Pierre, SD to Rock Springs, WY -- 2:50, 27 gallons
Today was a totally uneventful day of flying. The weather along the entire route home was gorgeous, and the plane ran perfectly. Speaking of uneventful, the entire return trip from Boston all the way to Chino didn't suffer from a single issue, not even a minor one. I just put fuel and oil in, and the thing purred all the way home. Anyway, the radar and satellite views showed some clouds and moisture to the south of the Pierre area, but by the time we got off the ground -- a little before 7am -- weather was not a factor.
I took this shot as we left the Pierre area and headed toward Rapid City.
The whole way back, from the Boston area to SoCal, I never saw a groundspeed below 162 knots. We were typically doing in the low 170s. 200 knots or so going east, and 170 knots or so going west...can't complain about that. This is really an excellent, efficient cross-country machine.
When I decided on the radios that I was installing in my panel, I knew early on that the SL30 would be a hit. This radio really kicks butt. It's two COMs and two NAVs in one. And the combination of the GX60 and SL30 is pretty powerful. They talk back and forth in a few different ways. Here's one example, where the SL30 is fed DST (distance/speed/time) data from the GPS via the serial interface. There's no DME installed in this plane, but the SL30 is happy to act like it with the help of the GPS.
And as far as that dual COM, dual NAV thing goes, here's an example of what I'm talking about. This is the NAV mode...112.30 is the active frequency, and we're on the 073 radial from the station. Click the NAV button again and it "monitors" the standby frequency (you can see "M" instead of "S" next to the standby freq). We were on the 253 radial from 108.40. This is pretty powerful functionality for shooting approaches, because if you're on an ILS and have cross radials as step-down fixes (very common), you don't need a second radio, and you don't need to flip flop back and forth. You get two stations tuned in on one radio. The SL30 does the same sort of thing with it's COM monitoring functionality. So does the GX60...so I have four COMs and two NAVs with two radios. Plus an IFR approach certified GPS. Everybody blindly installs their GNS-430, thinking it's the coolest radio because of its "pretty screen." If you want a pretty screen, get an ipaq for 1/5 the price! Do the research. You'll find that you get much more bang for your buck with a GX60/SL30 combo than you would with a GNS-430. Too bad Garmin stopped making the GX60 when they swallowed UPSAT...
Avionics. My pride and joy is right here...the ACS2002. I'm a fanatic about lowering workload and being able to visualize the state of the machine. This puppy kicks butt. Unrelated note...notice how down the elevator trim is. I probably mentioned it before, but the RV-7 flies *very* differently when you stuff a ton of weight in back!
Getting into Wyoming, the terrain changed back from flat to slightly less flat and slightly more interesting...
Almost fractal.
Gotta get some shots with pieces of airframe in the field of view...otherwise who would believe me that I flew this hunk of junk across the continent and back?
Rock Springs, Wyoming ended up being our first stop of the day, after a little less than three hours of flying from Pierre. There was a "line" of people waiting for the fuel truck to top their planes off, and while we waited, we did the usual -- answer all the questions of all the people who came over to check the plane out. One couple came by and said they were probably going to build an RV-7 soon. It's an epidemic.
Rock Springs, WY to Las Vegas, NV -- 2:40, 24 gallons
From Rock Springs we flew pretty much the exact reverse of the route we had flown a couple of weeks prior. We headed toward Ft. Bridger, down over Provo, and then pretty much direct to Chino. The terrain in northern Utah was gorgeous.
These photos were taken coming into the Provo area. We were cruising up at 10,500', which was plenty of height to clear the terrain. It went from green to snow pretty quickly.
I love the contrast of these hills. These photos don't do it justice.
Here's one looking over at the Provo area.
I had it leaned out nicely, and we were making good time. We would have had no problem making it all the way to Chino in one leg from Rock Springs, but Jen's bladder and the fuel supply were not in sync today. We had climbed up to 12,500' after encountering some light turbulence in southern Utah, but it wasn't smooth there either. Continuous light chop to light turbulence the whole way. And jostling a woman's bladder around...well, you know the drill. Las Vegas seemed like a good place to stop. We landed at North Las Vegas.
Las Vegas, NV to Chino, CA -- 0:50, 9 gallons
Other than the Las Vegas controllers being total bastards and not clearing us into the Class B on our climbout, this flight was uneventful. I was pretty pissed when I got a "remain clear of Class Bravo" response. I'll never understand the whim involved in these decisions. I know...it's not whim, but when I'm basically just skimming the outskirts of the "cone" on my way the hell out of the area, why they can't just accommodate me I don't understand. So I stayed low and got thrashed around in the hot bumps for a few minutes while we skirted out from under the Class Biatch airspace.
About 45 minutes later, we were home. We unloaded the plane, got everything into the truck, and drove home. At noon, we walked in the door. You can't really beat that -- leave South Dakota around 7am and step into your house at noon. Ok, there's a two-hour time difference in our favor, but it's still the way to go.
This trip was definitely the adventure and experience that I had been looking forward to all this time. I learned a tremendous amount about the plane, and I gained much more confidence in it despite the little issues we encountered.
Being able to make this trip in 14D has probably been more rewarding than anything else I've ever done. What's funny is that this has been "the goal" all this time. Now it's done. What's next? To be honest, I don't really have much desire to "top this" or anything like that. I'm just thrilled to have finally done it...to have accomplished the main goal with very little trouble. Now I can just enjoy the heck out of this plane, flying locally, taking long trips, whatever.
As far as Oshkosh goes...that's what everybody asks me about...nope, I'm not planning on going. This coast-to-coast trip was where the entire summer travel budget went. And to be honest, this was far more enjoyable than I think Oshkosh would be. I'd rather do these things with Jen and see how happy it makes her, rather than drag her to an airshow she doesn't care about, or rather than going without her. Someday I'll fly this RV-7 to Oshkosh with the SoCal crew, and I'm sure it'll be a blast. Just not this year.
I do, however, have every intention of heading to Las Cruces, and probably Copperstate. Those "little" trips will be nothing compared to what we just did!