Trip to Sacramento and Back

[jabodine]

My wife and just got back from a trip to the Sacramento area and back in our relatively new to us Mooney.

Flew from Butte, Mt. to Lincoln, Ca. Friday last and returned Sunday. What a great experience. The environmental catastrophe of the forest fires is very evident. We were in essentially IMC conditions a majority of the way; worse on the return on Sunday. It makes you wonder how many millions of trees had to burn to fill the air for hundreds of miles from ground level to 15,000 MSL with enough smoke and particulate to create essentially IMC conditions over this area.

Nonetheless the trip and flight in our Mooney was great. The Lincoln airport was superb. There were new hangars to rent for very reasonable prices per night. We were treated quite well by both Dave at the FBO and the airport manager. Flights both ways were instrument; all controllers, Salt Lake Center, NorCal Approach, Oakland Center as well as Twin Falls Approach could not have been nicer (no horror stories here). To a person all were appropriate, pleasant and very helpful. This was my first trip of any distance therefore I had no prior experience with controllers outside of Salt Lake; I will have no reluctance to repeat this trip or make any similar one in the future.

Best regards,

Jonathan Bodine

[Skybrd]

My wife and just got back from a trip to the Sacramento area and back in our relatively new to us Mooney.

Flew from Butte, Mt. to Lincoln, Ca. Friday last and returned Sunday. What a great experience. The environmental catastrophe of the forest fires is very evident. We were in essentially IMC conditions a majority of the way; worse on the return on Sunday. It makes you wonder how many millions of trees had to burn to fill the air for hundreds of miles from ground level to 15,000 MSL with enough smoke and particulate to create essentially IMC conditions over this area.

Nonetheless the trip and flight in our Mooney was great. The Lincoln airport was superb. There were new hangars to rent for very reasonable prices per night. We were treated quite well by both Dave at the FBO and the airport manager. Flights both ways were instrument; all controllers, Salt Lake Center, NorCal Approach, Oakland Center as well as Twin Falls Approach could not have been nicer (no horror stories here). To a person all were appropriate, pleasant and very helpful. This was my first trip of any distance therefore I had no prior experience with controllers outside of Salt Lake; I will have no reluctance to repeat this trip or make any similar one in the future.

Best regards,

Jonathan Bodine

Jonathan, Sounds like a adventurous trip. We've had lots of smoke and poor visibility at Columbia and Calaveras KCPU airports. I've flown a number of flights out of Calaveras and its like flying in LA smog conditions. I used to live in Great Falls Montana and one of these days hope to visit there. Glad things worked out well for you.

[Dave Marten]

Jonathan,

Congrats on a successful trip! Your Mooney is a superb traveling machine...enjoy it!

[jabodine]

Oh, and thanks to all who gave me advice beforehand (Mooneygirl, 47U, Thinwing). Your insights and advice were right on.

Best regards,

Jonathan Bodine

[thinwing]

Sunday we passed like ships in the dark....we flew ifr outbound at 15k and encountered light rime over Salmon vortac...two pretty good cells painting yellow on either side and we passed between in moderate rain that froze on contact...FIKI tks handeled no prob and only 10 min or so...than IFR descent over Bozeman to Livingston.Sunday return was Polson to Ksac direct ,vfr at 10500 due to forcast headwinds...vis dropped to 3miles over Susanville from the fires,but very smooth and only a 10 to 12 kt headwind...one thing I noticed this trip was all the radar outages..Baker city to Boise...salmon to dillon...etc...what gives??