The Flight Home…

November 16, 2012

The flight home from L.A. to Boston was pretty damn cool, especially when you consider the longest flight I had ever done was just a couple of hours.  This trip was to span +3000 miles and have to cross the Rockies at +11,500′.

I flew commercial into LAX where Mike S. (previous owner) met me with the Skywagon at KHHR (Hawthorne.)

We headed north back to his home base of KSMX to close the deal, spend the night and then blasted off for home the next morning.

The plan was to make three legs.  KSMX to KFNL was first.   Mike would fly with me over the hump and into Denver.  We would spend the time together with me picking his brain and learning all the quirks of the new bird.  Once in CO, I would spend a couple of days training with tail wheel legend Dave Younkin (970.556.4581,) and then fly back over the plains in two.

As I expected, the most visually exhilarating part of the journey was the first day flying over the Grand Canyon, Moab, Bryce Canyon, Zion, the Colorado and Green Rivers, and then Loveland Pass.

Training with Dave was intense and well worth it, and by the end of the week, was ready to hit the road.

My friend and fellow tail wheel nut Dick C. met me in CO and we headed east for home.  The first day we made it from KFNL to KCAK (Ackron-Canton) where it was a hoot flying in behind some 737s.  There are of course a lot of differences between my C170 and the C180, but the biggest (and most enjoyable is the speed.)  It was no big deal keeping the speed up on final and I felt very comfortable being up there with the much larger jetliners.

Of course there were some bumps along the way uncovering a small squawk list, but in the end, we made it home safe and sound back to my home base of KPYM.