Roger Roger
I am le tired
So, the tripacer in my profile pic was a partnership between myself and a friend. I taught him to fly in it and we spent quite a bit of time bombing around southeast with our wives (before I started flying 135 and didn't really want to fly MORE in my free time). He moved back south a little over a year ago, and eventually decided that he wanted to pay me to rework the engine and then buy out my half. The engine rebuild took a while, and then there was the little matter of my wife having a baby, but we finally got around to taking the old TriPod down south. Left Juneau late Saturday morning and battled a 15-25 knot headwind all day stopping in Ketchikan for gas, then Prince Rupert to clear customs and top off with a jerry jug (no avgas there). Next leg was a 3.5 hour push to Port Hardy for the night, leaving us with just a touch more than our 30 minute reserve.
An operation in YZT still runs Geese.
Launched Sunday morning with over 800 miles to go. First stop was Bellingham for more fuel and US customs. I also tried that five guys burger place and found it to be waaaay overrated.
Left Bellingham and dodged Seattle airspace and various MOAs and restricted areas while enroute to Eugene.
Gassed up in KEUG, filed a flight plan, then off hoping to hit Reno Stead in one shot.
By the time we hit our halfway mark it became apparent that even after the climb fully loaded from a couple hundred feet to 7500+ in warm air we were going to make it in one shot which was a relief. This leg involved following the highway between EUG and LMT over a pass (elevation 5003') and then a couple hours of flying over the high country, and winding our way through a pass the last 20 miles or so to Reno. We hit RTS just before sunset and were very glad.
All in all it was a great experience but as I said in a few other places not really one I'm interested in doing again. I'm getting too old and conservative in my risk management to want to fly little airplanes (especially one with a brand newly assembled engine) on wheels over the kind of country we had for the first part of the flight especially. Washington and Oregon were great as far as places to land and even through the mountains we were IFR (I follow roads) but I'm finding more and more I'd rather have a turbine or a couple recips (even better if I can get two turbines!) and be on an IFR flight plan. Still, great story to tell and we have gopro footage of most of the flight so I'll try posting some links when my buddy gets them up on the YouTube.
An operation in YZT still runs Geese.
Launched Sunday morning with over 800 miles to go. First stop was Bellingham for more fuel and US customs. I also tried that five guys burger place and found it to be waaaay overrated.
Left Bellingham and dodged Seattle airspace and various MOAs and restricted areas while enroute to Eugene.
Gassed up in KEUG, filed a flight plan, then off hoping to hit Reno Stead in one shot.
By the time we hit our halfway mark it became apparent that even after the climb fully loaded from a couple hundred feet to 7500+ in warm air we were going to make it in one shot which was a relief. This leg involved following the highway between EUG and LMT over a pass (elevation 5003') and then a couple hours of flying over the high country, and winding our way through a pass the last 20 miles or so to Reno. We hit RTS just before sunset and were very glad.
All in all it was a great experience but as I said in a few other places not really one I'm interested in doing again. I'm getting too old and conservative in my risk management to want to fly little airplanes (especially one with a brand newly assembled engine) on wheels over the kind of country we had for the first part of the flight especially. Washington and Oregon were great as far as places to land and even through the mountains we were IFR (I follow roads) but I'm finding more and more I'd rather have a turbine or a couple recips (even better if I can get two turbines!) and be on an IFR flight plan. Still, great story to tell and we have gopro footage of most of the flight so I'll try posting some links when my buddy gets them up on the YouTube.
