Back sometime in December, Dan in New Jersey bought one of our trainer skyhawks for himself to use during training. When he bought it, he said that he would probably need someone to ferry it over there for him, so my boss asked me if I knew someone who would want to do it. Uhh, how about ME! So Dan sends the check over around Christmas time and we wait a week or so for it to clear, then we start to figure out a time to get the plane over there. I was going to be gone to ATP January 3-7, and it looked like Jan 9th would be a good time to do the trip. So while I'm at ATP-Chicago, the weather turns to crap and my training gets delayed for a couple days, which means Dan is going to be waiting longer for his plane. I finally get back home on Jan 9 to find that there is a snow storm brewing for the upcoming weekend, and I'm probably not going to have time before then to make the trip. I'm hoping that the weather will clear out behind the system, and I can get it done then. As expected, high pressure moves in behind all of our snow and ice, and the forecast looks good for Wednesday. I was watching the weather channel Tuesday morning, and they were calling for lake effect snow to be draping down as far south as North Carolina and extending pretty far eastward. That could be a problem. I watch the weather all day Tuesday and get all of the documents and planning in order. By Tuesday evening it looks like the entire trip is going to be clear, and I'm freaking out trying to get everything together. I had to buy batteries for my GPS, an airline flight home, make sure that Dan was setting me up for a hotel, make sure that Tom, the guy I was taking with me, was actually going with me/was going to be at the airport shortly before 6 the next morning. I tried to get as much sleep as possible, but I was constantly trying to think of something I forgot.
Wednesday morning I got up at 4:30 to pack everything up and as I stowed away my contact lens solution, I realized something. The F-ing TSA. The solution bottle is 12 fl oz, and there's no way I can bring that on my carry-ons. I REALLY don't want to check my bag on the flight home with a $1000 GPS and digital camera in there. I search around for another bag and found one of my old Jepp flight bags. It barely fits my GPS box, a few approach plate booklets, and some magazines. My headsets will come back with me as my first carry-on, my Jepp bag the other. I get to the airport, file IFR, grab the rest of the app plates I need, a crdeit card for fuel, Tom, and we're off. Nothing really unusual about the flight, I got my route as filed, we climbed up to 7,000 for an ever so slightly better ground speed, and in about 2:45 we landed in Warsaw, IN. Warsaw was a nice airport, they had their FBO look like a miniature control tower, and cheap gas. I think it was $2.81 or something close to it. We re-fuel, file to Latrobe, PN, where Tom is to pick up some truck that he bought on eBay, and take off. Our route to Latrobe went right through Pittsburgh bravo airspace, but we got to fly right through it. There wasn't a whole lot of activity there, we maybe saw three airliners takeoff and climb straight west, and we were the only plane on freq for more than a minute or two. Latrobe was delta airspace, and seemed to have as much traffic as Pittsburgh when we got there (not too much). I re-fueled and talked to a guy flying a Citation I, I got a tour of the plane and talked to him about his career so far, he was applying for a BBJ right seat job. At this point, I realized that I hadn't taken any pictures so far, so I get out my camera and take a pic for the CONUS Challenge. Except my camera is dead, it tells me to put in a new battery pack and shuts down. Oh well, no pictures for this trip. I call Dan, tell him I will be there with his plane in around two and a half hors, and take off. Flying over the mountains was kinda cool, and a bit disorienting for someone from Iowa, where everything goes N-S or E-W. The mountains made me feel like I was flying straight east, but I was actually going northeast. Shortly after I got established direct to Linden, ATC gives me direct STW, direct. That's easy enough. As I get closer to the NYC area, they switch my route to direct SBJ, direct. I was expecting worse. As I close in on bravo airspace, I got the handoff to some NY approach controller who seemed to be working airlines going into EWR. This guy was stressed, which means ****ed. At one point he goes "OK, EVERYBODY ON FREQ BE QUIET. I'M WORKING A TON OF PLANES HERE AND I NEED EVERYONE TO PAY ATTENTION! NOW, WHAT SPEED ARE YOU GOING?" I hear something like this: "who are you talking to?" "WHAT SPEED ARE YOU GOING!?!?!" "who are you talking to" "COMAIR one, two, three, four, WHAT SPEED ARE YOU GOING?" "one ninety" "GO TWO FIFTY!" I'm told that this is a regular occurance around here for controllers to be like that. Shortly thereafter, he says to me "Cessna 871, are you ifr or vfr?" "ifr sir"
can't dump me off yet buddy
"november 871, report the airport in sight, I can't keep you much longer with traffic arriving at Newark." "roger" I can't see the airport, but I see something that resembles one. There's been nonstop chatter on the radio, so I have no time to cancel IFR. then "november 871, you got the airport yet?" "Affirmative, 871 cancel ifr" "november 871, squawk 1200, freq change approved" "bye" Then I see the airport, like a mile or two in front of me. It's crammed in the middle of an industrial park, but at least I see it now. There's a good amount of helicopter traffic there, so I'm keeping a close eye for someone like me who is close in w/o being on freq. As I'm on base, there's a heli holding at the threshold of the runway, waiting for a plane that just landed to clear. I turn final, heli is still there, but the runway is clear. I'm on short final, heli is still there and right as I'm turning right for an up-wind go-around, the heli starts to depart, so I do one of those low-level, lining up to the centerline about 50 agl turns. I keep my airspeed up so I don't kill myself, float down about half the runway, and finally land in New Jersey. I call the owner, he comes out, takes a look at the plane, we exchange money, paperwork, and keys, and I crash at the hotel. I have to get up at 4:50 eastern time for my 6:20 flight to get back to Des Moines. All in all it was a good trip, no surprises, and frankly easier than I thought it would be. A few statistics:
Avgas burned: 73.5 gallons
Distance traveled: 836 miles
Total cost to Dan to have plane ferried: $696
I think my entire route looked something like this:
