Houston to Laramie - A pilot's view.
Hooks Ground, Seven Juliet Alpha runup complete, ready for departure.
Seven Juliet Alpha, roger. Taxi to and hold short of One Seven
Left Approach and contact Tower on 118.4.
Hold Short 17L Approach, going to tower point four, Seven Juliet
Alpha.
Hooks Tower, Seven Juliet Alpha ready to go, holding short 17L
Approach.
Seven Juliet Alpha, cleared for takeoff 17 Right at Echo.
Cleared for takeoff, 17 Right at Echo, Seven Juliet Alpha.
I taxied onto the runway, centered the aircraft, and increased the throttle to the stop. Ease back at 44 knots, climb at 58 knots. Positive rate of climb, flaps up. Turn to the right, 90 degrees, and again to head north west, bound for Laramie, Wyoming, over 900 miles away.
The weather had been very bad in Houston for weeks, with almost continuous rain and storms, and I was very close to cancelling the trip to Laramie for Chris and Andy's wedding, and buying a commercial airline ticket for the trip. However, I thought I'd see if I could sneak out of Houston around the storms, as the weather promised to be fine once I reached the Dallas area, only a couple of hundred miles to the north.
I climbed up to escape the lowest clouds at 2,000 feet, and then wound my way around the biggest storms, but had a fair bit of rain to deal with. I was consious also of the Prohibited area, P-49 that is over Bush's ranch at Crawford, TX, as I was not cleared to overfly that. The weather pushed me to within several miles of the place however!
I flew over Waco, and Lake Whitney and fuel consumption placed me within reach of my first stopping point at Wichita Falls' Kickapoo Downtown Airport. What a great name! I dived under a low bank of stormy weather, and then came out into the sun, the first I'd seen in weeks! I entered on the left downwind keeping a sharp lookout for the jets training at the Shepherd Airforce Base, and landed on runway 17.
Whilst my aircraft was being refuelled, (279 nautical miles down), I checked the weather and called for a briefing of the hazards that would lay along my route to the next planned stop of Liberal, Kansas. Duly appraised of weather issues (very scattered storms a fair way from my intended route and no flight restrictions), I climbed back in the Diamond DA-20 and took off once more.
I climbed up to 6,500 feet, and headed northwest once more, leaving Texas for Oklahoma for the first time. I was heading into an area with a fair bit of military traffic, so thought I would call the local approach control for a bit of help in looking for other traffic that may affect me.
Altus Approach, Diamond Three Nine Seven Juliet Alpha with request.
Diamond Seven Juliet Alpha, go ahead.
Altus Approach, Diamond Seven Juliet Alpha is a DA-20 with Uniform at
6,500 feet 16 miles southeast of Altus, northwest bound for Lima Bravo Lima,
request flight following, traffic and workload permitting.
Diamond Seven Juliet Alpha, Roger. Squawk 5253.
Once I'd been identidied by the Squawk Code on their radar, I flew through the Altus Terminal Radar Service Area, and was handed off to Kansas City Center. As it was Friday evening, there was little traffic in the skies, so I had a pretty uneventful journey with no advisories from air traffic control. The weather was calm, with blue skies, and just the hot sun beating down on the aircraft, a mere dot above the Oklahoma, North Texas, Oklahoma again and finally Kansas plains. I flew over rivers, Interstate highways and county roads with trucks all but invisible but for the plumes of dust thrown up behind them. There were scattered ranches, and grain silos that would catch briefly in the sun as I zipped over with a groundspeed of anything up to 148 knots (170 mph), thanks to a nice tailwind from the south.
By 7pm I was approaching Liberal, Kansas, and made a great approach to landing on runway 17. I headed inside, once again called the briefer for weather, checked the radar and decided to call it a night as my next planned stop, Longmont at the foot of the Rockies was another 2 or so hours away and wouldn't be reachable in daylight. Whilst I am happy flying at night, I decided that mountains, dark and an unfamilar airport may not be the best combination.
I secured the aircraft for the night on the Kansas Plains, and was collected from the airport by a local motel, and taken downtown for the night, installed myself in a basic but comfortable room and pretty much just hit the sack. I'd spent the day at work, and the late afternoon and evening flying over 500 miles from Houston - all in all an action packed day.
I woke early in the morning, and was back at the airport by 8am and in the air by 8:30am, resuming my north-westerly progress towards Wyoming. The ground over which I was flying, although flat, had risen to over 3000' elevation, so I was flying higher as a result. Gradually, on the horizon, I began to make out a hazy image of higher ground - my first glimpse of the rockies. So quickly that it was a shock, the plains and ranchland gave way to towns and suburbs of Denver, and I once more had to content with busy airspace, restrictions and locating a safe routing under the Denver airspace for my landing at Longmont. I took a wide circle approach to landing due to the skydiving activity over the airport, and placed my plane down at 9:45am local time (I had gained an hour due to time zone changes).
The Rocky mountains reared up from the Colorado Plains above the airport providing a fantastic backdrop to the busy skydiving and small aircraft flying in and out. The Sun was hot, over 33 C at the plane, giving me a bit of sunburn whilst waiting for freinds to drop by - they'd spent the night in Longmont. It was fun to show everyone around the plane - it always causes comment as the Diamond is so small - just a two seater - but has a surprising number of interesting buttons to play with, and good performance to boot, something I was glad of when it came time to take off from a high airport in the middle of the hot Colorado day.
Takeoff time came, and I waggled my wings as I departed on the final leg of the journey to Laramie, now only 75 miles away. The hot sun had caused storms to begin building over the mountains, so I bounced through the rising air, gaining the necessary altitude to safely get me over the mountains and into the Laramie basin. The airport came into sight, and I overflew the field to remind myself of its layout, and landed on Runway 3, and taxied to the ramp for the final engine shutdown. I had arrived. 803 nautical miles direct, a little further thanks to storm avoidance, but I was there, over 7,000 feet higher then I had been when taking off from Houston.
posted by Sam @ 00:22
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