REFLECTOR: My big trip

[Geoff Gerhardt]

All,

On Thursday, I returned from my big trip.  Here's a brief synopsis of it:

On Thursday, June 6 I headed out early trying to make it from my home base,
Worcester MA (KORH) to Minneapolis.  I had a conference in Minneapolis that
started on that Saturday.  There was a storm front moving up from the South
West and tracking North East and I wanted to see if I could make it over
top of the Northern tip of it at Buffalo.  I looked at the radar in the
morning before I left, and it was going to be close.  By the time was
approaching Buffalo, ATC warned me I was heading into thunderstorms.  I
have ADS-B weather in the plane (Dynon Skyview) and could see it, thought I
might be able to squeak thru, but in the end, decided to divert to Syracuse
to wait it out and let it pass by.  Well, that turned out to be one long,
frustrating wait.  I was holed up in Syracuse for two days watching and
waiting.  While the thunderstorms passed, there was lingering low-level
clouds that kept the field IFR.  On Saturday, with ceilings West of KSYR
lifting, I decided to contact departure and request an SVFR to get out of
there.  Pulled my plane out of the hangar, taxied out and contacted
departure with my request.  Departure came back and said the field had just
gone VFR, I was free to leave!  Took off and did some scud running to get
out of the area.  As I flew west, the ceilings lifted a little.  By Buffalo
I was up to 2000', then by London ON, I was at 3500', then pretty soon it
was clear skies and I moved up to 10,000'.  I fueled up in Fremont, MI
(KFFX), then onto Minneapolis.  I hangared my plane at KMIC in Minneapolis.
 The kind folks at Thunderbird Aviation there provided a hangar for free as
long as I bought fuel.  I stayed in Minneapolis at the conference from that
Saturday (June 8) to the following Wed (June 12).  Before I left KMIC, I
visited Albert Khasky as he's building a screaming fast Velocity at a
hangar there.  Nice looking engine install - get started on that finishing,
though, Albert!

On Wed, June 12, I headed up to Canada to visit my sister in Kenora, ON.
 Did the whole process to enter Canada, leave the US.  Create an eAPIS
manifest and submit it, file a flight plan, call CanPass and let them know
I'm coming.  Rain and low clouds around Minneapolis as I left, and a few
radar images to navigate around as I headed North, but nothing serious.
 100mi out of Minneapolis, I was able to climb up.  I felt much safer at
10,000' flying over Northern Ontario - not many places to land there, just
lakes and forest.  Getting into Kenora, I learned that things are done a
little differently in smallish airports.  ATC told me to contact Kenora
radio when I got close.  Contacted them, thinking it was like a Class E
CTAF and stated my intentions, but got a response telling me about traffic
in the area and which runway was in use.  These smaller airports have
someone in the "tower" to give advisories, but they don't direct you in.
 Its called an MR (mandatory reporting) area, 5mi around the airport that
everyone needs to check in on.  Anyway, got into Kenora just fine - a
little over 2hr flight from Minneapolis.  Stayed the night with my sister
and her family then headed West to visit my parents in Saskatchewan.

On Thursday, June 13, I flew from Kenora ON to Virden MN.  Virden was the
closest decent airport to where my parents live in Moosomin, SK.  I'd been
able to arrange a hangar there through one of my Dad's friends.  Getting
out of Kenora, I contacted Winnipeg approach, as I needed to transit their
airspace.  Can't remember if it was Class B or C, but typically their
airspace goes up much higher than in the US.  I think KBOS goes up to
7000', whereas Toronto goes up to 11 or 12K', same with Winnipeg.  Anyway,
it seems that most VFR pilots in Canada don't use flight following very
much.  That was what the pilots in Virden told me.  But, I was able to get
on with Winnipeg approach just fine, and they held my hand thru their
airspace and all the way to Virden.  I stayed with my parents for a few
days.

On Saturday, June 15, I headed to Regina, SK to visit friends.  My endpoint
was Saskatoon, as I needed to give a talk there on that Monday, but the
weather in Saskatoon was poor, so I decided to hole up in Regina until I
saw a break.  It was just about an hour from Virden to Regina.  Getting
close to Regina, I listened to the ATIS and heard 30kt winds...did I hear
that right?  30kts, gusting to 35kts?  Yikes!  Well, it was right down the
runway, so, a bumpy ride in, but once I got into ground effect, it was
fine. When I got to the ramp, tho, I could feel my plane being pushed
around just sitting there.  I was able to get it into a hangar at the FBO.
 I stayed in Regina for the weekend, hoping to get out Monday morning to
make the hour flight up to Saskatoon, but the weather was poor.  So, I
rented a car and drove up as I couldn't risk waiting and being late for the
lecture I needed to give.  I stayed in Saskatoon until Wednesday (this last
Wednesday) then drove back down to Regina for my trek home.

Flying out of Regina, it was a good steady rain and thunderstorms in the
area, but they were clearly visible and where I was headed, Southeast to
Fargo, was clear.  Bumpy ride navigating between the rain showers and
thunderstorms, but once I got past them, it was smooth sailing.  Again,
before taking off did the whole border crossing routine.  Filed a eAPIS
notice of entry, called ahead to the Fargo CBP to make sure an agent would
be available, called CanPass to say goodbye to Canada, filed a flight plan
and headed out.  Landed in Fargo (2.5hr flight from Regina) and, other than
the CBP agent being a little pissy because I gave him the wrong time to
meet me (I screwed up and gave him the local Regina time I expected to
land), everything went fine.  I had intended to just do a short hop to pick
up some cheap fuel at a small airport outside of Fargo, but decided to just
keep flying and head to a little airport just outside Green Bay - Shawano
(KEZS).  It was about 2.5hrs there, so I'd flown about 5hrs since Regina
and had about 10gal left in the tanks when I landed.  Stayed the night in a
Shawano.  Nice little airport - friendly people there, good fuel prices.

Got up in the morning for the final leg home.  Fueled up and took off.
 Clear skies, so I climbed to 11.5k', leaned it out and was down to
~7.5gal/hr, cruising at 155ktas, but making ~200kts ground speed with a
nice tail wind.  Funny, flying through the midwest, you can go an hour
without being handed off b/w ATC centers.  Sometimes I had to call in and
just make sure they didn't forget me, "no 3 victor sierra, you're still
with us!"  Once I got onto NY center things got busier, handed off every
15min or so.  Flying over the finger lakes, it was nice to start to see
familiar landmarks of home.  It was about a 4hr flight from KEZS in WI to
KORH in MA.  Made great time and just sipped away on fuel.  I thought I'd
have to stop for fuel or stretch my legs, but the 4hrs went pretty quick.
 That's the longest flight I've done, but, of course, I've sat on
commercial flights for much longer!

All in all, it was a great experience.  About 20hrs in flying.  At home I
never fly in weather, so it was a good experience to make decisions about
weather and fly when the conditions were not perfect.  Learning about
flying in Canada was good, crossing the border, although I'd done that once
before, is not at all intimidating now.  The plane worked almost
flawlessly.  No serious problems whatsoever.  Found the main doors leak
when it sits on the ramp in pouring rain, though (soaked carpet in
Syracuse)!

Geoff
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