Epic Student Cross Country

[akviperdriver]

My wife Maria is working on her PPL, so we are using our move to Texas as an opportunity for her dual cross country. So she'll end up logging about 30ish hours more than she needs, but who else when they go in for their exam can say they flew from North Pole, Alaska to Del Rio, Texas?!? Talk about flight planning, weather concerns, international considerations, and customs... We're going to fly the "trench" today.

If you are interested, you can follow our progress at
http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view?trip_id=252177

[edbooth]

Hope you have a good trip and the WX cooperates. Made the trip before during the Fairbanks convention, but weather at the time up the "Trench" was Baaadddd. Don't know if I would feel comfortable going that way or not anyway. Kinda isolated out there.

[akviperdriver]

We flew the Trench on Friday, and oddly enough, it was the only way along the route for good weather! The pass was smooth, with a high overcast layer at about 13k', with some popcorn Q in the mountains on both sides. We stopped in Mackenzie and were treated to the best hospitality of the trip so far. Maria was able to update our eAPIS information to change our route from Great Falls to a little boarder town in Washington called Oroville. Per filing, we needed to stop in Kamloops, just to open a new flight plan.

All said, the trip through Canada was a great experience, and our only complaint was the gas prices (North of $8/gal). Customs back in the States was also painless, but Oroville just didn't look like a good place to spend the night. We continued on to Ephrata, and met some really great folks.

Yesterday, we battled 25-30kt quartering headwinds. The planned destination was Phoenix, but with the wind, we only made Page, AZ. It made for some really great pictures over Bryce Canyon! The folks at American Aviation here in Page are excellent, if you are interested.

Today, we will do the Grand Canyon tour, then press on to Phoenix. One of our close friends has offered a relaxing afternoon by the pool... too hard to pass up!

Here is the link if you want to check out our progress.
http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view?trip_id=252404

[Blue4]

I wish you continued happy skies, and tailwinds always...
-S

[W.J.Langholz]

Chris

I can't connect to you update link, share some pics when you have time

W.

[akviperdriver]

Thanks for the interest in the trip. I haven't had time to crunch all the numbers yet, but it took 32.9 hours of flight to cover 3,187nm... We averaged about 97 knots across the ground. I'll get fuel burn numbers for the O-360 as soon as I can tally all of the receipts.

To see pictures of the trip, you can check out the blog my wife tries to keep up to date, and it will have the current address for the spot as well.

http://www.yetiandscrapy.blogspot.com

Chris