Ned wrote: > I should have mentioned that I live in Salt Lake City. My
> very preliminary planning has me thinking of flying I-80 > basically, from SLC area to near Iowa City, and then > Northeast to Wisconsin. I-80 out of Salt Lake takes one of > the gentler passes out of the Rockies--one I have flown a lot. > > The two-hour leg is also what I was thinking of--three two > hour legs per day with a two hour luch break. This would > make it a three-day trip, requiring 2 overnight stops, with > the last day being the shortest. Ned, I flew my Coupe from Iowa City, over the top of Salt Lake City and on to Minden, NV. I have these observations: 1. That's a good route. I felt comfortable with the Interstate below me just in case. I did depart from I-80 a couple of times but was very high so I always had gliding distance to a tolerable landing area. >From Grand Island, Nebraska, eastward, you can be comfortable drawing a straight line on the map. It's mostly all farm fields and there are plenty of good emergency fields everywhere. (Unless, of course, you want to go to Iowa City, one of my favorite towns and a place where I lived almost 12 years, back when.) 2. West of the Nebraska border, I'd urge you to fly from dawn to about 10:30 then park for the day. There may be some OK flying time in the late afternoon/evening time. Two times I took off at 10:30, and got bounced like a fiend. I slowed down to 75-80 mph so the bumps were soft and there was no danger of breaking the plane but it was not fun. Your Western thermals are amazing. From dawn to 10:30 it was as smooth as glass. We occasionally have such thermals in the plains states, but it's rare that they match the normal thermals in the Intermountain West. From Nebraska onward, you can fly as much of the day as you like. Climbing above the base of the cumulo-puffies gets you above any thermals, if you want smooth air but there's not much scenery up there. 3. Coming east, if you want, you can go high to take advantage of the prevailing westerlies and make long flight legs. Greatly restricting your liquid intake from waking up till the end of the flight can make long flight legs doable. Ed Burkhead http://edburkhead.com/Ercoupe/index.htm East Peoria, Illinois ed -at- edburk???head.??com (remove the ? marks and change -at- to @)
