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>From my incredible experience (one trip from Iowa to Chester, Connecticut), I'd submit these thoughts: 1. Going east, the prevailing winds up high are almost always from the west so you can get a great push flying high. I flew from Iowa City, near dawn, to Chester, CT, arriving about 5 p.m. with two fuel stops, flying high and leaning the engine and slowing down a bit to save fuel and let the wind and efficiency increase my range. 2. Much of Pennsylvania, parts of New York and lots of Connecticut are now forest. Remember those articles about how we now have more trees in the U.S. than when Europeans first arrived? Well, a whole lot of them are on your flight path. This is a second reason for flying high out there. It made me more nervous than flying over a smidgen of ocean to Martha's Vineyard. 3. It's a nice side trip to Martha's Vineyard. I also liked our little side trip to Fishers Island. Chester is like an aircraft carrier on a hilltop surrounded by ocean forest. On the trip to Martha's Vineyard, I climbed to 11,500. By the time I crossed the coast, over the ocean, I saw that I was too high and started down. I cruise-descended across the bit of ocean (about 23 miles) to Martha's Vineyard and still had to circle to burn off the last 5,000' of altitude. If you land at Trade Wind Airport on the northeast corner of Martha's Vineyard, in the town of Oak Bluffs, just use runway 06/24. We took off on the westbound runway (maybe closed, now?) and it had waves in the ground several feet high that flung us into the air before we had flying speed and would have damaged us had we come down on the next wave's up slope. However, 06/24 was fine. Check to see if this airport is still open before you count on going there. We rented bicycles and rode around for a few hours - very nice. 4. Coming back, against the prevailing winds, took longer - two days. 5. I think that all Coupers should fly to all corners and sides of the country. Have a fun trip! Ed Burkhead http://edburkhead.com ed -at- edburkhead???.com (change -at- to @ and remove "???") ============================================================================== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm
