My trip report from Seattle to Rochester NY

[long post]

I'm reposting a 3-part trip report originally sent to the Grumman
owner's mailing list:

Day 1:

I'm sitting in a hotel room at Glasgow, Montana, after about 6 hours in
my Grumman Traveler. It's hard to believe that it was merely this
morning when I left my house at Seattle and embarked on my across the
country to upstate NY.

My planned the route is a northern route, crossing the Rockies at far
north. Originally I planned to fly directly from Paine (PAE) to Cut
Bank, MT. However the forecasted (but never realized) headwind caused
me to make a fuel stop at Sand point (SZT), Idaho to refuel before
crossing the Rockies at Glacier National Park. This was my first time
crossing the Rockies and I guess I was extra cautious of carrying
enough fuel, just in case the fuel isn't available after a long flight
all the way to Cut Bank!

The Rockies crossing from Kalispell (GPI) to Cut Bank is probably the
easiest, shortest, and lowest crossing north of Denver and south of
Canada. It took me less than 30 minutes following the roads from
Kalispell to the east side of the Rockies. (see
http://www.runwayfinder.com/?x=-113....878452064&z=9).
The view of the continental divide is at the Glacier National Park is
breathtaking. After making the turn toward east at Marias pass, the
vast span of Montana high plains stretches as far as I could see in my
wind screen.

The Cut Bank Municipal airport is something that belongs to a bygone
era. Nobody was there and all the doors were open when I arrived. Self
serve fuel price was very reasonable. There are two clean, spartanly
decorated rooms with clean beds, towels, and hot shower. Letting
imagination run wild, one could almost see an airmail pilot taking a
nap there waiting out a storm over the Rockies. There are two
courtesy cars with keys on the sign-out pad. There is also a room full
of WW2 artifacts, apparently from the airport's history as a WW2 bomber
base.

From Cut Bank to Glasgow (GGW), it was all flat plains. Having lived
in the west for the last 8 years I almost forgot how flat the east side
country is! Arriving at Glasgow I fueled up, tied down the plane, and
called it a day, but not before the nice folks at Prairie Aviation lent
me their courtesy car. There were clean bunk beds at Prairie Aviation.
But the allure of a hot shower and high speed Internet at a hotel was
too hard to resist. I'm a geek on his dream vacation. I'll be forever
grateful of my wife and my 1 year old daughter letting me do this by
myself.

To see my planned route, see http://www.chouby.com/apps/xc.html

----

Day 2:

Today is the second day of Seattle to Rochester NY flying trip, in my
'75 Grumman Traveler. Yesterday I made as far as Glasgow, Montana.
This morning I got up 5am Mountain time, and managed to take off before
7am MDT heading towards Thief River Falls, MN
(http://www.airnav.com/airport/KTVF).

About a month and half before this trip I flew to Independence, OR and
had Cliff do the aileron inspection. Cliff gave me his old-timer's
advice: when crossing the country, get up early and take off first
thing in the morning, and wrap up a day's flying by early afternoon.
This is so true. My second leg yesterday started about 2pm mountain
time, and it was bumpy all the way. Taking off from Glasgow this
morning it was smooth as silk, as I ventured my way towards Minnesota.

Right before I left Glasgow I saw a lady at the Bigsky Airline counter,
ready to open. Believe it or not Glasgow actually has twice daily
airline service, with the FBO building double as the airline terminal.
For someone who's used to the scenes of mega airline hubs such as SFO
or Newark, it would take a leap of imagination to visualize what it's
like to have the airline terminal here. The passenger waiting area is
essentially the pilot briefing room, with a few chairs and a big table.

Being curious about the bunkbeds at the Prairie Aviation I took a peek
at the sleeping room. Expecting to see no-one there I was surprised to
see a small boy sleeping on the carpet on top of some blankets. I was
quite certain that he was the son of the lady opening up the airline
counter at 6am in the morning. Having been a parent myself for the
last year and half I could really appreciate the hard work of a parent,
particular the hard work of a hard-working parent.

There's little I could say about the scenery at this part of the
country from eastern Montana to Minnesota, because it's flat
everywhere. What strikes me was how vast the flatness is. Hundreds of
hundreds of miles as far as my eyes could see. The Glasgow to Thief
River Falls was the longest leg of my entire planned trip, 417 nautical
miles direct in great circle route. Thanks to GPS I never strayed more
than 1/4 of mile off course the entire way, hand flying (no autopilot).
It took almost 3 1/2 hour to get there. That's about as much as I
would do in a standard range tank AA5. My morning tea at McDonald's
didn't help my bladder endurance either. I ran for the bathroom after
landing at TVF.

Thief River Falls airport was deserted. The self serve fuel printed no
receipt, but I saw the price posted on a board at the terminal (3.89
for 100LL). There's also an airline terminal cohabiting with the FBO.
Unlike Glasgow the airline terminal at TVF was like a miniature version
of Minneapolis, with Giant Northwest Airline logo complete with
security gates, TSA warnings and baggage claim area. A general
aviation pilot however, can walk right though the unlocked fence to his
plane, taking water bottles, lip balm, and leatherman tool with him -
no questions asked!

The second leg of the day was to Ford/Iron Mountain Michigan. My
approximate great circle route to the northeast finally took a dip to
the southeast, leading me below 47 degree latitude the first time since
I left Seattle. The 357 nautical mile leg took me over some most rural
areas in the country, over the lakes and forests of northern Minnesota
and Wisconsin. From 11,500 feet the landscape was dark green forest
scattered with thousands of small lakes, and a few big ones. About 15
mile east of Superior Wisconsin I crossed the west-most tip of Lake
Superior, which is only about 10 mile wide at that point. That was my
first time seeing Lake Superior.

I stopped at Ford Iron Mountain airport at Iron Mountain, Michigan and
met Chad Kubick, the owner of Kubick Aviation. If you read the
comments on Airnav about IMT airport you will know that Chad is giving
the other FBO some needed competition at that airfield. Again, the
self serve fuel price was probably the lowest in the country. I was
very pleasantly surprised by the availability of a courtesy car. These
midwest airports and FBOs are truely the gems of the general aviation
industry.

I'm sitting in a Day's Inn writing this email. The hotel is
recommended by Chad and owned by a pilot, and the owner sure has
decorations in the lobby to prove it. I'm almost 3/4 of the ways to
Rochester NY now. My trip so far has been nothing but joy and pleasant
memories.

---

Day 3:

It has become a routine for me, getting up at 5am, eating breakfast at
McDonald's, and heading to the airport for a day of flying. The
location this morning was Iron Mountain/Ford Michigan. I checked the
weather on my laptop using the free wireless Internet in the hotel.
There was patchy fog along my route, including my departure airport. I
filed an IFR flight plan and went into the shower. By the time I got
to the airport the fog has lifted there, and I departed VFR.

The center frequency was busy this morning mostly for people trying to
get into airports that are fogged in, but could open up at any time. I
on the other hand was droning along in clear smooth air at 7500 feet
soaking in the scenery of Lake Michigan. My route took me along the
northern shore of Lake Michigan, before heading southeast towards Port
Huron, Michigan along the lower peninsula. With Minneapolis center's
permission I overflew a non-active restrictive area R4201A/B. From
7500 feet it looked like some sort of military test site. I found it
interesting to see this kind of place in the middle of Michigan.

Approach Port Huron I was above a scattered to broken layer, and I
could see signs of approaching weather system in the distance. At 25
miles out the layer got quite solid and I was about to pull out the
approach chart and get an IFR clearance, when I heard the Port Huron
weather reporting 900 scattered. I didn't hear the approach controller
saying the usual "weather blah blah blah, say intentions" either. 5
miles out I saw a clearing right above that airport area. I dropped
down and landed VFR.

At Port Huron airport I met a group of 6 pilots in two airplanes coming
back from a fishing trip. They were kind of stuck there because the
way they were heading, Buffalo, was reporting 500 overcast and 10 mile
visibility. There was one instrument rated pilot among the 6 who's a
767 captain flying for a major airline. He told me that he hadn't
flown IFR in a small plane for many years. He was in the "where the
heck is my dispatcher" mode, and he needed to get back to work the
second day. I guess airline IFR flying is a completely different
ballgame with dispatchers, co-pilots, and equipments that can take you
above most of the weather 30 minutes after takeoff, with your hands off
the yoke and on the autopilot knobs. I let him copy my approach charts
using a copy machine and showed him the low altitude IFR routes DUATs
spit out to the Buffalo area, the same direction that I was going.
Fortunately the forecast said the weather over western NY would improve
a bit in the afternoon.

My original plan was to stop at Buffalo Lancaster airport (BQR) to take
advantage of the fuel price there, and I only bought enough fuel at
Port Huron to give me an hour reserve after Buffalo. For this plan to
work I would need to at least shoot an instrument approach at Buffalo
international and proceed VFR to BQR, which required a 1500 ceiling.
It was only noon and I thought I had plenty of time. I was eating
lunch and checking the weather every once a while, when I habitually
checked a radar imagery page.

Unexpected to me the weather system at Ohio had advanced. Along my
route at the northern shore of Lake Erie a band of shower emerged, a
clear sign of approaching weather system. I no longer had the luxury
of time. If I didn't take advantage of the 500 overcast/7+ mile
visibility at Buffalo/Rochester area right awayI might be stuck at Port
Huron, or face the choice of flying through a front in a light plane.
I immediately ask the FBO to fill up my tanks. I filed an IFR flight
plan to Canandaigua (D38, near Rochester) with a 15 minute departure,
and Rochester International as alternate.

My IFR flight to Canandaigua, NY was peaceful and between the layers at
7000. Nobody else was along my route. I put in a PIREP about the
layers in case the airline captain was going to follow me along the
same route to Buffalo in that Cessna 180. My plan was to give a shot
at Canandaigua (my final destination), and shoot an ILS at Rochester if
Canandaigua didn't work out. 500 overcast with 7 mile visibility was
rock solid ILS weather. At the very least I carried enough fuel to
keep heading east to VFR conditions.

Crossing Buffalo VOR at 7000 feet Canandaigua was reporting above IFR
approach minimum weather. 20 miles later I dropped into the clouds and
started the long VOR-A approach, breaking out the clouds in reasonable
visibility about 2 miles from the runway. Rochester approach was very
helpful throughout the entire thing, and I helped them out by canceling
IFR in the air to free up their airspace. While I was on the approach
I overheard a Citation declaring minimum fuel in a holding pattern
trying to get into a nearby airport, because the flight in front of him
hadn't yet cancel after landing in apparently reasonable weather there.

I was finally here, on the ground at Canandaigua, NY, after 2,050
nautical miles of flying all the way from Seattle. Among all the
flying trips I've done, this whole trip could easily be ranked at the
very top.

http://www.chouby.com/apps/xc.html

M wrote:

I'm reposting a 3-part trip report originally sent to the Grumman
owner's mailing list:

Wow, what a trip! Do you have any pictures of it? I'd love to see what
that route looked like from the air.

Also, I didn't see it in your post, but how did you return home, or have
you yet to do so?


--
Peter

There will be pictures. I'm still at Rochester, planning to start my
way back tomorrow morning. I'll ride the tailwind generated from the
Hurricane Ernesto to Michigan (most likely back to Iron Mountain) on
day one, and then I need to manage to cross a cold front somewhere in
Wisconsin Saturday morning. Stay tuned!


Peter R. wrote:
M wrote:

I'm reposting a 3-part trip report originally sent to the Grumman
owner's mailing list:

Wow, what a trip! Do you have any pictures of it? I'd love to see what
that route looked like from the air.

Also, I didn't see it in your post, but how did you return home, or have
you yet to do so?


--
Peter

There will be pictures. I'm still at Rochester NY and I'll be starting
my way back tomorrow morning. First riding the tailwind generated from
Hurricane Ernesto to Michigan (most likely Iron Mountain) tomorrow. On
Saturday I will need to cross a cold front somewhere in northern
Wisconsin. Stay tuned!


Peter R. wrote:
M wrote:

I'm reposting a 3-part trip report originally sent to the Grumman
owner's mailing list:

Wow, what a trip! Do you have any pictures of it? I'd love to see what
that route looked like from the air.

Also, I didn't see it in your post, but how did you return home, or have
you yet to do so?


--
Peter

Michael Wei wrote:

There will be pictures. I'm still at Rochester, planning to start my
way back tomorrow morning. I'll ride the tailwind generated from the
Hurricane Ernesto to Michigan (most likely back to Iron Mountain) on
day one, and then I need to manage to cross a cold front somewhere in
Wisconsin Saturday morning. Stay tuned!

Fly safe and post this pictures the minute after you give your wife and
daughter a big hug! :-)

--
Peter

Heck keep coming east to Boston.

We'll put you up for the weekend and you can head back next week. Then it
will be a true cross-country.

Bill Snow


"M" wrote in message
ps.com...
[long post]

I'm reposting a 3-part trip report originally sent to the Grumman
owner's mailing list:

Day 1:

I'm sitting in a hotel room at Glasgow, Montana, after about 6 hours in
my Grumman Traveler. It's hard to believe that it was merely this
morning when I left my house at Seattle and embarked on my across the
country to upstate NY.

My planned the route is a northern route, crossing the Rockies at far
north. Originally I planned to fly directly from Paine (PAE) to Cut
Bank, MT. However the forecasted (but never realized) headwind caused
me to make a fuel stop at Sand point (SZT), Idaho to refuel before
crossing the Rockies at Glacier National Park. This was my first time
crossing the Rockies and I guess I was extra cautious of carrying
enough fuel, just in case the fuel isn't available after a long flight
all the way to Cut Bank!

The Rockies crossing from Kalispell (GPI) to Cut Bank is probably the
easiest, shortest, and lowest crossing north of Denver and south of
Canada. It took me less than 30 minutes following the roads from
Kalispell to the east side of the Rockies. (see
http://www.runwayfinder.com/?x=-113....878452064&z=9).
The view of the continental divide is at the Glacier National Park is
breathtaking. After making the turn toward east at Marias pass, the
vast span of Montana high plains stretches as far as I could see in my
wind screen.

The Cut Bank Municipal airport is something that belongs to a bygone
era. Nobody was there and all the doors were open when I arrived. Self
serve fuel price was very reasonable. There are two clean, spartanly
decorated rooms with clean beds, towels, and hot shower. Letting
imagination run wild, one could almost see an airmail pilot taking a
nap there waiting out a storm over the Rockies. There are two
courtesy cars with keys on the sign-out pad. There is also a room full
of WW2 artifacts, apparently from the airport's history as a WW2 bomber
base.

From Cut Bank to Glasgow (GGW), it was all flat plains. Having lived
in the west for the last 8 years I almost forgot how flat the east side
country is! Arriving at Glasgow I fueled up, tied down the plane, and
called it a day, but not before the nice folks at Prairie Aviation lent
me their courtesy car. There were clean bunk beds at Prairie Aviation.
But the allure of a hot shower and high speed Internet at a hotel was
too hard to resist. I'm a geek on his dream vacation. I'll be forever
grateful of my wife and my 1 year old daughter letting me do this by
myself.

To see my planned route, see http://www.chouby.com/apps/xc.html

----

Day 2:

Today is the second day of Seattle to Rochester NY flying trip, in my
'75 Grumman Traveler. Yesterday I made as far as Glasgow, Montana.
This morning I got up 5am Mountain time, and managed to take off before
7am MDT heading towards Thief River Falls, MN
(http://www.airnav.com/airport/KTVF).

About a month and half before this trip I flew to Independence, OR and
had Cliff do the aileron inspection. Cliff gave me his old-timer's
advice: when crossing the country, get up early and take off first
thing in the morning, and wrap up a day's flying by early afternoon.
This is so true. My second leg yesterday started about 2pm mountain
time, and it was bumpy all the way. Taking off from Glasgow this
morning it was smooth as silk, as I ventured my way towards Minnesota.

Right before I left Glasgow I saw a lady at the Bigsky Airline counter,
ready to open. Believe it or not Glasgow actually has twice daily
airline service, with the FBO building double as the airline terminal.
For someone who's used to the scenes of mega airline hubs such as SFO
or Newark, it would take a leap of imagination to visualize what it's
like to have the airline terminal here. The passenger waiting area is
essentially the pilot briefing room, with a few chairs and a big table.

Being curious about the bunkbeds at the Prairie Aviation I took a peek
at the sleeping room. Expecting to see no-one there I was surprised to
see a small boy sleeping on the carpet on top of some blankets. I was
quite certain that he was the son of the lady opening up the airline
counter at 6am in the morning. Having been a parent myself for the
last year and half I could really appreciate the hard work of a parent,
particular the hard work of a hard-working parent.

There's little I could say about the scenery at this part of the
country from eastern Montana to Minnesota, because it's flat
everywhere. What strikes me was how vast the flatness is. Hundreds of
hundreds of miles as far as my eyes could see. The Glasgow to Thief
River Falls was the longest leg of my entire planned trip, 417 nautical
miles direct in great circle route. Thanks to GPS I never strayed more
than 1/4 of mile off course the entire way, hand flying (no autopilot).
It took almost 3 1/2 hour to get there. That's about as much as I
would do in a standard range tank AA5. My morning tea at McDonald's
didn't help my bladder endurance either. I ran for the bathroom after
landing at TVF.

Thief River Falls airport was deserted. The self serve fuel printed no
receipt, but I saw the price posted on a board at the terminal (3.89
for 100LL). There's also an airline terminal cohabiting with the FBO.
Unlike Glasgow the airline terminal at TVF was like a miniature version
of Minneapolis, with Giant Northwest Airline logo complete with
security gates, TSA warnings and baggage claim area. A general
aviation pilot however, can walk right though the unlocked fence to his
plane, taking water bottles, lip balm, and leatherman tool with him -
no questions asked!

The second leg of the day was to Ford/Iron Mountain Michigan. My
approximate great circle route to the northeast finally took a dip to
the southeast, leading me below 47 degree latitude the first time since
I left Seattle. The 357 nautical mile leg took me over some most rural
areas in the country, over the lakes and forests of northern Minnesota
and Wisconsin. From 11,500 feet the landscape was dark green forest
scattered with thousands of small lakes, and a few big ones. About 15
mile east of Superior Wisconsin I crossed the west-most tip of Lake
Superior, which is only about 10 mile wide at that point. That was my
first time seeing Lake Superior.

I stopped at Ford Iron Mountain airport at Iron Mountain, Michigan and
met Chad Kubick, the owner of Kubick Aviation. If you read the
comments on Airnav about IMT airport you will know that Chad is giving
the other FBO some needed competition at that airfield. Again, the
self serve fuel price was probably the lowest in the country. I was
very pleasantly surprised by the availability of a courtesy car. These
midwest airports and FBOs are truely the gems of the general aviation
industry.

I'm sitting in a Day's Inn writing this email. The hotel is
recommended by Chad and owned by a pilot, and the owner sure has
decorations in the lobby to prove it. I'm almost 3/4 of the ways to
Rochester NY now. My trip so far has been nothing but joy and pleasant
memories.

---

Day 3:

It has become a routine for me, getting up at 5am, eating breakfast at
McDonald's, and heading to the airport for a day of flying. The
location this morning was Iron Mountain/Ford Michigan. I checked the
weather on my laptop using the free wireless Internet in the hotel.
There was patchy fog along my route, including my departure airport. I
filed an IFR flight plan and went into the shower. By the time I got
to the airport the fog has lifted there, and I departed VFR.

The center frequency was busy this morning mostly for people trying to
get into airports that are fogged in, but could open up at any time. I
on the other hand was droning along in clear smooth air at 7500 feet
soaking in the scenery of Lake Michigan. My route took me along the
northern shore of Lake Michigan, before heading southeast towards Port
Huron, Michigan along the lower peninsula. With Minneapolis center's
permission I overflew a non-active restrictive area R4201A/B. From
7500 feet it looked like some sort of military test site. I found it
interesting to see this kind of place in the middle of Michigan.

Approach Port Huron I was above a scattered to broken layer, and I
could see signs of approaching weather system in the distance. At 25
miles out the layer got quite solid and I was about to pull out the
approach chart and get an IFR clearance, when I heard the Port Huron
weather reporting 900 scattered. I didn't hear the approach controller
saying the usual "weather blah blah blah, say intentions" either. 5
miles out I saw a clearing right above that airport area. I dropped
down and landed VFR.

At Port Huron airport I met a group of 6 pilots in two airplanes coming
back from a fishing trip. They were kind of stuck there because the
way they were heading, Buffalo, was reporting 500 overcast and 10 mile
visibility. There was one instrument rated pilot among the 6 who's a
767 captain flying for a major airline. He told me that he hadn't
flown IFR in a small plane for many years. He was in the "where the
heck is my dispatcher" mode, and he needed to get back to work the
second day. I guess airline IFR flying is a completely different
ballgame with dispatchers, co-pilots, and equipments that can take you
above most of the weather 30 minutes after takeoff, with your hands off
the yoke and on the autopilot knobs. I let him copy my approach charts
using a copy machine and showed him the low altitude IFR routes DUATs
spit out to the Buffalo area, the same direction that I was going.
Fortunately the forecast said the weather over western NY would improve
a bit in the afternoon.

My original plan was to stop at Buffalo Lancaster airport (BQR) to take
advantage of the fuel price there, and I only bought enough fuel at
Port Huron to give me an hour reserve after Buffalo. For this plan to
work I would need to at least shoot an instrument approach at Buffalo
international and proceed VFR to BQR, which required a 1500 ceiling.
It was only noon and I thought I had plenty of time. I was eating
lunch and checking the weather every once a while, when I habitually
checked a radar imagery page.

Unexpected to me the weather system at Ohio had advanced. Along my
route at the northern shore of Lake Erie a band of shower emerged, a
clear sign of approaching weather system. I no longer had the luxury
of time. If I didn't take advantage of the 500 overcast/7+ mile
visibility at Buffalo/Rochester area right awayI might be stuck at Port
Huron, or face the choice of flying through a front in a light plane.
I immediately ask the FBO to fill up my tanks. I filed an IFR flight
plan to Canandaigua (D38, near Rochester) with a 15 minute departure,
and Rochester International as alternate.

My IFR flight to Canandaigua, NY was peaceful and between the layers at
7000. Nobody else was along my route. I put in a PIREP about the
layers in case the airline captain was going to follow me along the
same route to Buffalo in that Cessna 180. My plan was to give a shot
at Canandaigua (my final destination), and shoot an ILS at Rochester if
Canandaigua didn't work out. 500 overcast with 7 mile visibility was
rock solid ILS weather. At the very least I carried enough fuel to
keep heading east to VFR conditions.

Crossing Buffalo VOR at 7000 feet Canandaigua was reporting above IFR
approach minimum weather. 20 miles later I dropped into the clouds and
started the long VOR-A approach, breaking out the clouds in reasonable
visibility about 2 miles from the runway. Rochester approach was very
helpful throughout the entire thing, and I helped them out by canceling
IFR in the air to free up their airspace. While I was on the approach
I overheard a Citation declaring minimum fuel in a holding pattern
trying to get into a nearby airport, because the flight in front of him
hadn't yet cancel after landing in apparently reasonable weather there.

I was finally here, on the ground at Canandaigua, NY, after 2,050
nautical miles of flying all the way from Seattle. Among all the
flying trips I've done, this whole trip could easily be ranked at the
very top.

http://www.chouby.com/apps/xc.html