Since everyone has a different view on things, and since our Key West trip was a stunning success, I’ll give my views on trip in an attempt to bring everyone up to speed.
Having done a good bit of testing in Gigi (my 1959 K35 Bonanza) prior to the trip, I determined that the power settings that we used last year resulted in getting us to Key West later than if we slowed down! Last year we used 75% power and made two stops before we had our problem. 75% power resulted in 158 Knots per hour, but at a fuel burn rate of almost 15 gallons per hour. I’ve now discovered that 65% power and lean of peak results in 140 Knots and just less than 10 gallons per hour! All this meant that planning a 650NM leg was genuinely possible, and our 1200NM trip could be completed with just one fuel stop.
With that good information in mind, we decided to meet at 5:30AM on Saturday and attempt to make just one stop when southbound. I filed an IFR flight plan to Metter, Georgia, some 642 Miles away! Metter had very cheap gas and wasn’t far out of our way. The route was CYN V1 ISO V157 LOTTS (Coyle, NJ along Victor 1 airway to Kinston, NC to LOTTS intersection in Georgia then to Metter).
The morning hadn’t yet dawned when I woke up and showered. I grabbed the iPod and GPS off the chargers and planned to check weather when I was in the car. The view from my front door told me most of what I needed to know. The fog was so dense, I could barely see the mall across the street from my house (about 1/8 mile away). Driving was fun in that kind of fog, and Jill reported she almost lost the road at one point.
I got to Old Bridge, just before 5:30 and started by releasing the tie downs and Asking Gigi to be good to us over the next two days. The plane was newly washed and waxed (6 hours in the sun gave me some nice color…red) and the oil was golden brown on the dip stick. I had previously topped off the tanks in preparation for the flight, so after a thorough preflight inspection, we were ready to go… Except that I was the only one there!
Jill arrived shortly thereafter but Liz was delayed due to a “very efficient” DUI checkpoint at the Holland Tunnel. While waiting, the fog lifted to the point where a little more than half the runway could be seen. The wind was dead calm.
I didn’t realize it before but Runway 24 has different takeoff minimums than runway 6. I would need standard departure minimums to takeoff on Runway 24, and I didn’t have that. So, rather than delay, we decided to depart on runway 6. I called McGuire Approach just before 6AM and got our clearance.
At 6:07AM, running at 60 Knots, Gigi, Jill, Liz and I rotated off the runway at Old Bridge, NJ with just over 2400 miles of flying planned ahead of us. We were in IMC almost instantly and totally lost sight of the ground. The gear came up, we were pitched for 90 Knots and by the time the wheels were fully retracted we had broken out of the clouds into clear skies and beautiful sunshine. I turned on course, and contacted McGuire.
It took a little while, but McGuire eventually got us to 6000’ and we setup our LOP cruise at 65% power and 9.5 GPH. Our groundspeed readout showed 155 Knots with a tailwind. In a seemingly never ending bout of frequency changes we went from McGuire, to Atlantic City Approach, to Dover Approach, to Patuxtent Approach and on to Washington Center. Just after the NJ southern coastline, the clouds dissipated and the weather was stunningly clear. We could see a haze layer below us, but we were above it.
The fuel burn that we figured on was going to use all but about 10 gallons in the tanks. If we had an average groundspeed of less than 120 Knots we would have to make an additional fuel stop. That is primarily because I refuse to land with less than 1 hour in the tanks, it’s a CAP thing that I think actually makes sense. Our ground speed starting out was beautiful and worsened as we continued, but never so bad that I was worried about my 1 hour rule. The only issue is that Gigi has 4 tanks, and having 3 gallons in each of 4 tanks, it just about useless. I wanted to make sure that all 12 gallons were in one tank when we finished, so I could switch to that one and be done in an emergency.
So the plan was to burn 14 gallons (using the fuel totalizer on the EDM-830) out of the left main tank. Then burn all of the fuel out of the auxiliary tanks (they burn together and return excess fuel to the left main tank). Then burn 12 gallons out of the right main tank. Then burn out all of the fuel from the left main. When the left main was empty, the right main would be our emergency fuel; our 1 hour reserve. The only issue with this procedure is that the rate of consumption of the aux tank can only be estimated. The pump pulls more fuel than the engine needs and returns the excess into the left main tank. We discussed it before hand and agreed that the best solution was to burn the aux tank dry. That means the engine would stumble as an indication that we needed to switch tanks.
Somewhere over Maryland, we switched to the aux tank and started a 45 minute timer. I’ve used 45 minutes as a rough estimate of how long to burn the aux tanks before, but never actually measured how long until they’re dry. After passing the Chesapeake Bay, our 45 minute timer ran out. I had been told that the first indication that air was entering the system would be told on the fuel flow indicator (actually a pressure gauge), when the needle flickers. Jill was flying, and I had my hand poised ready to switch the tank, Liz was staring a hole in the fuel flow gauge.
When the time had expired by 5 minutes, we all expected the engine to quit soon. 10 minutes after it expired, we were all on edge. Actually I’m pretty sure Liz never blinked from about 10 minutes on. I was glancing at the fuel flow occasionally, but was more concerned with heading, altitude and traffic since we were still on an IFR flight plan. When I looked back at the indicator, I realized it had slowly started creeping down. It started at 9.5GPH, but when I looked, it was clearly indicating 9.0GPH. That was enough for me. I switched to the right main and Liz began breathing again. The engine never stumbled and we later determined that we had about 1 gallon (.5 useable) in each aux tank.
ATC gave us a shortcut of direct Metter after Kinston VOR. After the usual “UNABLE, we’re not GPS equipped” response, they gave us a heading to fly after Kinston, direct Allendale VOR when able. That’s about 240 miles direct!
Switching from Washington Center to Jacksonville Center made us feel like we were really going somewhere, and we were just 3 hours into the day. Before Allendale, we started our descent into the Haze and eventually we ended up at 2200’. The Georgia countryside is really beautiful, but it was hot and humid there, even at just before 11AM.
I gave Jill the landing in Metter, since it is a nice long and wide runway and she can then use the cross country time she logged along the way. It was an acceptable-ish landing. I took back control and taxied to the pump where we all jumped out and ran for the bathroom! It was just after 11AM when we landed and we still had just over 1.5 hours of fuel in the airplane.
Lunch in Metter wasn’t great, but not terrible either. The personalities of the people are what make General Aviation so much fun. You really feel like you’ve visited the place when you get to chat with people outside of the commuter/commercial airports. Our waitress in Metter was no different. At the local pharmacy, we bought three bottles of water for the price of what one would cost back in NYC!
We filed another IFR flight plan for the trip to Key West, but just in case, we filed it to X51, Homestead General Airport on the southern tip in Florida. We weren’t sure if we’d get gas before heading into Key West or when we came back, but we knew that the cost of gas in Key West was going to make filling up there unwise.
We took off VFR and called Jacksonville center in the air. The clearance was easy, SAV V3 DHP (Savannah, GA then V3 to Dolphin, FL). A few short heading changes to avoid restricted areas and we were joining V3 for our run down the Florida coast. Liz was up front now, and I passed the controls to her. She had quite a bit of difficulty at first due to the haze. Also, it’s not exactly easy for everyone to understand that you move a ton and a half of people and metal with just a single thumb and index finger on the controls. Usually you think it takes the winner of a strong man competition to change the direction of 3000 pounds moving at 140 Knots. Liz had white knuckles at first. Once she had the feel of Gigi down, it was smooth sailing.
We flew by the massive vehicle assembly building where the space shuttles are assembled and marveled at the sprawling NASA complex there. ATC changed our clearance after Melbourne to join V437. We knew why, our NEXRAD uplink was painting the standard Florida afternoon thunderstorms along the coast. So instead we got a beautiful view of Lake Okeechobe and the Florida glades. A short deviation for those thunderstorms and we could see the city of Miami.
At this point he still had over two and a half hours of fuel left in the tanks and none of us wanted to stop. We cancelled the IFR flight plan and asked for flight following along US 1. From 2000 feet we could see the thunderstorms 100 miles away. We could see the cruise ships making their way from Miami down to Key West and back. And the color of the Gulf of Mexico was a beautiful blue and very different from the blue of the Atlantic.
Liz did a great job tracking route 1 while Jill and I gazed out the windows. Since we were VFR, I wasn’t worried about altitude, and if heading deviated, we’d know it pretty quickly because we’d be over water. Before long, we spotted the tethered balloon some 12,000 feet above us and just slightly north of our course line. Miami Center switched us to Key West approach who told us to call Navy tower. Tower told us to stay north of US 1 (we had been south because of the balloon) so we moved over. Abeam the tower, they passed us onto Key West International tower and I took the controls back from Liz.
As instructed, I joined the downwind for runway 9. Touchdown at about 5:10PM was sweet and I let her roll out to an intersection with made it easy for us to taxi in. We were third in line following a few other planes which had just landed and were given the shutdown sign by the line guy. He welcomed us to Key West and asked us if we needed anything. We told him we’d be a few hours and would need just 10 gallons of fuel (a courtesy purchase and a little extra safety margin for our flight back to the mainland).
After a short celebration and a few pics, we stopped by the FBO for some Air Conditioning. It was hot and humid that day and the ramp made it feel even hotter. We had decided that it was unlikely that we’d spend the night in Key West due to cost and availability of hotel rooms. Liz and I talked and we figured we’d try to make a small deviation in order to get Jill to First Flight, one of the meccas of Aviation. The FBO was going to close at 9PM, but we figured that would be enough time to get some food and see some of the sights. A cab took us to “the buoy,” which is a mandatory stop for all tourists, and then onto Duval street to find some dinner. What we found were a serious number of drunken people celebrating that the world hadn’t ended! We found a nice restaurant with a deck which faced the west and enjoyed a lovely dinner while a thunderstorm passed overhead and the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico.
After purchasing a sufficient amount of “tchotchkes” (inside joke) including a conch shell and t-shirts, and after a failed attempt to buy a key lime pie which would make the trip home with us, we hailed the next available cab back to the Airport. It was 8:45Pm. If we arrived back after 9PM, we would be charged a $50 late service fee (which we had agreed wouldn’t be such a bad thing anyhow).
I preflighted and called flight service for our short trip back to Homestead, FL (X51). We fired up the engine and Jill executed a fabulous takeoff (so that she could also log EYW) and followed route 1 back north. When the GPS said we were close enough to dry land to make the direct flight, I told Jill to turn north; direct to X51. The funny thing about that part of Florida is that it’s totally unpopulated and so there’s nothing on the ground. The moon was obscured by some clouds, and Miami was very bright in the distance, so it felt like we were over water but the GPS clearly showed us over land.
We made an easy landing on Runway 9 at X51 and taxied off to one of the two self-serve pumps for a top off. The FBOs there were closed, but a very nice gentlemen in airport OPS allowed us to use the restroom there. I filed an IFR flight plan to Wilmington, NC which I had called to confirm that they were open 24 hours and had a crew rest room available. The plan was to get a few hours of sleep in Wilmington and then continue up the NC coastline into First Flight, but we didn’t tell Jill that part!
Night flying is some of my favorite GA flying. There’s very little traffic, and what little there is can be seen from 20+ miles away. The air has calmed so thunderstorms and turbulence aren’t usually a consideration. The frequency is quiet and there’s a sort of peace to the earth that makes the time fly by.
We departed Homestead VFR just after 11PM and picked up our IFR in the air with Miami approach. The route was a little complex (DHP V267 CRG V37 SAV V437 CHS V1 CRE V70 BILLL) but a few shortcuts after Craig made it easy.
We knew about a big TFR near Jacksonville due to a huge forest fire, and when we got closer to Jacksonville, we could smell it too. The prevailing winds were out of the west and that put us in the smell for some 50 miles. We advised Jacksonville approach, just in case what we were smelling wasn’t from the ground. The state of Florida took just about three and a half flying hours to travel across. That’s a BIG state!
Once we were across the border into Georgia, a few clouds blocked our view of the ground and we were confined in our little world nearly a mile above the ground. Jill had checked out (sleeping) somewhere around Daytona Beach. Liz was playing Solitaire on her iPad and listening to music. I didn’t even bother her when it came time to run the aux tank dry. I just ran it for 55 minutes and then switched.
Jacksonville center was very quiet and we heard the same controller giving instructions to us and to aircraft up in the high flight levels. That means he was working a huge chunk of airspace both vertically and horizontally! Still he didn’t seem that busy (though one can never tell what they’re doing when the mic’s not clicked). A direct vector to the CRE VOR saved us about 90 seconds of travel time, but I wasn’t one to shy away from a good direct vector.
Just for fun, I decided to shoot the ILS into ILM because how often can you fly 10 hours and then test yourself with a good approach. It was easy and we touched down smoothly on the runway at ILM. Total flight time on that leg was just shy of 5 hours with about 1.5 hours left in the tanks.
I had a hard time figuring out where “Air Wilmington,” the FBO, was located, and got myself turned around twice on the taxiway. Tower was closed and no one answered on any frequencies. After finding them, it took quite a concerted effort to concentrate on the line man’s instructions. We shut down at about 4:10AM.
The crew rest area was very nice, two couches and two chairs that fully recline. By the time I got into the rest area, Liz and Jill had already staked claim to the couches, so I got comfy in the chair. Alarm set for 7:30AM, and I don’t remember even falling asleep. The buzzer sounded what felt like a second later, but was actually about three hours. The sun had risen, as had we and food was the first necessary consideration. Air Wilmington was kind enough to provide us a crew car for an hour, to go get some breakfast at the local IHOP. There’s nothing like a “Rooty Tooty” to get you going in the morning!
Before long, we were back at the airport, and commercial flights were taking off. Being a nice Sunday morning, someone was in the pattern doing touch and goes. Our tanks were full and Gigi had cooled off and rested, just like her crew. It was time to bid farewell to ILM, which we did at about 10AM. The route we had planned took us along the coast up to ONX, but we planned a stop just before that at FFA. The flight was to take about an hour and along the way we saw some awesome sights. The outer banks of NC are really quite spectacular from 2000’. Liz did a great job following them up to Cape Hatteras before turning northward. About 15 miles north of Hatteras, I spotted some odd eddies in the water off the shore. We made a few turns and discovered a school of whales just hanging out off the coast.
Jill was in the back and paying attention to her iPad when we saw another huge fire on the mainland with smoke travelling out over the Atlantic. Visibility dropped to about 5 miles, and the smell of burning wood returned to the cockpit. All the while, I tuned the FFA ASOS and got the pertinent information without Jill hearing the name of the airport. Before long, we saw the monument in the distance and started heading for it. When we were over it, I asked Jill if she knew the name of the city to which all Muslims are expected to make a pilgrimage. She couldn’t come up with it fast enough so the joke was a bit ruined. I pointed out the monument while circling it and before long she realized where she was.
I brought Gigi around and into the downwind for 20 and touched down just after a Robinson R44 which had landed and taxied in. Gigi and Jill had completed their pilgrimage and we took pictures to commemorate the event. Jill registered our landing in the pilot’s log at the AOPA facility there and we set out to climb the hill. The view from the monument wasn’t as great as it usually is due to the smoke from the fires, but still awesome none-the-less. We didn’t have time to make the trip to the buildings and gift shop, but we’ll be back.
The hop over to ONX for gas was a short one. Just about 20 minutes and we were landing behind a Cessna that was based there and avoided the hang gliders which were being towed by what looked like a powered ultralight. While fuelling, we watched the powered ultralight tow up another hang glider into a thermal and, after release, enter a nicely executed spin which he broke out of at a few hundred feet and landed on the grass next to the runway. I filed IFR for our flight back to 3N6 while Liz and Jill watched the hang gliders.
Again we departed VFR and picked up the IFR enroute from Norfolk Approach; a simple clearance to Join V1 at Norfolk and go north. The forecast for the New York area was not great but not too terrible either. 3N6 was expected to be VFR, but just barely due to cloud ceilings. Crossing over the Chesapeake again, I noticed some build-ups ahead and I commented that they’d be bumpy. NEXRAD wasn’t painting anything. As we got closer, they looked pretty ominous and when the Baron ahead of us asked for a deviation, so did I. As we slid by that build-up, we watched the NEXRAD go from one tiny blue pixel to a little cluster with some orange, to a big cluster with purple in the middle. That was in the span of 10 minutes and with nothing else around us!
As we approached Robbinsville, NJ from the south, we got our first and only squawk of the whole trip. The #6 EGT probe went bad. Annoying since it had done that before and I had replaced the probe. The JPI detected it and marked it as bad, so it wasn’t much of a distraction.
We got a descent down to 3000’ and entered the clouds. Just south of RBV, the controller asked us what approach we’d like and I requested the VOR-24. He then cleared me for the GPS-24 (Different approach) which I had to decline. Since it sounded like a trainee, I was doing my best not to rattle him, but I was getting close to RBV and needed to know what I was doing. He spit out “clear for the approach.” To which I replied “Confirm N5341E is cleared VOR-24 into Old Bridge.” To which he replied “Affirmative.” Good enough I guess, but I do think his trainer should’ve jumped in. Even before we got to RBV he switched us to Unicom. That’s strange because you fly out of the VOR for 10 miles, then turn around and fly back for 5 miles. That’s about 12 minutes that we’d be out of contact with approach. So I flew the outbound track and the procedure turn and came back inbound. Almost as soon as we passed STENY (the final approach fix) inbound and had descended a few hundred feet, we were out of the clouds.
I continued the descent to 1000 and canceled IFR with McGuire. The runway was spread out before me and Gigi’s tires chirped their announcement back home. All told, it was about 2500 miles flying, 19.3 hours on the Hobbs meter and a ton of great memories.
Two down, two to go!
