A great day in a Great State
September 29, 2010 by Jill W. TallmanThanks to my Twitter friend Nikolas Keramidas for the title of this blog, but it’s an apt observation. Yesterday our trip in the Fun to Fly Remos gave us good weather and a tailwind for the very first time. Launching out of Wichita, at 7,500 feet we saw 87 knots indicated airspeed, 119 knots over the ground, and true airspeeds of 101. (The Dynon avionics display all those for you, plus your winds-aloft speeds and the direction of the wind.)
Wind turbines in west Texas
A lunch/fuel stop put us in Gainesville, Texas, and we overnighted in Waco. This gave us a chance to catch up with our friend and former colleague, Claire Kultgen, who showed us the sights of her city and took us to a rocket-launching facility–I kid you not. More about that in a later post.
Today’s going to be a long day for the hearty crew of the good ship Fun to Fly. We hope to make Albuquerque by nightfall, and our planned route is Midland, Texas-Roswell, N.M.–Albuquerque. Wish us some more tailwinds!
Tags: Fun to Fly; Remos; LSA; light sport aircraft; Wichita; Kansas; Texas; Waco; New Mexico
September 29th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I’ve been enjoying your entries and wish you a very safe flight to California.
October 1st, 2010 at 6:08 am
Jill & Patrick,
It was a pleasure to meet and talk with you while you were at the LSA Expo at Mount Vernon, Illinois last Saturday. The Fun to Fly Remos is quite an aircraft. Looks like you and Patrick will make New Mexico in time for the Balloon Race in Albuquerque . I was surprised to learn about Patrick holding a balloon pilot certificate and his plans to acquire a new balloon. The AOPA Pilot magazine awaiting me on my return from Illinois had the balloon race as its cover article. How about that!
May all your winds be tail winds.
Mike
October 4th, 2010 at 10:24 am
Same to you, Mike. We did not make the Balloon Festival, but that’s OK–Patrick has another event for his personal aviation bucket list.
October 6th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
It is only too bad that the Dynon display didn’t also present an appropriate cruising altitude for the west bound flight. For example, 6,500 or 8,500 feet, rather than the 7,500 feet you say you used.
October 7th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
My apologies, Jill,
If I had taken the time to look at an aeronautical chart I would have seem that your flight course was indeed a bit easterly of south and, therefore, 7,500 feet was an appropriate altitude to fly.
Arthur (foot in the mouth) Krueger
October 8th, 2010 at 10:23 am
No worries, Arthur. I’m glad somebody’s reading the blog.