"Wings" wrote in message ...

Some portions snipped.

Day 6 - North Platte to Tucumcari. This was a long flight with high
headwinds. Although the ground winds were not overly high, the winds
aloft over the entire western US were quite high. There was really
nowhere to go to avoid them. We resigned ourselves to slow trip and
planned for an extra fuel stop. After takeoff at North Platte, we
actually saw (briefly) a ground speed on the GPS of 31kts!! As we climbed
to 10,500 the speed improved to about 85kts - poor, but much better than
lower.

This is the situation I found ourselves in coming back from Canada last June except we could only manage 65 to 70
knots ground speed. Back in 1999 I had a similar experience coming home from Oshkosh in my 140. It is agonizing.

Tucumcari to Winslow - It was almost 100degrees here and the density
altitude was about 8100 feet. You need to be careful with performance in
these situations, especially in an underpowered airplane like ours.
Luckily the runway is over 7000 feet, so we knew we were ok for takeoff
distance. We took off and slowly climbed to 10,500.

The flight over the Rockies was slow, bumpy, and tiring. We landed in
Winslow about 4pm.

I feel that the high altitude plays a big role in this physical exhaustion. On the way up to Canada the winds were
favorable down low and unfavorable even at 5000 agl. So, we flew a long ways at lower than normal cruising altitudes
and had a wonderful view of the countryside. Forced high on the way home, we couldn't see much due to the haze and
altitude. The airplane just sipped the fuel so we flew very long legs. It was pretty miserable.

We refueled and made our final flight home to Camarillo in the dark. This
is weird when you're flying over mountains and it is pitch black. But we
had the interstate under us most of the way, so we knew where we would go
if we had had any problems.

It sounds like you guys made good rational decisions. I think hypxia may have started creeping up on me on the
Canada trip. I was beginning to second guess myself on some fuel stops and weather decisions. Especially on the leg
that we flew 5 hours on. We still had well over an hour of fuel when we landed, though. It took me a full night and
all the next day to recover. I did use the "look at the end of the finger" trick to try and gauge if I was becoming
O2 deprived and never noticed anything. I would really consider O2 and a pulse oximeter if I flew these missions
often. My age is probably beginning to play an important roll.


Conclusions:

- It's great to fly cross country. You learn a lot and gain confidence.
- A Cherokee 140 is not a great plane for this.
- It's wonderful that we have the freedom to experience something like
this
- Gas ranged from $3.67/gal to almost $5.00/gal
- Jay has a really nice hotel. He's as nice a guy as you would think from
his posts!

Tim Long

I concur with all the above. The 140 will work for leisurely cross countries. It is definitely not a high altitude
airplane and headwinds are its nemesis.

I'm not sure about Jay. I haven't met him in person. I've corresponded via e-mail a few times and we've tried to
set up a trip or two to stay at his place, but the trips fell apart due to work or other issues. I've been invited
to Oshkosh this year as one plane of a flight of two. We may crash the pre-Osh party. (I'll drink Coors Light just
to antagonize him). Or maybe we'll run in to Jay and some of the rest of you at Osh if we do go. Thanks for the
trip report!

Joe Schneider
N8437R



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