Question if you don't mind: I think you didn't start day 1 until noon....lets say you started at 7am. Do you think you would have made it in (2) days? You had some nice cruising speeds.
Yes. My daughter had a few things going on that morning, saying goodbyes and all, so we couldn’t leave for the airport until 11 or so. Then I waited for the fuel truck, which I should have done the day before.
The first day could have been three flights of 3 hours. And while I don’t need the fuel at all those stops, I do want to make sure I stretch our legs.
The second day could also have been three flights, if only I hadn’t stopped too long at Quadcity. I got fuel, called FSS and they thought that the weather system was moving faster than it actually did. I could definitely have gotten out of there and over to Southern OH or Pennsylvania for another fuel stop. And a last flight to Boston.
Packing a lunch on the first day and more snacks might have been a good idea. The first day we had Mexican for lunch at Preston, and we really could have skipped it if we had a better selection of snacks. We weren’t hungry for dinner at Valentine, but grabbed some snack items from a convenience store at 11pm. The next day we had a abysmal breakfast, but we snacked on the plane and at quad city, we thought we’d use the downtime to get lunch but we weren’t very hungry. We grabbed ice cream instead. Before we left quad city, we had a couple of items from the FBO’s vending machine. We had no dinner that night. And didn’t need it.
The next morning we had a really good breakfast, and needed no food at Sidney Municipal, so we fueled and took right off. So really, the first day, the time spent grabbing the courtesy car and going to lunch could have been used to get us further East. Of course some of these adventures are more fun when you get to see the towns attached to the airports, although some towns are more interesting than others. Preston and Valentine might have had cool sights if a local had helped point them out.
in short, this could easily have been a two day adventure. Weather is the big wildcard. On the East coast, early mornings do provide fewer thunderstorms, so the mid afternoon flights could at delayed.
The ADS-B weather and flight following assistance, were very good at helping us maneuver around thunderstorms. The other clouds were docile as we flew under them. Without real-time weather radar, I try to be very careful though. It’s easy to get stale weather data.
BTW, I try not to land at new airports at night. However, a well lighted airport without nearby ridges and obstacles can actually be pretty easy to land at. Sidney Muni is not one of them. With that ridge on one side, it would be hard to handle it unless a straight in. Even then...
Also say you were up higher out West, do you use 02 or is that right on the edge for you?
I keep the oxygen cannula nearby. I checked my O2 at 9500 and I was at 85%. At 11500 I was at 80%. So I decided to turn on the O2 and put on the cannula. I can get my O2 levels up over 90% at that altitude without supplementing, if I consciously breath deeper. It’s hard to remember that.
one last thing. I’ve usually benefited from better groundspeed by flying higher. However, the winds really weren’t cooperating so we didn’t go over 11500. Going home, I might try up to 16500 to see if I have better weather and speed.
