Taking my Mooney Cross Country

[Hank]

Take the training once, print the certificate, make a couple of copies. Put one in your logbook, one in the plane, one with your medical. It'll be there if you're ever asked, whether you remember the training or not. Fly IFR, it shouldn't be a problem unless you want to stop inside the Zone. I prefer to avoid the whole mess.

[StinkBug]

Since I live on the opposite side of the country, will likely never fly through there again recreationally, and have no reason do do so on this trip I'll just avoid the whole mess. 

[carl]

About that 60 mile ring.

 

you need the sfra training but you dont need to talk to any body or have a mode c,

say, if I were flying into Harford CO,correct?

carl

[Amelia]

Re: the DC airspace: Just take the course. It's not a big deal, all of maybe half an hour. Then you can just say yes when they ask if you are 'familiar with the Special Rules DC airspace, And you don't have to go way out of your way to avoid that 60nm ring, say if you have to deviate to the west of your planned route to avoid buildups. Potomac Approach has always been very nice to deal with.

[StinkBug]

My commercial checkride is the day before I leave. I have enough crap to study. LOL

[rbridges]

Looks like your looping around me in central GA. fuel is pretty cheap and we can grab some lunch if plans change for you.

[cliffy]

You have enough on your plate

Just stay away from DC. I lived there once upon a time and moved away never to return.

Good luck on your check ride! Try to relax and enjoy it. You can do it. 

[StinkBug]

This will be my second checkride this summer and third this year. I'm getting to know the DPE and the process pretty well :-p

[StinkBug]

Any chance of getting back on topic now? I'm not going near DC, we can stop talking about DC.

 

I will however be stopping at Dona Ana outside El Paso and visiting with another Mooniac from this board, and would love to meet some of you other guys along the way as well. I plan to document this trip pretty heavily and will be posting updates and destinations as we go. I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this, as a lot of it will be by phone. Facebook is super easy on a phone, but I'm not "friends" with pretty much anyone on here currently. Forums are a bit more tricky via phone, especially adding pictures, so the real updates will probably only come at the end of the day when I have wifi and my laptop out.

 

https://www.facebook.com/dallas.ashley.3 if you wanna be my pretend friend :-p

[gsxrpilot]

If you come through Austin or San Marcus, Texas there are several of us who will come hang out with you/fly with you.

[StinkBug]

Depending on when we leave Austin may be our first overnight stop. Would be cool to do a formation departure the next morning

[gsxrpilot]

Definitely keep us posted.  Do you have a tentative date yet? If I'm in town, happy to pick you up, take you out for some of Austin's famous BBQ and beers. And when in Texas, the Mooney Caravan Texas Wing can usually organize some formation work.

[StinkBug]

Right now our departure date and time is kind of up in the air. We wanted to leave early AM on the 14th, but the DPE scheduled my CPL checkride for the 15th. I'm hoping to get it moved up a few days, but if not we'll have to wait. If we do have to wait one of 2 things will happen.

 

Option 1 is that we load up and take off immediately following my checkride on the 15th. This would be totally contingent on how I feel, the time, and the weather between here and El Paso. If we do this we'll only go as far as 5T6 and will stop to visit with Rocket Aviator for the evening. The following day we'd continue on, most likely making a stop

 

Option 2 is that we simply leave exactly 2 days late. If we do this we'd plan to stop for lunch and fuel at 5T6, then continue on to Austin where we'd spend the night. 

 

Until I get a date for my checkride it's all up in the air though. I currently have a $100 offer out to anyone who has a checkride scheduled with my DPE this week to swap days LOL.

[StinkBug]

Oh, btw. Thanks to the generosity of one of my friends I now have 3 more GoPro cameras, bringing the total to 5, to document the trip with. I'm thinking we should be able to find a few cool angles. Editing all that is going to be a nightmare though.

[carl]

don't edit it .

stream it live so i can see the video as i watch the live radar tracking .

no really .

[gsxrpilot]

Use CloudAhoy to record your GPS track and log the flight. It's a nice addition to the video later.  See this one from last year's Mooney Caravan.

 

https://youtu.be/LDM7JMcXFOs

[StinkBug]

Great, now I have one more thing to add to the checklist :-p

[StinkBug]

Ok the decision has been made. We're leaving Friday morning bright and early. With a little luck we'll be spending friday night in Austin. If you can round up the texas wing I think it'd be cool to do a formation flight Saturday morning on our way out.

[Andy95W]

What about your checkride?

[StinkBug]

My instructor is gonna try to get it moved to tomorrow, but I told him if that wasn't possible then to reschedule it for after I get back. My passenger for the trip has to be back on a specific date, so I decided that I'd rather reschedule the checkride than to delay our departure and possibly have to rush everything. The checkride is easy to reschedule and can be done any time, this trip took months to set up and cant really be done any other time. 

[rbridges]

awesome.  Good luck and keep us posted.  Remember, there's lots of us mooneyspacers sprinkled around the US if you need anything during your trip.

[1964-M20E]

awesome.  Good luck and keep us posted.  Remember, there's lots of us mooneyspacers sprinkled around the US if you need anything during your trip.

Ditto

 

Let me know when you get to New Orleans.

[gsxrpilot]

Ok the decision has been made. We're leaving Friday morning bright and early. With a little luck we'll be spending friday night in Austin. If you can round up the texas wing I think it'd be cool to do a formation flight Saturday morning on our way out.

 

I'll see what I can organize. Where do you intend to park? KHYI would probably be a good option, it's 20 min South of Austin, but all the good stuff is in South Austin anyway. Also KHYI is very "formation friendly".  Other options are of course, KAUS (also on the south side) then KEDC, and KGTU on the north side.  If you're on the south side, I'll meet up for drinks/dinner when you get in on Friday. 

[StinkBug]

I'll take your recommendations as I'm unfamiliar with the area. All we need is a runway to land on and a hotel to sleep in.  I figured KAUS would be the easiest to find a hotel near, but I have no idea.

[gsengle]

Make sure you stay outside the 60nm ring when you head from New England to Florida, too. They take that thing seriously. If you take the online FAA course, be sure to print the certificate at the end and put it in the plane.

Done the coast many times, the SFRA is well clear as you basically jump from Cape May tip to cape Charles to Norfolk....

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