Day One
The end of a long day of cross country flying and the beginning of a new adventure! I bought an airplane today and Brandon and I flew it for 8.8hours on the first day of 3 or 4 it will take to get home from North Carolina. Brandon hasn't soloed yet, but we're getting some of his cross country training done by actually crossing the country!
Today we went from Hendersonville, NC to Enid, OK with several stops in between. Tomorrow we'll fly by Philmont, Farmington, NM, Monument Valley, and end in Page, AZ.
Day Two
Started with the FBO courtesy car, and ancient Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. We were both thinking Blues Brothers with the cop car, so we had to get the picture with the sun glasses! First leg was from Enid, OK to Guymon, OK in the middle of the pan handle...We flew right over the top of Vance AFB, where I went to pilot training. The rest of the journey over western OK was very quit and very flat.
Next leg was to Raton, NM near the eastern edge of the Rockies. Towards the end, it stated getting bumpy and the winds in Raton were near our limits, so I did the landing.
The original plan was to make our way over the Rockies near Cimmaron, Angel Fire and Taos. With the strong winds, a few clouds, and moderate turbulence, we decided to take the long (and safer) way around south through Santa Fe and then north on the west side of the mountains to Farmington, NM. Our little plane just doesn't want to go high enough to go over the middle.
Day Three
We Left Farmington, NM on a cold clear morning and headed to Shiprock, then to the Four Corners, Monument Valley, Rainbow Bridge, and Page, AZ.
A quick refueling and rest in Page and we were off to fly over the Grand Canyon and stopped for lunch in Boulder City. Finally, we dodged a few rain showers on our way to William J. Fox Field in Lancaster, CA. This is significant, because this is where Brandon took his first flight...he was about 18mo old when I took him up in the Kitfox on the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight.
Tomorrow, we will head to San Luis Obispo to see Caitlin (wx permitting...pretty iffy right now) and make the final flight back to Lincoln, CA
Day Four
Final day of the trip...we had to skip the visit to San Luis Obispo due to poor weather there (sorry Caitlin.) We had to wait a little for the weather to improve at home, so we took of and flew over the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve State Natural Reserve and went to Rosamond Sky Park to visit my friend and fellow U-2 Test Pilot Ed "K-Town" Knouse. It was great seeing K-Town again and checking out his airplane project: https://www.facebook.com/The-Journey-KTOWNs-adventures-in-a-Pietenpol-683415732120277/
Once the weather started improving we headed home. I flew that leg in case we need to fly IFR through the weather that was just starting to improve. Brandon took the opportunity to indulge in some in-flight entertainment. It's been an amazing journey, but we're both glad to be home!
Overall, we ended up flying for 25.9 hours, about 2300nm (2645sm) and burned 219.5 gal of 100LL fuel for about 12MPG and 8.5 Gal/hr
All of the pictures from the trip are here: https://www.peck.photos/aviation-1#/archer-trip/