John & Anne Wiley

2009/10/04

Fun Thursday = Late Friday

Filed under: Aviation,Big Adventure,Flying,SB Region — John @ 02:11

We played hooky from packing Thursday to partake of SB treats. We had SB Zoo passes about to expire, so in one sweet hour we saw a diverse array of animals with a relaxed stroll in that took just an hour (details & pix in my EdHat post). Then we rambled an especially lively First Thursday on upper State, where we had several friends involved. We paid the price on Friday by leaving late, but it was worth it. We saw a few more SB treats from the air leaving town (words & pix in the above-mentioned EdHat post). We managed to get a route into San Diego that gave us a distant view of the Miramar Air Show, with two aerobatic jet teams parked amid acres of other fun flying stuff.

2009/10/02

Heavy Boating

Filed under: Aviation,Big Adventure — John @ 09:47

We’ve weighed everything with tally in a spreadsheet, and are about 75 pounds below maximum weight with full fuel. Alas, that doesn’t include the 40# kayak. It’s pretty amazing what it does include though! We’ve bagged it all into about a dozen bags of various sizes, and will weigh it all again tomorrow in groups of about 40# to get a more accurate reading from our digital bathroom scale. I’m confident we’ll be at or below our current total that’s rounded up from weighing things in the assorted 4# to 20# bags. So the good news is, when we arrive at Santa Fe with about half fuel we’ll be about 200# below max. weight. Now we get to distribute the weight for best flight handling, and find ways to lash it all down. Looks like we’ll have plenty of space for everything. We figure there will be some things we forgot, and can buy in San Diego. Other things we’ll get along the way can be offset by mailing home anything we’re not using. Plus we won’t be doing any high altitude flying after Santa Fe, so it’s ok to eat up a little of that 75# reserve later in the Adventure.

2009/10/01

NYC

Filed under: Aviation,Big Adventure — John @ 06:03
Update 12/02/2009: This post is part of the story about our flight across the U.S., and to start at the beginning you can click here.

A friend gave us feedback tonight about our plan to land at Linden airport (NJ I think), cross the bridge to Staten Island and take the ferry to Manhattan. She was concerned about that area from her experience several years ago, claiming that Jimmy Hoffa is buried there and fearing we might join him. Anyone have opinions or info? Looks like another option might be Teterbobo (just east of Passaic), but that’s a bigger airport and probably has hefty fees. Still, might be cheap “insurance” to land there and take a bus or whatever transit is there. Comments?

2009/09/30

Fast Start

Filed under: Big Adventure,SB Region — John @ 17:24

We discovered yesterday that the Carp Avo Fest is starting this weekend, and that the Miramar Air Show (!!!) is on during our days in San Diego. So here and on our Photos link you’ll probably see our low-flying pix of Carp crowds converging, and breathless posts with breathtaking pix of low-flying jets. What a fast start to this trip! Now if only we can get the bike sorted out in our brief remaining time…

Charts Aplenty

Filed under: Aviation,Big Adventure — John @ 08:25

The aeronautical charts for our trip arrived today. Wow. Plenty to look at, especially for NYC and DC. Lots more studying to do before we decide whether to venture close to those airspaces. We’ll also make a similar decision about Chicago on the way east. Did a lot of shopping today too, but somehow the lists keep getting longer instead of shorter! Also found out today about a couple of fun things right at the start of the trip. More tomorrow.

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