In Flying East, and then West Again, Part 1 and Flying East, and then West Again, Part 2 I described aspects of planning and flying across the country and back. For the first time in my flying career, I did this a second time within a year—indeed, within a few months!
The weather was looking solid and fabulous for the trip east, other than the smoke in the air. That weather pattern had held for a good week and a half leading up to departure, other than hurricane Delta and its remnants, which moved out before I left and were not a factor. I preflighted the plane to the glorious sunrise shown above, having loaded up and fueled up the day before, and launched. The leg to my first fuel stop was uneventful, and I enjoyed 220 knot ground speeds (level flight) on 10.8 gallons per hour. As I descended into Kimball, Nebraska (KIBM) I hit the smoke, but it wasn’t bad—certainly not like we had been experiencing at home during the California wildfires. There was a pretty stiff crosswind: 15 knots, gusting 22, at 50-80º off runway heading. I was certainly ready to go around, but everything worked out just fine. There was no one else at the airport (very literally). I fueled up the airplane and me, used the restroom, checked the weather, filed a flight plan, and launched for my overnight stop—the one I had planned on for the previous trip—Monroe, Wisconsin (KEFT).
Weather at KEFT was reported as IFR, with 1¼ miles in mist, so it was a night instrument approach that I expected to miss. But, no problems at all, though there was again a good crosswind. One Bonanza arrived while I was fueling up; the pilot taxied to their hangar, put the airplane away, and left. Another airplane came in and left shortly after midnight. Otherwise, I had no company as I camped out on the grass behind the airplane for the night. The last leg of the flight to central New York was also just as planned.
Homeward bound was a different story. I left in the early afternoon instead of mid-morning because of a lingering task. More challenging were the winds aloft, resulting in a ground speed of about 130-140 knots being the best I should expect, with a significant stretch at about 120 knots, flying at 10,000′ and 8,000′ (higher just made the headwinds worse, faster than it made my airspeed better). While I was in central New York the weather pattern had changed and the first Canadian cold front of the season had descended to around southern Colorado, central Kansas, and central Missouri, bringing with it the jet stream. That led to a plan to go south and get around the bottom of the high winds.
The plan took me two legs and about 8 hours of flying to execute, but I was able to get around the west side of the front and jet stream. My last leg home, from Beaver, Utah (U52) was smooth, fast (170-180 knots ground speed), and high (20,000′, to give me lots of altitude over the high country of Utah, Nevada, and California).
Thanks to the winds, though I flew further than a direct route from central New York back to California it took less time to dip south into Kansas’s southwest corner.
Oh, and the sunset on my last leg: magnificent. It lasted a good hour, beginning shortly after I launched from Beaver. The crescent moon was surpassed only by the colors on the western horizon. Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars accompanied Antares, Arcturus, and the Milky Way (this latter streaming from Sagittarius up to the zenith and over to Cassiopeia) as the planets and stars came out while the sky darkened. I really do love westbound sunsets!
