REFLECTOR: Trip to Minneapolis

[Geoff Gerhardt]

All,

I had a rather long trip out here from MA to Minneapolis.  I left KORH on Thursday morning, early, hoping to get ahead of a storm front that was tracking across my path.  Unfortunately, as I approached my first stop near Buffalo, the ceilings came down and thunderstorms were in the area.  I had to divert to Syracuse, hoping to find a break later in the day.  The break never came, and I ended up having to stay there for two nights.  Yesterday was frustrating as the weather West of KSYR was ok, but there was a mist locked over it that had the field IFR.  It went MVFR so I scrambled out to take off only to have the field go IFR again as I was at the runway waiting for a couple jets to land.  Back to the FBO to wait another four hours.  Finally, I decided to request an SVFR to get out, and just as I was talking to clearance delivery, the field went VFR!  Finally!  I had to fly low (1200') until about Buffalo, then ceilings gradually started to rise.  My first stop was on the shore of Lake Michigan, KFFX, picked up fuel, and took off again for KMIC (Minneapolis).  I was able to get up to 10,000' to get over Lake Michigan, then ceilings slowly dropped into Minneapolis, but only down to about 4000'.

All in all, aside from the weather delays it was a great flight.  The plane performed very well, cruised at 160tas most of the trip.  Only issue I had was that the doors leaked while it was on the ramp in pouring rain in Suracuse.  Carpet in the plane got wet, but got it in a hangar to dry out.

Geoff

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