Woke up early, may have been the East facing window, checked the weather and there were storms covering the last 40 miles home but we could go most of the way and see. I continued my briefing routine and looked at NOTAMs, our fuel stop was closing the runway for the day. Since they only have one, this presented a small problem. Luckily I had already planned a backup so after checking that they did not have anything impeding our flight, I canceled my flight plans and refiled with the new stop.
We headed to the airport, packed up the plane and were on our way. The airport is very nice and used to have American flights to Chicago daily. They lost those flights, I was told due to the pilot shortage but could not confirm. Now they only have 2 flights a week to Orlando. Great if all you do is take the kids on vacation but a problem for business travelers or anyone else that has other travel plans. The closest airports with service to other hubs are about an hour and a half drive. Will be interesting to see the long term impact of these changes on places like Dubuque.
The air was smooth but very hazy. Up at 9000 we could see only about 10 miles out, it doesn’t make for a pretty flight. It was a straight shot down to our fuel stop and we had mostly no wind or a few knots on the tail. After crossing Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky we landed East of Nashville at Warren County Memorial (RNC).
The staff was out to meet us and help us refuel. It’s a nice stop with good facilities but we made a quick turn and once the plane’s tanks were full and ours were empty, we fired up for the last leg home. The next leg took us over the mountains, East of Atlanta and then straight home.
I had filed the airway around Atlanta and received my clearance as filed. Over Athens Georgia we received a slight re route to avoid military airspace that was in use. This added 1 minute so it was not a problem. We had been watching the storms all the way down, and we get an updated picture every few minutes. It had been dissipating and moving South as predicted. The weather had also improved and it looked like we could forgo an instrument approach. Checking in with approach, we were told to expect the ILS but that most were picking up the visual.
Passing JAX, we broke out around 3500 and though it was hazy, I picked up the field and we got the visual to 5. The wind was 10-20 knots but down the runway for a change and we had a smooth arrival home. We soon had the plane unloaded and back in the hangar, it had been pouring and the evidence was on the hangar floor, it had flooded a bit.
The trip covered 5 states, in 11 days. We flew about 2350 nautical miles with 13.9 hours in the air which was an average speed of 169 knots. That seems pretty slow considering our 185 knot cruise but in reality each departure and arrival adds extra miles and must be done at a much reduced speed which cuts into the average. We climb at 125 and descend at 195 so you never quite make up the speed you lose in the climb.
We also used a leisurely speed to fly to and from Mackinac Island and don’t forget that we had almost all headwinds, a good 10 knots was lost to fighting the wind. On our flight home from DC we averaged 191 knots even with the addition of the instrument approach but the winds were exceptionally good.
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