deafsound
Line Up and Wait
I was out visiting family and friends in San Diego last week. About half way thru my trip my old CFI who now lives in Ft Lauderdale calls me ands asks if I want to meet him in CA because he has to pick up a new SR22 for someone and fly it back to my home airport--BED. Of course, I said hell yeah!
So the plane was up by OAK, but he was kind enough to fly to SEE and pick me up.
We left thursday morning, and by lunchtime, we were at SEZ, after flying over the Salton Sea, banging a left at the Colorado River and flying by HII (sorry we didn't stop Nick and Michael). A great little tour of Sedona, great approach and great lunch later, and we flew north to the Grand Canyon and over flew it by way of the Dragon and Zuni corridors, something I skipped the last time I flew out there because I was too chicken to fly over 10,000'. Then we zipped southeast to SAF, where we stopped for the night.
Next day we were going to fly a mountain pass north of SAF, but the winds were a little too much, so we wound up departing southeast around the mountains of Santa Fe, over flew LVS and headed to HYS for a gourmet lunch at taco bell. From there we got a little IMC at 7k' and zipped to some little dinky airport in ILL that we were going to stop for the night at, but it was so dinky, we just back taxied and split, heading 30 miles and 10 minutes east to IKK, where they had a crew car and a decent motel for the night.
Today, we woke up, left IKK at 9:30, and went to BKL (another cool airport) for a quick fuel stop and stretch before our final leg back to BED. We were home one minute late, at 4:16pm. Total flight time was around 15 hours from SEE to BED...we only used the auto pilot for about 20 minutes....hand flew the rest of the flight.
I don't care about the bad rap about SR22s. They seem like fine airplanes to me, although, like every other airplane, it's not without fault, but all in all, I like those things. Our typical airspeed was around 163 at 12.5gph.
So, it took 15 hours to get home. I flew on US Air on the way out there, and it took me 17 hours. Granted, there was a mechanical problem, and 10 of those hours was sitting in PXH waiting for a new plane to arrive, but hey, whatever. Oh, yeah, and this flight home didn't cost me a nickel, other than a few meals. Yeah.
So the plane was up by OAK, but he was kind enough to fly to SEE and pick me up.
We left thursday morning, and by lunchtime, we were at SEZ, after flying over the Salton Sea, banging a left at the Colorado River and flying by HII (sorry we didn't stop Nick and Michael). A great little tour of Sedona, great approach and great lunch later, and we flew north to the Grand Canyon and over flew it by way of the Dragon and Zuni corridors, something I skipped the last time I flew out there because I was too chicken to fly over 10,000'. Then we zipped southeast to SAF, where we stopped for the night.
Next day we were going to fly a mountain pass north of SAF, but the winds were a little too much, so we wound up departing southeast around the mountains of Santa Fe, over flew LVS and headed to HYS for a gourmet lunch at taco bell. From there we got a little IMC at 7k' and zipped to some little dinky airport in ILL that we were going to stop for the night at, but it was so dinky, we just back taxied and split, heading 30 miles and 10 minutes east to IKK, where they had a crew car and a decent motel for the night.
Today, we woke up, left IKK at 9:30, and went to BKL (another cool airport) for a quick fuel stop and stretch before our final leg back to BED. We were home one minute late, at 4:16pm. Total flight time was around 15 hours from SEE to BED...we only used the auto pilot for about 20 minutes....hand flew the rest of the flight.
I don't care about the bad rap about SR22s. They seem like fine airplanes to me, although, like every other airplane, it's not without fault, but all in all, I like those things. Our typical airspeed was around 163 at 12.5gph.
So, it took 15 hours to get home. I flew on US Air on the way out there, and it took me 17 hours. Granted, there was a mechanical problem, and 10 of those hours was sitting in PXH waiting for a new plane to arrive, but hey, whatever. Oh, yeah, and this flight home didn't cost me a nickel, other than a few meals. Yeah.
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