Yippee's North American Tour

Yippee38

Yippee38

Living the dream!
Oct 8, 2002
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Somewhere at 33,000'
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On Tuesday I flew from near Chicago to Springfield, IL. Coming back we had to dodge some rather nasty t-storms.

On Wednesday we left for Denver. It took us 7.5 hours to get there. On the way we stopped in a tiny little town in Iowa for fuel. We met a cool old guy there who worked at the airport (he was the only one there). The weather was great all the way out. We got to watch the sun set behind the mountains.

Friday we returned from Denver to near Chicago. We stopped in that same small town in Iowa and got to see the experimental plane that the old guy has just finished building. He was 78 when he started it. He's 80 now. It's a beautiful airplane, and fast as hell (it'd smoke our twin).

Saturday we flew to Cincinnati just to watch the Cubs romp on the Reds. I'm not a baseball fan, but it was fun anyway. We were in the air for about 5 hours.

Today we flew to Columbus to see the Gathering of Mustangs and Legends air show. We got there really late due to unexpected headwinds and rerouting by ATC (Air Traffic Control). We didn't get to meet any of the WWII pilots present, but we got to see a formation of about 30 P-51s fly over. It gave me goosebumps. Awesome sight, and even better sound. We were in the air about 6 hours.

I'm half way to my 100 hours of multi time. I'm also beat. Tomorrow we have to take the plane for a short hop to get the landing light fixed. Tuesday will be a short (about 4 hour) flight for lunch. We'll probably take Wed. off. then Thursday will be the flight down to ATL which will prolly take about 6 hours including a fuel stop.

I'm having a blast, building flight time, and seeing a lot of the country. Why the hell didn't I do this 20 years ago? (Answer: I couldn't afford to then.)
 
Here's a picture of the plane we're flying. This is in Iowa.
Seneca.jpg


Here's the guy who worked at the airport with his homebuilt airplane:
RV-7.jpg
 
Wow, awesome!

Did you get any pics or video of all those P-51s? That would have been indescribable to watch.

Your plane looks cool....but not quite big enough for the return journey, to accomodate all the passengers, luggage AND all the CDs and stuff you'll be buying at PPUSA! :lol:
 
Pellaz said:
Did you get any pics or video of all those P-51s? That would have been indescribable to watch.
No. Didn't bring a camera.

Your plane looks cool....but not quite big enough for the return journey, to accomodate all the passengers, luggage AND all the CDs and stuff you'll be buying at PPUSA! :lol:
Click to expand...

Not a problem. It costs so damn much to fly that I don't have the money to buy any stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks to all who asked Yippee about our flight down. That was cool!

He is in Boston this weekend and will be flying by the Statue of Liberty on his way home tomorrow which should make for some super cool pictures. Makes for a sad and lonely wife though especially after all the wonderful social interaction all last week!

I think after this trip, he only has about 25 hours to go. I think he is still hoping to visit Minnesota and Texas, possibly Oregon, but not sure on that one. His uncle owns an airport there and he has some cool planes Yip may be able to get checked out in.
 
Had a crappy flight today. Actually, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't what was expected.

Me and a buddy flew down to Carbondale. I went to school there and did a bunch of my early flight training there. It's been 17 years since I was down there. So the flight down went great. We had a nice tailwind, so we made great time. We grabbed the crew car at the airport (a car they keep at airports for visiting pilots to use) and headed into town. We drove around the campus and up and down the strip. The bar I used to hang at is still there. It used to be a metal bar, but now it's a frat bar. We stopped and got pizza at a place we always used to go to. It was weird to eat pizza there and not have a pitcher of beer. hehe

We went back to the airport and jumped into the plane. We started up and taxied out to the runway. We did the runup and neither of the ammeters was showing any charge, which would indicate that the alternators had failed. Highly unlikely that both failed at the same time, but we couldn't get an indication no matter what tricks we tried. So we taxied back and shut it down.

We finally decided to fly it back VFR (visual flight rules) and just shut off all the electrical. I called the tower and told them about the situation. Then I called the tower at our home base and got instructions from them. So we fired up the engines and headed out. As soon as we got off the ground and got the gear up (electric pump raises them), we shut off the radios, the lights, and the master (electrical) switch. We had no GPS and no navigation radios, so I had to navigate home just by reference to the charts and what I saw on the ground. It's about a 250 mile flight, and I knew where I was the entire time. However, it sucked because with the electrical system turned off, the intercom didn't work. So in order to talk, we had to take off our headsets and yell at each other. We didn't talk much.

When we got close to our destination airport, we switched the electrical back on, called the tower, turned on the lights (it was getting dark) and landed. No problem.

It was interesting, and as such, kinda fun.
 
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