DesertNomad
Pattern Altitude
I am a VFR pilot (now with about 330 hours) based in Reno, NV and bought my Piper Dakota a year ago. I have flown mostly around the local area. The longest trips to date were Portland, OR and Tucson, AZ, and the trip home after buying it in Austin, TX.
Earlier this year, an opportunity arose to fly to Cuba and after making all the legal arrangements, my wife and I departed in early May heading southwest. We decided to make a tour of the country to visit family and friends. Over the course of 6 weeks, we landed at 35 airports (all of them new to me) in 19 states and 2 foreign countries. I think that the 67 hours we flew gave me more experiences than all my other flying combined.
I live out west, so a normal day is 100 miles visibility and sunshine. Once we got to Louisiana, the weather certainly changed and although VFR, there were a lot of things that we just don't see out here in Nevada... I think they are called clouds.
Also, Nevada is fairly devoid of other planes, so I am glad to have ADS-B on the airplane... esp in Florida.
We flew the Dakota to Ft. Lauderdale where we met up with friends from Reno (he's a CFII) who flew there commercially. The four of us went to the Bahamas for one night then positioned ourselves in Key West for the trip to Cuba. Cuba does not allow VFR so although we were in VFR conditions, we were on an IFR flight plan and having a CFII along made this possible. I decided not to wear a hood, since I wanted to see Cuba and I can be under a hood anytime here in Reno.
We spent 4 days in Cuba, landing at both Cienfuegos and Havana... their ATIS plays in Spanish and then English which was interesting to hear. Their landing fees are pretty high at about $350 per airport, but the fuel is cheap ($3.28/gal). Folks in Cuba said that if they lower the fees too much, there will be a flood of Americans and they really don't have the resources to handle lots of traffic. We were the only plane at the airport in Cienfuegos, a city of 150,000 people.
After Cuba, we dropped our friends off in West Palm Beach and continued north on our own.
We were delayed by weather a total of 3 days: 2 at KSGJ (St. Augustine, FL) and one at KEXX (Davidson Co, NC). We would have been delayed 3 more days in the Detroit area, but we were visiting family there so I don't really count that. St. Augustine had very changeable weather and the morning we left it was clear VFR but the tower called it IFR much longer than reality and we finally managed to get going in what they said was MVFR (really very good VFR). We flew down the coast at about 1500' (really beautiful)... the lowest I have ever flown a long distance, before climbing some and turning a bit inland somewhere north of the Space Center.
We tried to keep it in a hangar every night, but it sat outside one night each in the Bahamas and Key West, plus 4 nights in Cuba. Our hangars averaged $50/nt from a low of $10 at KAYS (Waycross, GA) to a high of $85 at KFXE (Ft. Lauderdale, FL).
Best FBO was JPS Aviation in Monroe, LA. They gave us a brand new (only 300 miles on it) Ford Edge SUV crew car and suggested the Waterfront Grill for dinner (highly recommended!). They even washed the windows before we left. Super friendly and we stayed an extra hour and a half just chatting with the nice people there.
Worst FBO was in Ann Arbor, MI - just really indifferent with feathers, eggs and a dead bird on the hangar floor and weeds growing up through their ramp. We decided not to leave the plane there but flew 4 minutes over to Willow Run (KYIP) in Ypsilanti.
Best fuel price other than Cuba was KSGJ (St. Augustine, FL) for $3.29 and most expensive was KFTW (Ft. Worth, TX) at $5.74.
Some highlights:
In Florida, Orlando Approach handed us off to NASA Tower so that we could fly down the Space Shuttle Landing Facility runway at 100'. That was very cool indeed!
In Chicago we flew north along the lakeshore, under the Bravo, past what used to be Meigs Field. This trip included my first time in Bravo space: Dallas, New Orleans, Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City. We had flight following for the entire trip except a short flight from Waycross, GA to Jekyll Island, GA.
For anyone who has not done a big trip out of their local region, I would highly recommend doing so. It will give you a vast collection of experience. I now have life jackets in my desert-based plane.
Note that the points between New Orleans and St. Augustine are just VORs, not places we landed.
Earlier this year, an opportunity arose to fly to Cuba and after making all the legal arrangements, my wife and I departed in early May heading southwest. We decided to make a tour of the country to visit family and friends. Over the course of 6 weeks, we landed at 35 airports (all of them new to me) in 19 states and 2 foreign countries. I think that the 67 hours we flew gave me more experiences than all my other flying combined.
I live out west, so a normal day is 100 miles visibility and sunshine. Once we got to Louisiana, the weather certainly changed and although VFR, there were a lot of things that we just don't see out here in Nevada... I think they are called clouds.
Also, Nevada is fairly devoid of other planes, so I am glad to have ADS-B on the airplane... esp in Florida.
We flew the Dakota to Ft. Lauderdale where we met up with friends from Reno (he's a CFII) who flew there commercially. The four of us went to the Bahamas for one night then positioned ourselves in Key West for the trip to Cuba. Cuba does not allow VFR so although we were in VFR conditions, we were on an IFR flight plan and having a CFII along made this possible. I decided not to wear a hood, since I wanted to see Cuba and I can be under a hood anytime here in Reno.
We spent 4 days in Cuba, landing at both Cienfuegos and Havana... their ATIS plays in Spanish and then English which was interesting to hear. Their landing fees are pretty high at about $350 per airport, but the fuel is cheap ($3.28/gal). Folks in Cuba said that if they lower the fees too much, there will be a flood of Americans and they really don't have the resources to handle lots of traffic. We were the only plane at the airport in Cienfuegos, a city of 150,000 people.
After Cuba, we dropped our friends off in West Palm Beach and continued north on our own.
We were delayed by weather a total of 3 days: 2 at KSGJ (St. Augustine, FL) and one at KEXX (Davidson Co, NC). We would have been delayed 3 more days in the Detroit area, but we were visiting family there so I don't really count that. St. Augustine had very changeable weather and the morning we left it was clear VFR but the tower called it IFR much longer than reality and we finally managed to get going in what they said was MVFR (really very good VFR). We flew down the coast at about 1500' (really beautiful)... the lowest I have ever flown a long distance, before climbing some and turning a bit inland somewhere north of the Space Center.
We tried to keep it in a hangar every night, but it sat outside one night each in the Bahamas and Key West, plus 4 nights in Cuba. Our hangars averaged $50/nt from a low of $10 at KAYS (Waycross, GA) to a high of $85 at KFXE (Ft. Lauderdale, FL).
Best FBO was JPS Aviation in Monroe, LA. They gave us a brand new (only 300 miles on it) Ford Edge SUV crew car and suggested the Waterfront Grill for dinner (highly recommended!). They even washed the windows before we left. Super friendly and we stayed an extra hour and a half just chatting with the nice people there.
Worst FBO was in Ann Arbor, MI - just really indifferent with feathers, eggs and a dead bird on the hangar floor and weeds growing up through their ramp.
We decided not to leave the plane there but flew 4 minutes over to Willow Run (KYIP) in Ypsilanti.Best fuel price other than Cuba was KSGJ (St. Augustine, FL) for $3.29 and most expensive was KFTW (Ft. Worth, TX) at $5.74.
Some highlights:
In Florida, Orlando Approach handed us off to NASA Tower so that we could fly down the Space Shuttle Landing Facility runway at 100'. That was very cool indeed!
In Chicago we flew north along the lakeshore, under the Bravo, past what used to be Meigs Field. This trip included my first time in Bravo space: Dallas, New Orleans, Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Detroit, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City. We had flight following for the entire trip except a short flight from Waycross, GA to Jekyll Island, GA.
For anyone who has not done a big trip out of their local region, I would highly recommend doing so. It will give you a vast collection of experience. I now have life jackets in my desert-based plane.
Note that the points between New Orleans and St. Augustine are just VORs, not places we landed.
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