To Morey




		As well as the final leg of the trip, it was also my birthday so I wanted things to go well. It was another early start with the taxi to the airport at 6.30 am. The flight plan was filed with an 8 am departure. Matt got a bit of shut eye whilst I got the aircraft ready. The luggage was loaded, we stocked up on drinks and candy and were in the plane ready to go by 7.45 am. I called for the clearance and there was nothing different other than the usual height restriction. This time expect 6000 ft within ten minutes. Called for taxi and I made my way down to the start of 24. After power checks I was asked to line up and wait whilst they were waiting for the release. This is a bit tricky as you roll on to runway 28R and there is the danger of lining up on the wrong runway, so its important that you do check the DI and the compass to verify the runway too.

Bang on 8am we were cleared for take off. As the wheels went up we were ordered to contact Buffalo Departure. They affirmed radar contact and gave us a heading of 280 to steer. This took us up alongside the Falls itself and Matt got the video camera out and took some footage. Within a couple of minutes we were cleared to 6000 ft and after passing through some broken cloud we were in the clear. With the autopilot set we organised ourselves for the cruise, and looked at the weather around us to see how it compared with the forecast.

Over in our 11 o’clock we could see the weather that was promised for Cleveland on the other side of Lake Erie. I had decided earlier that the Cleveland route was bad news. Ahead of us we saw some broken cloud, bases at 5000 ft with tops at 7000 ft. Staying on course meant flying through it. I did not want to climb any higher as the head winds at 8000 ft were a good 20 kts stronger than we had at 6000 ft. Matt was not too happy about this at first, but as we flew through them there were no bumps and as his reservations faded he was back in action with the camera.

The head wind meant our ground speed was only about 95 kts. Even though we had full tanks and an endurance of 6 hours I reckoned it would take us 5 hours to get to Morey. As we trundled through lower Ontario again I was listening out for the weather at Flint, approximately half way to Madison. Below us was solid cloud and it remained that way until we crossed the border back into the US again.

The cloud cleared and as we approached Flint I decided that we should land. I really felt the need to top off the tanks and update myself on the weather. The radio was telling me that planes trying to get to Oshkosh were making hard work getting there. Alright, we were not going to Oshkosh but our route crossed most other routes to Oshkosh


	Image taken of the GPS as we went from Niagara Falls to Flint. We had just passed overhead London (Ontario). The dashed curved line you can see is the outbound track where we had the diversion

		The approach to Flint (KFNT) was straight forward. I was given a radar heading a couple of degrees off the heading I was flying till I picked up the ILS for 27. We landed in brilliant sunshine and taxied over to the FBO. A very pretty line girl chocked us and the FBO manager drove us over to the FBO and then gave us a tour of the facility. Matt perked up at this point. I asked for a top off and went to look up the weather. He went into the games room where they had free computer games to play with as well as free popcorn. I just love US FBOs. I thought Avflight (Flint) were a good FBO especially as they had a $2.99 Oshkosh deal even though we were not going Oshkosh.

The weather forecast appeared challenging. There was a convective SIGMET out for SE Wisconsin and the Chicago area with bad weather running along through Indiana and Ohio. The pattern was Northwest to Southeast, the other side of Lake Michigan. There looked to be nothing further west of Madison for a few hours. The radar confirmed this so I decided that we would set off and if necessary stop at Muskegon on the lakes east coast for another look. I did not want to be too far away if there was the possibility of getting though a break in the weather. Also if another overnight stay was required, I preferred to be as near to Madison as possible. Matt was not consulted this time but when he saw a load of red on the radar picture I was able to show it was moving well away from where we were.

We departed Flint with about three more hours ahead of us. I decided to take the hit of the headwinds and flew at 8000 ft mainly for the crossing of Lake Michigan. I reckoned that the extra height was worth the time penalty.

Halfway between Flint an Muskegon, I left Lancing Approach to talk to Flight Service and give a PIREP but more importantly get the latest weather for the rest of the route. Matt took an interest in this conversation. The briefer gave a good report in that it appeared we were flying through a 100 mile wide channel with good weather but with mayhem to the north and south. Anyone going to Oshkosh on that day was going to have a bad time. Apparently the campers staying on the field were flooded out.

The decision was made then to press on across the lake. We crossed the eastern shore of Lake Michigan at 12.28 EDT, got to the mid point at 12.44 EDT or 11.44 CDT and arrived on the western shore at 12.10 CDT. In all it took 42 minutes to do the 81 nm. Our ground speed had increased to 100 kts.

As we passed north of Milwaukee a quick calculation told us we were less than a hour from home.

Five minutes after crossing the shore line we were cleared to descend to 6000. Immediately we could see the ground speed increasing to 115 kts. I listened in to the Madison ATIS and was ready to ask for the VOR A approach to Morey.

On contact with Madison Approach I asked for and got the VOR A and a clearance down to 3500 ft. I now got set up for the approach and as we went over the Madison VOR we headed out over Lake Mendota. Approach asked us to report “field in sight”. Matt was the first to spot it and as I reported that to Approach I also cancelled IFR.

All that was left now was to join the pattern and make a sound landing. The landing was just perfect and provided the end to another challenging day. As birthdays go it was pretty good.

The weather at Morey was fine on arrival, but about three hours later there was the most tremendous thundershower and down in South East Wisconsin near Janesville they had a tornado. It was one of those days.

Overall a great set of experiences; some great lessons and even more satisfying in that I was able to complete my aim of having gone coast to coast across the US in a light aircraft.

Flying does not get much better than this.


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