I had planned for today to be a long day - if I left early in the morning around 8 or so, I had hopes of getting into New Mexico by sundown. I got up to look outside at 8 and it was cloudy and snowing and +1C, so I went back to sleep. When I looked again at 10, it was sunny and -6C. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. No waiting for airport shuttles today - with the courtesy car, I was at the airport 10 minutes after I was packed at the hotel.
The hangar was probably a good idea - if not for Cleo then for me. I was able to preflight in cool and calm as opposed to below freezing and windy. I took off into a 15 knot headwind, and - for all you pilots out there - when was the last time you saw a single-engine piston aircraft do a 1500 fpm climb at 90 kts airspeed?
Leaving Indiana and through Illinois was fairly mundane. Lots of fields to choose from should the need for an emergency landing present itself. One thing I wondered about was why some fields appeared to collect more frost/snow than others. Did it depend on how the field had been plowed, or what was left in the field? And if I did need to make an emergency landing in a field, do I pick a white or yellow one? Perhaps someone who's more familiar with winter in the Midwest can answer...
There was a scattered bunch of clouds at my altitude that I got up pop in and out of. Approaching St. Louis, air traffic control wanted to send me in a wide arc around the city to avoid jet traffic. I asked whether I'd be able to take a track over the Gateway Arch at some different altitude, and the nice controller obliged by sending me over the city at 2000'. I mentioned it was roughly the halfway point of my long journey, which was of enough interest that the controller asked a few followup questions (like how long it was going to take, of course).
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| Over Illinois | The Gateway Arch |
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For once, I actually picked up some tailwinds, which blew me into Springfield, MO to feed both myself and Cleo. The FBO didn't have any real food, so one of the linemen drove me over to the commercial terminal where the restaurant was. I got to go through that special door for authorized personnel only. No security screening required.
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| The Door (Springfield, MO) | Snowlined fields, nr. Oklahoma City |
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Back in the air, it was more farmland passing Tulsa and Oklahoma City. The sun had gone down and the light mostly faded by the time I reached my stopping point for the day - Borger, TX. I had a brief moment of concern when ATC couldn't hear my radio calls about the same time I smelled something vaguely like burning plastic. The two were unrelated of course; I had probably descended too low for ATC to hear me, and Borger happened to be surrounded by refineries.
I'm not sure how many people stop at Borger. The guy at the FBO was really nice and helpful... and wouldn't stop being helpful about where to go and how to get there. After my courtesy car experience at Bloomington, I made sure to pick a place that offered the service. The car at Borger was no shiny Caddy - it was an old converted cop car with an engine that sounded like some kind of diesel monster pickup. The doors were creaky and the interior lighting didn't work... but it was free, and got me to my hotel quickly, so it served its purpose.
Dinner was Texas BBQ at a place called Old Sutphens. They had old newspaper front pages from the Pearl Harbor attack on the walls, which reminded me today was Pearl Harbor Day.