and the landscape is starting to turn brown. About 50 nm East of the Guadalupe pass we hit our first weather. It is no problem though, just some light rain showers. Still good visibility but a pretty bumpy ride and we are down to 146 knots now. The rain showers only last 10 or 15 minutes and we have clear sailing through the pass and on to DMN, Deming, New Mexico our fuel and lunch stop. After refueling and some local Mexican food we head Northwest to PAN, Payson, Arizona. They have a beautiful campground on the airport with rest rooms, hot showers and there is a restaurant on the field. We plan to spend 2 nights here. We arrive at the 5,157 foot altitude runway with a 90 degree crosswind blowing 15 gusting to 21. I looked at the wind sock and it was standing straight out directly across the runway. I did not like the looks of that so I did not look at it again. The landing was not pretty to say the least but we got them down OK. With the airport restaurant named ?The Crosswinds Grille? that would tell a smart man something but I will let you come to your own conclusion about that. Five hours 37 minutes flying time today, 11 hours 9 minutes flying time for two days. After cocktail hour, dinner, a hot shower and a good nights sleep we are ready for day 3.
Day Three. We are headed North to fly through Monument Valley. Captain Ron has been here before so he is our leader for the day. After approximately 1 hour we are flying around the monuments taking pictures. Words can not describe how beautiful it is. It is the highlight of the trip so far. After the flight through the valley we land at UT25, Monument Valley, Utah for lunch. It is a private strip and we have called ahead for permission to land. We have a quartering tailwind and it is another not so pretty landing but safe. This is a one way strip with no go around. The strip is now paved for the entire length. We have lunch in a nice restaurant (a bus met us and took us up the hill to the restaurant) buy some souvenirs and depart to the West. We fly over Lake Powell then turn South to over fly the Grand Canyon. I purchased the Grand Canyon VFR chart and studied it before this flight. You have to fly specified routes at the correct altitudes (with the altimeter setting from the correct location) and monitor the correct frequency for where you are located. We make sure we are exactly on course and maintain altitude. Don?t want to goof this one up. Thank goodness for GPS. It is beautiful, the first time I have seen it. Cross another one off of the bucket list. We arrive back at home sweet home in Payson and are greeted with another crosswind but not as bad as yesterday. I even manage to make a good landing. Three hours 22 minutes flight time today. Total time for three days 14 hours 31 minutes. On to California tomorrow.
Day Four. We departed Payson at 08:30 headed for Furnace Creek Airport in Death Valley. We fly by Las Vegas South of their airspace and can see the casinos in the distance. After 2 hours and 2 minutes we land at minus 211 feet at L06.This place is sure named correctly, its 110 degrees. I tell the guys that if the mountains spring a leak we are all in trouble. We use the facilities, take pictures and depart for BIH, Bishop, California. Its at an elevation of 4,124 feet so we have a long hot climb. We refuel and have lunch at Bishop (on field restaurant has Tai food). The snow capped mountains around here are beautiful. We depart Bishop and climb to 14,500 feet to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains. There are some scattered clouds so I climb on up to 16,500 to clear them. As I am climbing through 16,400 I hear a loud bang from the back. I tell myself that it was probably a sprite bottle exploding and think it will be a sticky mess to clean up. I have never had the 8 this high before. After all we are flat landers from Florida. It is a million dollar view looking down at the rugged terrain. I think, this engine came to me as a bunch of parts in cardboard boxes and I put it together myself. We clear the last ridge and start a descent for O22, Columbia airport at Columbia, California. Its in the foothills at an elevation of 2,118 feet. It has a great campground right on the airport with hot showers. It?s a short walk to an old gold mining town for food. You pass an ice cream place on the way that has a good root beer float. They are having their annual Fathers Day Fly in so we spend three nights. A lot of planes and campers here. I unload the plane and can not find any thing that exploded. Then I find the crack in the canopy. Looking back I wish I had turned on the cabin heat. It might have made enough difference to prevent the crack but that is a mute point now. Thank goodness its at the rear of the canopy. I borrow a drill and bit from an RV camper (the motor home type) and stop drill the crack and put some 200 mile per hour duck tape on it.
Three hours 42 minutes flying time for day 4. Total flying time now is 18 hours 13 minutes.
Long write up but it was a long trip.
FLIGHT 5572
Let the Adventure Begin
Its 08:55 June 16th 2009 and I have just pushed the throttle full open on My Genie, my RV-8. I am departing runway 18 at Cannon Creek Airpark in Lake City, Florida headed West. Four to five seconds after the throttle is advanced the tail comes up and a few seconds later I am airborne. When I first started flying the RV-8 I was so far behind the airplane it jumped off the ground before I was ready. Now when I advance the throttle I think, is the tail ever going to come up, is this thing ever going to get off the ground. I fly 13 nm West to Flying Little River Airpark and rendezvous with Jerry Cornwell (RV-8), Captain Ron Maier (RV-8), and Jim Driscoll (RV-6A). Jerry and Jim live at Little River and Captain Ron is from Portland Maine. He flew down to Florida a couple of days ago to meet up with us for our trip. We join up in a loose gaggle and head West. First fuel stop is M11, Copiah County airport in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. We are cruising West at 8,500 feet. Its hazy but no clouds. One hour eleven minutes after takeoff we are in Alabama and at 2 hours and 4 minutes we are in Mississippi. Two hours and 48 minutes after takeoff we are on the ground at M11. We refuel the planes, have lunch and then head West. It is very hot and leaving M11 Jim?s electronic goodies in his panel have soaked up the heat and nothing works except his back up steam gages. Jerry and I have kept our panel?s simple with Van?s cheap steam gages and everything is working fine. After we get up to some cool temperatures Jim?s panel comes back to life. We are headed for XA85 Cougar Landing. It is a beautiful grass strip 5 miles NW of Waco, Texas. It is owned by Mike and Bonnie Anderson and they have graciously invited us to spend the night. After 5 hours and 32 minutes flying time for day 1 we are on the ground at XA85. We got Mike?s contact information off of the RV hotel list. Mike and Bonnie are wonderful people and I can not say enough about the hospitality they provided. Thanks Mike and Bonnie.
Day Two. We say goodbye to Mike and Bonnie and climb to 4,500 feet. We are on top of broken clouds 31 minutes from our first fuel stop MKN, Comanche County-City at Comanche, Texas. Texas is still pretty and green in this part and being in an RV-8 that you built yourself sure is a fantastic way to see America the beautiful. We land at MKN with the wind really blowing but it is right down the runway so no problem. After a quick refueling we are once again headed West. The sky is clear, 2490 RPM, 156 Knots groundspeed and the landscape is starting to turn brown. About 50 nm East of the Guadalupe pass we hit our first weather. It is no problem though, just some light rain showers. Still good visibility but a pretty bumpy ride and we are down to 146 knots now. The rain showers only last 10 or 15 minutes and we have clear sailing through the pass and on to DMN, Deming, New Mexico our fuel and lunch stop. After refueling and some local Mexican food we head Northwest to PAN, Payson, Arizona. They have a beautiful campground on the airport with rest rooms, hot showers and there is a restaurant on the field. We plan to spend 2 nights here. We arrive at the 5,157 foot altitude runway with a 90 degree crosswind blowing 15 gusting to 21. I looked at the wind sock and it was standing straight out directly across the runway. I did not like the looks of that so I did not look at it again. The landing was not pretty to say the least but we got them down OK. With the airport restaurant named ?The Crosswinds Grille? that would tell a smart man something but I will let you come to your own conclusion about that. Five hours 37 minutes flying time today, 11 hours 9 minutes flying time for two days. After cocktail hour, dinner, a hot shower and a good nights sleep we are ready for day 3.
Day Three. We are headed North to fly through Monument Valley. Captain Ron has been here before so he is our leader for the day. After approximately 1 hour we are flying around the monuments taking pictures. Words can not describe how beautiful it is. It is the highlight of the trip so far. After the flight through the valley we land at UT25, Monument Valley, Utah for lunch. It is a private strip and we have called ahead for permission to land. We have a quartering tailwind and it is another not so pretty landing but safe. This is a one way strip with no go around. The strip is now paved for the entire length. We have lunch in a nice restaurant (a bus met us and took us up the hill to the restaurant) buy some souvenirs and depart to the West. We fly over Lake Powell then turn South to over fly the Grand Canyon. I purchased the Grand Canyon VFR chart and studied it before this flight. You have to fly specified routes at the correct altitudes (with the altimeter setting from the correct location) and monitor the correct frequency for where you are located. We make sure we are exactly on course and maintain altitude. Don?t want to goof this one up. Thank goodness for GPS. It is beautiful, the first time I have seen it. Cross another one off of the bucket list. We arrive back at home sweet home in Payson and are greeted with another crosswind but not as bad as yesterday. I even manage to make a good landing. Three hours 22 minutes flight time today. Total time for three days 14 hours 31 minutes. On to California tomorrow.
Day Four. We departed Payson at 08:30 headed for Furnace Creek Airport in Death Valley. We fly by Las Vegas South of their airspace and can see the casinos in the distance. After 2 hours and 2 minutes we land at minus 211 feet at L06.This place is sure named correctly, its 110 degrees. I tell the guys that if the mountains spring a leak we are all in trouble. We use the facilities, take pictures and depart for BIH, Bishop, California. Its at an elevation of 4,124 feet so we have a long hot climb. We refuel and have lunch at Bishop (on field restaurant has Tai food). The snow capped mountains around here are beautiful. We depart Bishop and climb to 14,500 feet to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains. There are some scattered clouds so I climb on up to 16,500 to clear them. As I am climbing through 16,400 I hear a loud bang from the back. I tell myself that it was probably a sprite bottle exploding and think it will be a sticky mess to clean up. I have never had the 8 this high before. After all we are flat landers from Florida. It is a million dollar view looking down at the rugged terrain. I think, this engine came to me as a bunch of parts in cardboard boxes and I put it together myself. We clear the last ridge and start a descent for O22, Columbia airport at Columbia, California. Its in the foothills at an elevation of 2,118 feet. It has a great campground right on the airport with hot showers. It?s a short walk to an old gold mining town for food. You pass an ice cream place on the way that has a good root beer float. They are having their annual Fathers Day Fly in so we spend three nights. A lot of planes and campers here. I unload the plane and can not find any thing that exploded. Then I find the crack in the canopy. Looking back I wish I had turned on the cabin heat. It might have made enough difference to prevent the crack but that is a mute point now. Thank goodness its at the rear of the canopy. I borrow a drill and bit from an RV camper (the motor home type) and stop drill the crack and put some 200 mile per hour duck tape on it.
Three hours 42 minutes flying time for day 4. Total flying time now is 18 hours 13 minutes.