24 Hours Into the Delivery

Here is an update on the first 24 hours of the airplane delivery. So far things have gone quite well. I'm all in once piece and I've been having a good time.  Thank you all for your prayers.  2/3 of the way there!

The Route from Wednesday, June 11

I took off on Wednesday a little later than intended because of the need to wait on a part that had been ordered and needed to be put on the plane before leaving.  That got finished about 2 pm and I got off about 2:45 pm.  After a nice flight across Idaho and Montana, I arrived in beautiful Hazen, ND (KHZE), where I spent the night in the FBO.  They had a couch, a bathroom, a microwave and a coffee maker.  What more do you need?  I'm not sure there was a hotel or motel in the town anyway. One thing that wasn't needed but was cool was a huge scale model of an SR-71 blackbird that was used for wind tunnel testing by Lockheed when that aircraft was developed.  

 Beautiful Mountains of Montana (near Lincoln, MT) 

Cumulus Clouds East of Great Falls, MT.  A view like this is one of the privileges of being a pilot.

The Pilot

The model SR-71

Sunset in Hazen, ND

Thursday morning, I was off by 6:40 am.  It was gorgeous flying, without worry about the icing levels and the high terrain of the Rockies from yesterday.  

The Route from Thursday, June 12

So many lakes in ND!

I made good time across the rest of North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin because of a tailwind, and actually exceeded 200 mph ground speed for a while.  After landing and refueling at Cherry Capital Airport (KTVC) in Traverse City, Michigan, a check of the weather along the route toward Boston led me to call it a night and get a hotel. You don't mess with thunderstorms.  

Another one of those pilot views - a layer of clouds below you that stretches for miles.  Because of this layer I saw very little of Minnesota and Wisconsin

What it looks like when you're going to fly into the side of a cloud (the lines are my propeller tricking my camera)