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Great Trip to Michigan!


FlyingMonkey

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Hey all...

My wife Kellie and I just returned from flying the CTSW from Georgia (WDR) to Michigan (RQB) and back, to visit her mom.  It was Kellie's first experience with a true long cross country in the CT; previously her longest flight was about 1.2 hours.  This trip was 6+ hours each way!  She was a trooper, and had a really great time flying.  She has hip and back issues, and we were glad she didn't get too kinked up in the airplane that long.  I have a passenger footrest and I removed the passenger side stick to make it more comfortable for her.

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We did have some significant weather challenges.  We knew there was going to be a large storm system over Cincinnati, and my plan was to divert ahead of it to the east.  Unfortunately, it was dragging a lot of moisture and haze with it, and from Tennessee onward the visibility was not great, probably 6 miles.  The closer we got to the storm, the worse it got.  By the time we were at even latitude with the storm system, about 30 miles to the east of it, we had 900ft ceilings and 5 miles or less visibility:

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Right after I took the above picture I decided to pack it in and land at PKB, Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Airport, which is misnamed and actually in Parkersburg, WV.  We lucked out and there was a restaurant there, so we ate lunch and hung out for three hours until the main force of the storm passed.  There was still a lot of mist and low clouds about when we departed, but we were able to get above it and had decent visibility and legal scattered layers below us.  Once we were about 40 miles north the weather improved dramatically.  We had departed WDR at about 0700hrs and arrived at RQB Friday about 1700hrs.  Not bad considering the long delay.  Total of 6.9hr on the Hobbs because of all the back and forth picking around weather. 

The weather coming back was much better, this time we left also at 0700hrs and arrived home at 1330hrs, with 5.6hrs on the Hobbs.  Total distance flown was 1377nm.  The airplane ran perfectly and never skipped a beat.  Here's a sample of our performance flying home, both pics taken at the same time:

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I'll take 124 knots TAS at 5300rpm any day!  

We found out the evening before we left that the Jefts brothers had been in town the entire time we were there!  The arrived a few hours before us, and departed a few hours before we were at the airport, and we missed them by an hour or two each time.  I would have loved to have had dinner with Larry and Duane (who my wife's sister went to high school with!), but it was not to be.  I hope to catch up with them in Page this year! 

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And before the wailing starts, let me state I *was* at the correct VFR altitude.  The magnetometer in the Dynon is off, and I have never managed to get it quite correct.  Note the ground track on the AP says 172, which was much closer to our heading of about 175° (wind was nearly dead calm at that time and altitude) that my very accurate whiskey compass was reading.

Just wanted to head off the inevitable nit-picking that ensues when a panel shot gets posted...   B)  

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Sorry I missed you Dick.  We went up to the East of Dayton trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to avoid weather.  We hoped to land at I74, but we ended up diverting and stopping at PKB for fuel, then on to RQB.  Coming home was pretty much a straight shot, from RQB to Mt. Sterling, KY (IOB), then home to WDR.  Great weather coming home, very marginal weather getting there.

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