Flying across the country in a Grumman AA5     Read the story





Day 1:  Seattle, Washington to Glasgow, Montana

I'm sitting in a hotel room at Glasgow, Montana, after about 6 hours in my Grumman Traveler.  It's hard to believe that it was merely this morning when I left my house at Seattle and embarked on my across the country to upstate NY.

My planned the route is a northern route, crossing the Rockies at far north.  Originally I planned to fly directly from Paine (PAE) to Cut Bank, MT.  However the forecasted (but never materialized) headwind caused me to make a fuel stop at Sand point (SZT), Idaho to refuel before crossing the Rockies at Glacier National Park.  This was my first time crossing the Rockies and I guess I was extra cautious of carrying enough fuel, just in case the fuel isn't available after a long flight all the way to Cut Bank!

The Rockies crossing from Kalispell (GPI) to Cut Bank is probably the easiest, shortest, and lowest crossing north of Denver and south of Canada.  It took me less than 30 minutes following the roads from Kalispell to the east side of the Rockies. (see Chart).  The view of the continental divide is at the Glacier National Park is breathtaking.  After making the turn toward east at Marias pass, the vast span of Montana high plains stretches as far as I could see in my wind screen.

The Cut Bank Municipal airport is something that belongs to a bygone era.  Nobody was there and all the doors were open when I arrived. Self serve fuel price was very reasonable.  There are two clean, spartanly decorated rooms with clean beds, towels, and hot shower.  Letting imagination run wild, one could almost see an airmail pilot taking a nap there waiting out a storm over the Rockies.   There are two courtesy cars with keys on the sign-out pad.  There is also a room full of WW2 artifacts, apparently from the airport's history as a WW2 bomber base.

From Cut Bank to Glasgow (GGW), it was all flat plains.  Having lived in the west for the last 8 years I almost forgot how flat the east side country is!  Arriving at Glasgow I fueled up, tied down the plane, and called it a day, but not before the nice folks at Prairie Aviation lent me their courtesy car.  There were clean bunk beds at Prairie Aviation.  But the allure of a hot shower and high speed Internet at a hotel was too hard to resist.  I'm a geek on his dream vacation.  I'll be forever grateful of my wife and my 1 year old daughter letting me do this by myself.
Leaving Puget Sound area.  Downtown Seattle in distance


Reservoir in eastern Washington


Crossing the Continental Divide


Landing at Cut Bank, Montana


Old Hangar at Cut Bank, Montana


Pilot sleeping room at Cut Bank, Montana


Vast flat land in nothern Montana


Glasgow Airport, my plane and the courtesy car


Departing Glasgow


Thief River Fall Airport


Lakes in northern Minnesota


Lake Superior


Iron Mountain Airport, Michigan
 Day 2: Glasgow, Montana to Iron Mountain, Michigan


Today is the second day of Seattle to Rochester NY flying trip, in my '75 Grumman Traveler.  Yesterday I made as far as Glasgow, Montana.  This morning I got up 5am Mountain time, and managed to take off before 7am MDT heading towards Thief River Falls, MN (http://www.airnav.com/airport/KTVF).

About a month and half before this trip I flew to Independence, OR and had Cliff do the aileron inspection.  Cliff gave me his old-timer's advice:  when crossing the country, get up early and take off first thing in the morning, and wrap up a day's flying by early afternoon.  This is so true.  My second leg yesterday started about 2pm mountain time, and it was bumpy all the way.  Taking off from Glasgow this morning it was smooth as silk, as I ventured my way towards Minnesota.

Right before I left Glasgow I saw a lady at the Bigsky Airline counter, ready to open.  Believe it or not Glasgow actually has twice daily  airline service, with the FBO building double as the airline terminal.  For someone who's used to the scenes of mega airline hubs such as SFO or Newark, it would take a leap of imagination to visualize what it's like to have the airline terminal here.  The passenger waiting area is essentially the pilot briefing room, with a few chairs a big table.

Being curious about the bunkbeds at the Prairie Aviation I took a peek at the sleeping room.  Expecting to see no-one there I was surprised to see a small boy sleeping on the carpet on top of some blankets.  I was quite certain that he was the son of the lady opening up the airline counter at 6am in the morning.  Having been a parent myself for the last year and half I could really appreciate the hard work of a parent, particular the hard work of a hard-working parent.

There's little I could say about the scenery at this part of the country from eastern Montana to Minnesota, because it's flat everywhere.  What strikes me was how vast the flatness is.  Hundreds of hundreds of miles as far as my eyes could see.  The Glasgow to Thief River Falls was the longest leg of my entire planned trip, 417 nautical miles direct in great circle route.  Thanks to GPS I never strayed more than 1/4 of mile off course the entire way, hand flying (no autopilot).  It took almost 3 1/2 hour to get there.  That's about as much as I would do in a standard range tank AA5.  My morning tea at McDonald's didn't help my bladder endurance either.  I ran for the bathroom after landing at TVF.

Thief River Falls airport was deserted.  The self serve fuel printed no receipt, but I saw the price posted on a board at the terminal (3.89 for 100LL).  There's also an airline terminal cohabiting with the FBO.  Unlike Glasgow the airline terminal at TVF was like a miniature version of Minneapolis, with Giant Northwest Airline logo complete with security gates, TSA warnings and baggage claim area.  A general aviation pilot however, can walk right though the unlocked fence to his plane, taking water bottles, lip balm, and  leatherman tool with him - no questions asked!

The second leg of the day was to Ford/Iron Mountain Michigan.  My approximate great circle route to the northeast finally took a dip to the southeast, leading me below 47 degree latitude the first time since I left Seattle.  The 357 nautical mile leg took me over some most rural areas in the country, over the lakes and forests of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.  From 11,500 feet the landscape was dark green forest scattered with thousands of small lakes, and a few big ones.  About 15 mile east of Superior Wisconsin I crossed the west-most tip of Lake Superior, which is only about 10 mile wide at that point.  That was my first time seeing Lake Superior.

I stopped at Ford Iron Mountain airport at Iron Mountain, Michigan and met Chad Kubick, the owner of Kubick Aviation.  If you read the comments on Airnav about IMT airport you will know that Chad is giving the other FBO some needed competition at that airfield.  Again, the self serve fuel price was probably the lowest in the country.  I was very pleasantly surprised by the availability of a courtesy car.  These midwest airports and FBOs are truely the gems of the general aviation industry.

I'm sitting in a Day's Inn writing this email.  The hotel is recommended by Chad and owned by a pilot, and the owner sure has decorations in the lobby to prove it.  I'm almost 3/4 of the ways to Rochester NY now.  My trip so far has been nothing but joy and pleasant memories.

Day 3: Iron Mountain Michigan to Canandaigua, New York


It has become a routine for me, getting up at 5am, eating breakfast at McDonald's, and heading to the airport for a day of flying.  The location this morning was Iron Mountain/Ford Michigan.  I checked the weather on my laptop using the free wireless Internet in the hotel.  There was patchy fog along my route, including my departure airport.  I filed an IFR flight plan and went into the shower.  By the time I got to the airport the fog has lifted there, and I departed VFR.

The center frequency was busy this morning mostly for people trying to get into airports that are fogged in, but could open up at any time.  I on the other hand was droning along in clear smooth air at 7500 feet soaking in the scenery of Lake Michigan.  My route took me along the northern shore of Lake Michigan, before heading southeast towards Port Huron, Michigan along the lower peninsula.  With Minneapolis center's permission I overflew a non-active restrictive area R4201A/B.  From 7500 feet it looked like some sort of military test site.  I found it interesting to see this kind of place in the middle of Michigan.

Approach Port Huron I was above a scattered to broken layer, and I could see signs of approaching weather system in the distance.  At 25 miles out the layer got quite solid and I was about to pull out the approach chart and get an IFR clearance, when I heard the Port Huron weather reporting 900 scattered.  I didn't hear the approach controller saying the usual "weather blah blah blah, say intentions" either.  5 miles out I saw a clearing right above that airport area.  I dropped down and landed VFR.

At Port Huron airport I met a group of 6 pilots in two airplanes coming back from a fishing trip.  They were kind of stuck there because the way they were heading, Buffalo, was reporting 500 overcast and 10 mile visibility.  There was one instrument rated pilot among the 6 who's a 767 captain flying for a major airline.  He told me that he hadn't flown IFR in a small plane for many years.  He was in the "where the heck is my dispatcher" mode, and he needed to get back to work the second day.  I guess airline IFR flying is a completely different ballgame with dispatchers, co-pilots, and equipments that can take you above most of the weather 30 minutes after takeoff, with your hands off the yoke and on the autopilot knobs.  I let him copy my approach charts using a copy machine and showed him the low altitude IFR routes DUATS spit out to the Buffalo area, the same direction that I was going.  Fortunately the forecast said the weather over western NY would improve a bit in the afternoon.

My original plan was to stop at Buffalo Lancaster airport (BQR) to take advantage of the fuel price there, and I only bought enough fuel at Port Huron to give me an hour reserve after Buffalo.  For this plan to work I would need to at least shoot an instrument approach at Buffalo international and proceed VFR to BQR, which required a 1500 ceiling.  It was only noon and I thought I had plenty of time.  I was eating lunch and checking the weather every once a while, when I habitually checked a radar imagery page.

Unexpected to me the weather system at Ohio had advanced.  Along my route at the northern shore of Lake Erie a band of shower emerged, a clear sign of approaching weather system.  I no longer had the luxury of time.  If I didn't take advantage of the 500 overcast/7+ mile visibility at Buffalo/Rochester area right awayI might be stuck at Port Huron, or face the choice of flying through a front in a light plane.  I immediately ask the FBO to fill up my tanks.  I filed an IFR flight plan to Canandaigua (D38, near Rochester) with a 15 minute departure, and Rochester International as alternate.

My IFR flight to Canandaigua, NY was peaceful and between the layers at 7000.  Nobody else was along my route.  I put in a PIREP about the layers in case the airline captain was going to follow me along the same route to Buffalo in that Cessna 180.  My plan was to give a shot at Canandaigua (my final destination), and shoot an ILS at Rochester if Canandaigua didn't work out.  500 overcast with 7 mile visibility was rock solid ILS weather.  At the very least I carried enough fuel to keep heading east to VFR conditions.

Crossing Buffalo VOR at 7000 feet Canandaigua was reporting above IFR approach minimum weather.  20 miles later I dropped into the clouds and started the long VOR-A approach, breaking out the clouds in reasonable visibility about 2 miles from the runway.  Rochester approach was very helpful throughout the entire thing, and I helped them out by canceling IFR in the air to free up their airspace.  While I was on the approach I overheard a Citation declaring minimum fuel in a holding pattern trying to get into a nearby airport, because the flight in front of him hadn't yet cancel after landing in apparently reasonable weather there.

I was finally here, on the ground at Canandaigua, NY, after 2,050 nautical miles of flying all the way from Seattle.  Among all the flying trips I've done, this whole trip could easily be ranked at the very top.
Lake Michigan


Canandaigua Airport, my niece Vivian


And Sabrina


Departing western NY in early morning


Niagara Falls, viewed from 8,000 feet


Midland, Michigan


Lake Michigan shore


Island in Lake Michigan


Island in Lake Michigan


Ground fog over Minnesota


Flying between the clouds, IFR
 Return trip day 1 and 2: Canandaigua, New York back to Glasgow, Montana

How quickly went the 3 days that I spent with my family at Rochester NY.  On Friday 9/1 it was time for me to start my way back to the Pacific Northwest.

Except for the last leg from Port Huron to Canandaigua, my eastbound trip was blessed with excellent weather and most of the flying were VFR.  Heading back west things wouldn't be as simple.  First there was the Hurricane Ernesto.  Although it was downgraded to a tropical depression by then it was dumping huge amount of rain in the Carolina's on Thursday.  Fortunately Ernesto was going to help me more instead hurting because I would depart upstate NY before the rain reaches there, and the counter-clockwise wind pattern around the low pressure would give me a big tailwind going westbound, a rare gift of nature.  Along my route through upper mid-west there was also a low pressure pulling a slow moving cold front somewhere in Minnesota.

Day 1 of my trek back west was an IFR flight from Canandaigua, NY to Midland, Michigan, followed by a VFR flight to Iron Mountain Michigan.  Unlike the IFR route along the north shore of Lake Erie where the airspace was controlled by Cleveland Center, the flight to Midland Michigan goes through Toronto Center's airspace.  Because Canada has privatized their air traffic control and rumors of overfly fee abounds on Internet, I did some research and found a "Customer Guide to Charges" on www.navcanada.ca.  According to that publication, U.S. registered aircraft weighing 3 metric ton or less are exempt from any overflight charges as long as it's between two points of the United States with no stop at Canada.  (Because foreign registered light planes get charges quarterly, to avoid charges means no landing in Canada for that entire quarter)

I departed early at around 6:45 am and caught a 20 knots tailwind at 8000 feet, courtesy of Hurricane Ernesto.  The IFR hand-off to and from Toronto center was seamless.  After a quick fuel stop at Midland Michigan ($3.79/gal for 100LL) I was on my way to Iron Mountain Michigan, again catching a good tailwind from the southeast!  It was only 11am local time when I arrived at Iron Mountain.  I decided not to push forward, and checked into the Day's Inn instead.  Because it was only about 9am at Seattle, I was able to log-in to work using the free wireless Internet at Day's Inn and worked the rest of that day remotely from my hotel room, saving myself a vacation day.  Modern technology really makes a techie's job flexible.  There I was working on my laptop in a small town hotel, after flying close to 800 miles that morning in a small plane!

Day 2 of my west bound trip back home I would be challenged by the weather system in the upper midwest.  Because my route was a very northern one it had the benefit of skirting the northern portion of the low pressure, which means tailwind (again) and less severe weather. The worse part of the frontal weather is usually at the southeast corner of a low pressure.  In the morning of 9/2 I tried to get going early.  For some strange reason technology was failing me and I couldn't get through DUATS to file my IFR flight plan, which was necessary to get me out of the Iron Mountain fog and through the rain showers towards Thief River Falls, MN.  I ended up calling Flight Service for weather briefing and flight plan, something that just seemed inefficient and time consuming when the exact same thing can be accomplished in less than a third of the time on my laptop.

The first 3/4 of the flight to Thief River Falls was in clear VFR condition above occasionally large areas of ground fog.  Again, tailwind from the southeast generated by the low pressure in southwest Minnesota.  About 80 miles from Thief River Falls I start entering cloud decks and rain showers at 8000 feet.  Slight bumpy but it wasn't bad at all.  To make my descend easy I shot an ILS to get below the 1700 foot ceiling at TVF airport.

To be honest, it was quite possible to fly that leg VFR.  However doing so would require flying at sub-optimal altitudes for my plane and constant wondering of whether I could go another 15 miles w/o running into instrument conditions.  IFR was just much simpler.  I used to joke that IFR in a light plane can only safely go in about 20% of the instrument weather Mother Nature can throw us.  I guess I was in luck on this trip being in late summer and a northern route, the IFR weather was thunderstorm free and ice free below 12,000 feet.

The second leg of the day was to Glasgow Montana, but first I needed to get through the remainder of the low pressure frontal weather.  For the first 60 miles from TVF I was in some heavy rain, clouds and light bumps at 8000 feet.  However the ceiling was apparently high enough that I was able to occasionally see the freeways below me.  Then slowly and surely, the rain subsided and clouds got thinner as I continued westbound through North Dakota.  What I gained in visibility I paid in tailwind.  As I was leaving that weather system the tailwind got weaker by the mile.   I really shouldn't be complaining much, as I enjoyed a good tailwind from the east for the entire half of my westbound trip, something just doesn't happen often.

IFR in the northern country, the Minneapolis center has a lot of combined high and low altitude frequencies.  Hundreds of airline flights going through that airspace heading towards the coasts.  One thing I noticed, that the center controllers spend seemingly large amount of time doing bookkeeping of so called "ride reports".  It goes like this:  a United flight XXX says "center, I'm picking up some light chops at FL340.  How does the ride look westbound today?", or "I'm getting some moderate here.  If it's gonna be like this for the next 50 miles can I have FL370 right now??".  And it goes on and on.

I also noticed some trends of radio phraseology.  Some of them have been in use in the last few years but getting more popular, like calling 11,500 feet "eleven point five" instead of "one one thousand five hundred", or calling radio frequency 123.55 "twenty three fifty five".  I sometimes even hear the controller say it that way, often in additional to the official phraseology: "United xxx contact Salt Lake Center on one two eight point six five, that's twenty eight sixty five".  Personally I like to stick to the standard way of saying altitude, but I like the "alternative" phraseology for the radio frequency better, because it seems to be easier to remember and read back.  There's one thing I heard for the first time, was a Citation saying "Center, Citation blah blah blah,  P D through flight level two three zero".  He literally pronounced letter P and letter D, meaning pilot discretion.  I sure hope that doesn't become a trend!

I arrived at Glasgow Montana at about 3pm local time, and this would again be my overnight stop.  Tomorrow afternoon I'll be back in Seattle, wrapping up this big trip.

Return trip Day 3: Glasgow Montana to Seattle, Washington

September 3rd was the last day of my trip.  Seattle was only about 630 nautical miles away from Glasgow MT in great circle distance.  At the beginning of the trip being apprehensive of crossing the Rockies for the first time I made two fuel stops between Seattle and Glasgow.  Now after flying well over 3,000 miles the last few days, I was very confident of the range of my Grumman and my ability of flying 3+ hour legs.  The weather forecast was good for the entire western half of the country.  I decided I only need one fuel stop at Glacier Park international airport at Kalispell, MT.

The one good thing about flying westbound in the early morning is the lack of sun glare.  The scenery was just much easier to see.  From Glasgow to the foothills of the Rockies the civilization on the ground hugs the valley along the Milk River, and I could see a ten mile strip of green cut through the endless expanse of semi-arid landscape.  Arriving at the Continental divide I saw a large amount smoke from wild fire hovering at about 10,000 feet level, and the smoke looked thicker further west.  Interestingly enough the smoke in the morning sun made a colorful backdrop of the Rockies Mountains, allowing me to take a few very nice pictures.

The fuel stop at Glacier Park international and the 3 hour hop back to Paine field, WA was smooth and uneventfully, if not smoky.  After thousands of miles flying away from home the last 300 miles felt like my back yard.  I touched down at my home field just past noon with one hour timezone bonus I gained from flying westbound.  As I was tieing down the plane I felt my Grummy has became an extension of my body the last few days.  This is the way it should be. Our wonderful machines as an extension of our bodies, taking us to far away places, full of joy and adventure.


Epilogue

Here're the statistics of this trip faithfully recorded by my Garmin GPS 196:

Total distance:  4259.9 nm  (includes an 100nm local flight taking my sister and my niece for a ride at Rochester)

Stopped time: 1:03:13  (taxi, etc)
Moving time:  36:15:46
Total time:  37:18:59

Groundspeed Moving average: 117.5 kt
Maximum ground speed: 146.8 kt

The trip planning took place in the period of a few weeks before the trip.  One of the first thing I decided was to make two overnight stops along the way.  I have no autopilot in my plane and I think a two day cross might be too taxing.  I found the free AOPA real time flight planner (a strip-down version of Jeppeson flight planner) very useful in this flight planning, because its ability of drawing great circle routes.  It was using that tool that I discovered that the northern route near the Canadian border from Seattle to upper Michigan kept me very close to the great circle route to the Northeast.  Places like Glasgow, Montana and Iron Mountain, Michigan are both within 20 miles from the great circle route.  Using that software it was then easy to split that great circle route into roughly 3 equal sections, and started looking for candidate towns for overnight stops.

I relied very heavily on the comment section of Airnav.com when picking the overnight stops.  Two things are most important when picking those stops:  local transportation and the cost/quality of hotel.  The approximate cost of hotel can be easily determined right on airnav.com's hotel reservation section, and also on http://hotels.com.  When I was checking out a town for its suitability of an overnight stop I also used http://maps.google.com to see the location of the hotels relative to the airport on a map, just in case I would have to walk.  Another useful thing is to check out ahead of the time is whether there's a taxi company in town.  Again, maps.google.com is an excellent source.  Among all the local transportation options nothing is better than a courtesy car provided by the airport.  Unfortunately the knowledge of courtesy car seems to be passed in a word-of-mouth fashion.  Sometimes it'll be mentioned on the comment section of Airnav.com, and sometimes even on the discussion board of several aviation Usenet groups under rec.aviation.  Again, use Google search and Google newsgroup search.  Someone (maybe me) ought to make a map showing all the airports in the country with courtesy cars!

Fuel price is the #1 criteria when I pick the fuel stops.  Airnav.com has a fuel planning section that can plan a route for various fuel savings.  However I found that inadequate because I really want to see those routes on a map.  What I ended up doing was using the AOPA flight planner to draw a great circle route for the one-day segment after I chose the overnight stop, pick an airport somewhere near the middle of the route, and go to airnav.com and do a "local fuel price report" that shows all the fuel prices within 25nm of that point.  When I get that list I go to www.runwayfinder.com and visually see where those airports are located in relationship to my reference point in the middle of the route.   An ideal fuel stop should add very little extra distance to the great circle route (assuming VFR).  Sometimes I will need to be mindful that a 40c/gallon saving will be pointless if I had to burn 3 gallons of extra fuel to get there, because it sits too far away from the planned route.

Because airnav.com adds such a value to trip planning like this, I always update the fuel price with them and add comments to the airports when I find something new there, like the availability of a courtesy car.

Weather is always a major concern for a trip in a small plane.  I considered myself extremely lucky that I didn't have any weather delays and all the weather I encountered was well within the ability of my plane and myself, including the few hours of instrument weather (hand flying) and the two instrument approaches I flew.  When I planned the trip however, I planned an extra day as a buffer for the weather delays, and I also let my boss at work know ahead of time that I might not be able to return to work as planned if I have to wait out a serious weather system for a few days.  This also goes back to the picking of overnight stops.   If the town I'm staying has good ground transportation and nice and inexpensive hotels, a weather delay of a day or two would just be a lot more pleasant.

One of the detail that I thought about was food during the fuel stop.  Because the fuel stops are planned around fuel prices, there's likely no restaurant at that airport.  Going in town for lunch would just be too time consuming, not to mention the need of ground transportation.  I brought a small cooler with me and sandwich making materials.  The cooler can be filled with ice at the hotels.  A can of Spam meat makes a nice emergency ration w/o any need of refrigeration.  Not to mention the empty spam can can be used to repair wing skins if I have a bird strike :-)

One thing I found extraordinary useful was a laptop computer with Wi-Fi wireless network capability.   In the two hotels I stayed both had free wireless Internet access.  These days free wireless Internet access seems to be widely available even among hotels in very rural areas.  Flight planning and weather briefing are just much easier and comprehensive with a computer.   To prepare for the possibility of not having a high speed Internet access from the hotel, I also opened a pre-paid dial-up Internet access account with Budget dial-up ( http://www.budgetdialup.com/).  With this I'm guaranteed Internet access anywhere I stay.

I hope this information is useful to anyone who's contemplating making a long trip him/herself.  I welcome all the suggestions, because now I can't wait to do my next one :-)
Civilization along the Milk River


Smoke over Rocky Mountain


Continental Divide, smoke aloft


Cascade Mountain Range, almost home


My Grummy back home, after 4,900 miles