Flying to Florida

Hi,
Very close, We did, what is known in the industry, a Polar route. We came within 100 NM of the North Pole, flew over the Artic Ocean, over Russia. Communication is done via HF or Sat Com (if equipped). Flight Time was 14 hours and 57 minutes.
Have a great day,
Captain JC
 
The trip is a go and I am leaving on Saturday. I'll spend the night enroute and continue on Sunday. Anyone interested can watch on http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N8116B

I do plan on filing IFR for the trip so you should see a track.

Just as an FYI my cellphone broke earlier this week and my replacement is yet to arrive, so I will be without easy access to the Internet for the week. I do not how I will survive without PoA!!
 
Wow, the volume of new posts on PoA will drop 75%!

Have a great trip, Scott!
 
smigaldi said:
As long as I know that you are keeping chat alive I will sleep soundly :D
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You can sleep soundly, I won't let you down. ;)

And those new Lycoming cylinders better work without a hiccup!!!
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Excellent! The trip ought to be a good break-in for them. Glad to hear they're working well for you. :yes:
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Excellent! The trip ought to be a good break-in for them. Glad to hear they're working well for you. :yes:
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I have got 11 hours on them now, we did an oil change. Most of that 11 hours were 2 hour legs. this trip will be 3 hour legs so they should get nice and warm. Upon my return I'll do another oil change and put my Exxon Elite oil in. Right now I am running multi-grade mineral oil.
 
smigaldi said:
The trip is a go and I am leaving on Saturday. I'll spend the night enroute and continue on Sunday. Anyone interested can watch on http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N8116B

I do plan on filing IFR for the trip so you should see a track.

Just as an FYI my cellphone broke earlier this week and my replacement is yet to arrive, so I will be without easy access to the Internet for the week. I do not how I will survive without PoA!!
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How long will you be in the Clearwater area Scott? I'm heading for Venice in a week.
 
lancefisher said:
You'll be sorry, I'm pretty sure that winter won't be over by then.
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I know!!!

My usual December/Jan plans have really fallen through this year. Normally I spend about a combined 4 weeks in Hawaii, Florida, and SoCal each winter. But starting last year that got messed up. That trip to the north pole really jinxed me!
 
As of this timestamp, he's pedalling as fast as he can. And the cars on the road are probably passing him.
 
Which is probably just as well. We had a good bit of ice fog this morning (I'm about 6.5nm on the ILS20 at JWN) and it is just now about gone.
 
Not sure where you see him descending. Watching the track, he actually is climbing, he was at 4000 ft now at 5000.

Remember that FlightAware includes the arrow, which is not an indication of your average altitude changing but your instantaneous, so if your transponder is reporting a higher altitude than it was, you're climbing. Looking at the live flight tracking, it seems to me he's doing a decent job of keeping his altitude.
 
Yeah I meant to say Climbing...was talking with my 3 year old while typing. I'm right of KIND and they are saying icing from SFC so I wonder about icing as I said in my previous post.

M
 
Brutal flight!
Flying directly into the back side of a high pressure system and into rising terrain.
I looks like is just coming out of the the strongest of the winds.
 
Interesting... FlightAware shows the route as

KJWN DRAKK SYI LGC V321 PZD KABY

I don't see any SIDs for KJWN, and that's a weird-looking route at the beginning. Looks like Scott filed an ATC-friendly route, but it goes right through R-3002 also. Judging by his flight path, it looks like he might have been cleared direct shortly after takeoff.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Interesting... FlightAware shows the route as

KJWN DRAKK SYI LGC V321 PZD KABY

I don't see any SIDs for KJWN, and that's a weird-looking route at the beginning. Looks like Scott filed an ATC-friendly route, but it goes right through R-3002 also. Judging by his flight path, it looks like he might have been cleared direct shortly after takeoff.
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The 'unpublished' SID out of KJWN is climb 3,000 fly RW heading, expect higher in 10 minutes. It's the same every time. If heading toward KATL, DRAKK to SYI is VERY common.
 
Well I am in Albany, GA tonight. What a fun day!

I woke up hoping to miss the rain coming into the Chicago area and I could see that the earlier I left the better. I also decided late last night to go as far south as possible in case this storm system caught me in TN.

The airport (10C) was an ice rink. My truck could not stop when I pulled up to my hangar and I had to turn into a snow bank to slow down. I called yesterday and the line guys cleared most of the apron on my hangar so I had no digging to do. I did my preflight and started to pull the plane out but it was so slippery I could not get traction. I got a couple of guys to help me. But I did slip and broke the fall with back of my head. I could see stars but was ok.

By this time the wind was really picking up out of the south. A mixed blessing as it was warm so if there was precip it would be and stay water instead of ice. But the winds were screaming. I loaded up with full tanks knowing I just might need it all. In my brief they cautioned for low level wind sheer. So I planned my take off with two notches of flaps and a climb speed of 80 knots instead of my normal 60 knots. At about 200 feet AGL the IAS went form 80 to 55 in an instant and the stall warning horn screamed. I dropped the nose and leveled off got some speed and climbed up through the sheer.

Chi-App cleared me to 4k pretty quick and I was given cleared JWN before I even made it to EON. The ideal altitude for me would have been 6000 MSL but that was in the bases of the clouds and was at the freezing level. With the light precip I jsut did not want to sit in cing conditions so I stayed in the direct headwinds. Champaing approach asked me to go up to 5k for traffic and I asked them if I could stay as I picked up some GS that way. The ride was not bad, very light chop the whole way. I was worried about running out of fuel and I calculated I would need 42gal out 48 gal usable. I actually ended up using 40.2 gal.

As I got south of Terre Haute my GS started picking up and I knew I would make it to JWN without having to stop for fuel. Once on the ground I hurriedly refuled, got my briefing, and refiled for the next leg. I wanted to get here before it was too late and I did not want to get caught in what was following me.

Upon leaving JWN I climbed up to 7k as the winds, which were jsut as strong as what I had been facing, were more form the west, so less headwind!

As soon as I turned on course to my first fix I asked for and got direct to LaGrange, and eventually direct to ABY. The 2nd leg was smooth as glas and the GS were a more respectable 100knots.

So tonight I am spending the evening in the Quality Inn Merry Acres, nice hotel that picked me up at the airport and only costs $60/night with b-fast. Tomorrow around noon I'll make the last push to KSPIE!!
 
Starting the return tomorrow.

Looks fun and challenging. I may not make it home until Monday. If I can get to N. GA tomorrow I will be pretty happy. If the Sunday forecast holds I got a shot at getting home late Sunday but if not sometime on Monday looks good.

In the am I will likely be in some hard IFR with an approach.

I did get an approach into St. Pete on the trip here, the clouds were supposed to be at 6k but they were at 4k so I shot the approach and broke out fairly quick.

Should be fun!

A winter flying!
 
Have a safe flight home, Scott!
 
Have a safe flight Scott!

Tune is the airport we go into when visiting my mom. Neat airport with a cool approach on good weather days where you can see the prison and the edge of the runway at the cliffs on the river. The last time we flew in my wife was like "now would probably not be a good time to tell you there is a cool sailboat on the river huh?" all the while I was turning base to final! LOL (I am a sailboat whore as well as plane whore).

I have not been to Albany but fly over it a log when going to the wife's family in south Georgia.

Be safe flying home man, some really NASTY looking weather up north.
 
Scott, make sure they're reopened your airport after all the snow! :yes:
(That far after the event I don't see how they couldn't, but...)
 
gprellwitz said:
PLEASE rephrase that!:yikes:

He knows that he can STAY with me, but by the time he gets here, we'd just drive him home!:D
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Grant I may take you up on that!!

I am in Columbus, GA right now. A nice flight in.

KPIE (St. Pete) was very foggy this morning and I left in the fog and broke out at 500AGL. Funny thing was they held up an MD-80 to have me go first. Seems that the MD80 part 121 carrier needed the center line lights to work with the RVR we had for a legal per company SOP I imagine, take off. The lights BTW were OTS but the RVR had increased to about 2000' so he could take off. KSPIE is right on the water so the fog comes in waves some times.

That was departure was pretty much the last I saw of the ground until just past the FAF on the GPS approach into KCSG.

Very nice airport BTW, very friendly and for a class C airport not too bad ont eh gas price. I chose here because of the ILS and I figured with the bigger city I had a better chance at getting a good hotel.

Along the AL/GA and TN border there is a stationary front giving just about everywhere crap vis and ceilings along with some heavy rain. I looked to see if I could get west around it but but by the time I would have gotten west I would still have had to end my flying for the night due to my personal fatigue limit and not gotten any where further north. So here I am.

Plan is to head north tomorrow and see how close to Chicago I can get. There is a chance of snow still in northern Illinois. So I may end up staying somewhere tomorrow night as well and make my final push on Monday. At least I will not have gotten stuck in Florida as GA is supposed to have a chance at bad WX on Sunday.

This is a lot of fun, but I am not sure I would want to do this every December!!

My plan is to keep heading north. If it just finally looks like I can't get home until this satanic weather is over I will park the plane somewhere and grab a rental car and come back in a week or two.

OH! I almost forgot! Having the 396 is a real blessing! I love the echo tops feature to pick altitudes to stay in VMC. The winds aloft is also a great thing too.
 
Made to Illinois today.

AND HOLY HECK, IS IT COLD!

Took off this morning from KCSG with the last of the rain showers just a few miles ahead. I was at 4k to start but it was a rough ride so I opted to go up to 6k which put me well above the cloud tops but into the wonds, so it was slow going.

I did get some mountain wave and lght-chop but a fairly steady ground speed and clear skies all the way to Nashville. While CSG was at 55F when I left Nashville was at 20F bbrrrrrrr!

From Nashville I decided to head to Champaign Illinois. I figured a nice big class C airport would most likely have a hangar if I needed on, and boy did I need one. This also puts me about a 3 to 4 hour drive so should the WX never break I can leave the plane here and drive home.

The skies were clearer on the route so I picked a lower altitude, 4000MSL, and was able to make better ground speeds. The plan was to refueld and see if I could continue on home, an 1.5 hr jaunt from KCMI.

About 40 miles south of CMI the clouds started to build a little with the tops right above me. The OAT was -20C and below the clouds was HZ. I never did get any ice, I could always see straight down and many times the blue sky above. I did notice a drop of engine RPMs so I did turn on the carb heat and did not have any problems. The engine was hurting from the cold though. The oil temp was well below 180F and only a little above 75F, I was still getting heat and defrost which was good.

I called flight watch and got the latest for northern Illinios. OVC1500 blowing snow, winds 270@28G34 vis 1 1/4 SM

Pretty stinky. See even though I would really, REALLY like to be home I decided to reevaluate upon landing with the liklihood of a no go.

I had to shoot the ILS 32R into the airport and had a GS of 53 knots!! The plane did not want to land and I had a full left slip in and finally got it on the ground. Very gusty!!

This is one of those times you look back at initial training and thank that you had a CFI who insisteted that you beat the crap out of yourself on windy and cross wind days. Even though this was really lousy winds I did not feel even close to my personal mins, but I was challenged but was prepared.

Upon landing and taxi to the ramp I noticed there was not a single plane anywher eto be seen. The ramp guys greated me with the roaring 0F winds and I said do you have a hangar you can put it in for the night? They nodded and I grabbed my jacket and suitcase and let them have the plane.

The WX just plain stank to high heaven to want to fly in. Tomorrow looks better so here I sit, safe, warm, but with one more leg to go.

This has been a great lot of fun. But I would not want to do it again next month!
 
Glad that you had a safe flight, Scott. That's what's most important.

Hope you make it home tomorrow!
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Glad that you had a safe flight, Scott. That's what's most important.

Hope you make it home tomorrow!
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It is what is most important!

I really did want to go home today and I was really pushing myself, but there was still doubt as to if I could make the flight and be really, truly safe. I realized I was suffering a little 'get there-itis' fairly quickly in the decision process. Even though I may have had a chance to get in I opted for the much safer stay the night and leave tomorrow route. There really is no reason I have to be home tonight so why rush?
 
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