Wow what a great week guys and girls,
I left KUKT at about 6:10 on Thursday morning with clear skies forecast for the
whole East coast. I was not in much of a hurry as the call was for head winds
so I figured on spending a couple hours with Dan Heath and getting in to SNF
after the air show. The forecast was right for the first hour and half but
after going around DC I climbed to 10500 to get over a few clouds and and was
presented with a nice 10 to 15 tail wind. I arrived at KCUB at 10 am and fueled
up quick and in short order decided to blow off Dan cause I saw that I had a
chance to make it in to SNF before the air show. That all worked out great as
the tail wind stayed all the way down to LAL. I got there with no one in the
pattern and didn't screw up any of the arrival proceedures. Total flight time
was 6.1 hours for 1000 miles and burned 34 gals. You can figure it out.
Started meeting up with guys that were there and found out that I missed a
few also. Went out to hooters for the KR dinner and also took advantage of Jack
Coopers kindness for a place to sleep. The next day was the shopping day as
well as meeting up with vendors that i had questions and problems to solve.
Nearly all my issues are taken care of and the big purchase was a new Dynon 10a
for me as they now have the servo's availlable for altitude hold and wing
leveling slaved to the 10a. Still had acouple hours of time left and that was
good enough for an impomtu party with all that wanted to join inn.
About 6 pm we all retired to Dave Stroud's for the Bar b Q that he puts on each
year and continued to have more fun than a human should have. I heard that a
couple of guys may have slept in a ditch? Good food good friends and good
times, It can't be beat.
Jack brought me back around 8am and I got fueled up while talking to Scott the
owner of the personal cruiser and we decided to leave together to X50 as I was
going to visit my Mom for a day. We flew together for about an hour and 15 min
cmparing performance numbers. Wind at X50 was 90 cross at 14kts, right at my
limit. I got lucky as it wasn't gusty for me but Scott had to try 3 times to
get it down. All turned out fine. Spent the night at my Mom's and checked the
forecast for today. Jeez, I must be doing something right, The forcast was for
clear skies for the east coast again and a 15 kt tail wind to go home.
I left X50 at about 8 am and under 2 1/2 hours latter I was at Dan Heath's
hanger. I flew mostly at 11500 to there and burned 12 gal. I spent a while with
Dan looking over his latest engine install and it will again be a thing of
beauty and i am confident he will get it right.
I left KCUB at about 12:25 pm and climbed to first 7500, then 9500, then 11500
testing the tail wind at each level. The wind got slightly stronger with
altitude but the real advantage was the fuel burn, I stayed at 11500 for about
1 1/2 hours until i caught up with some high clouds that kept building a little
higher, over the next hour i climbed to first 13500 and then 15500 and even
eventually just shy of 17000 to get past the last cloud and still stay out of
the DC adiz. At 16500 I could still climb at just under 500 fpm and the true
airspeed was about 130. The real beifit was the fuel burnleaned out at fuel
throttle I was burning just lover 3 gph. My total fuel used for the trip home
was 27 gal. for 850 miles. Total flight time was just under 6 hours.
I'm all hooped up. I need some place else to go. I have flown very close to
4000 miles in the last 8 days and put about 22 hours on N357CJ. Any
suggestions? - Joe Horton
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