The 2500 miles voyage in my RV-9A Part 1

by Pete Liem Victoria, BC Canada.

In May I received an invitation to attend a seminar related to my job in Albuquerque, NM. A grin formed on my lips, since this was the excuse I needed to test my newly built Van?s Aircraft RV9A on a long journey.

Two days would have been great to do this 1000+-miler voyage, but I had only one day available to get to our destination. The weather forecast for New Mexico wasn?t favourable and there were reports of thunder boomers in eastern New Mexico. The Pacific North West weather looked gloomy too. Obscuring Stratus clouds were sitting between Victoria and Oregon for almost a week. The chances of getting there on time were getting questionable. My golden rule of flying is: Whenever I fly myself, there should be no pressure to get to my destination. If I NEED to be there, I will fly commercially.



We departed the Victoria Airport at 7 am in clear sky and calm air. Our rendezvous with the US Customs was set at 8:30 am at the Portland International airport. When we came to the Puget Sound area at 2500 ft it became clear that we could not proceed under the clouds to Portland International Airport (PDX) and that we had to go over top. The Stratus layer topped at 8000 feet and we climbed to 11500 ft with the blessing of ATC and arrived at the US Customs with 15 minutes delay, because of our earlier escapades to ascend and stay VFR. The officer at PDX was friendly and courteous and bid us a good flight after the formalities were done. We asked the FBO to top our tanks and strolled to the terminal for breakfast.

My wife liked FBO?s. At the Portland International, we stopped at Flightcraft. The general aviation people, but more specifically the small business jets use this facility. The employees were very nice, professional and friendly. The facility was first class. Nice clean bathrooms, mouth wash and tooth brushes provided, nice lounge with complimentary coffee, courtesy car. Good place to be when you are tired and want to stretch your legs.


Mountain Home (U76), Idaho, was our destination for the next segment and was 329NM away. The weather as promised was great and the clouds were scattered far apart. Portland tower handed us over to Cascade Departure and we were granted our request of ?Flight Following?. This is an invaluable service by ATC, especially if you fly over inhospitable terrain. The Controllers will keep you informed of traffic and local altimeter settings. Climbing to ?one three thousand five hundred? we donned the oxygen and enjoyed the unfolding scenery. The green Northwest started to change in to brown and sand of arid rock as we progressed eastward. The tales of good tailwinds going east materialized with a ground speed of 180 kts on an true airspeed of 150 kts. We will pay later homeward bound, I guess.

The wind was howling straight down of runway 10. Field elevation of 3164 feet and 38C temperature gave us a density altitude of 6500 feet. Taxiing gingerly to the active, we had to execute the correct aileron-rudder-elevator deflection, so not to flip the plane. Aided by the wind the plane lifted up after only a short run on the tarmac. The RV power weight ratio made the density altitude a non-issue. The straight out departure was easy, though very bumpy because of the convective air at that time of the day. Contacting the Mountain Home Departure we were alerted, not to stray in to the MOA, which we almost did. The bumps finally seized when we passed 11000 feet. Settling at 15500 and sipping on our oxygen, we went zigzag around the 6 MOA?s in this region. My co-pilot decided to take a travel pill and slept till we approached Page Municipal Airport in Arizona, 421 miles and 3 hrs later. Denver Centre okayed the frequency change to the Page Traffic frequency and we were surprised how busy the airport was. Page, situated on a mesa in extreme north-central Arizona, is the gateway to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Lake Powell. This means lots of commercial flights in and out of Page (PGA). Biz Jets, Turbo prop commuters were coming in on a very regular base. When we entered the traffic pattern, which was 5100 ft, we had to be watchful and merged safely with the fast incoming traffic. I bounced the plane on landing, because of the cross wind, high sink rate in an 8000 ft density altitude and all the pressure surrounding it. Taxiing to the FBO we felt the intense heat of the desert. It was 44 C in the shade.

The 2500 miles voyage in my RV9A Part 2

We waited a couple of hours in the coolness of the Terminal building for heat of the day to dissipate before we departed to our final destination Albuquerque, more accurately, Double eagle II (AEG). We successfully took off from runway 33 that was exposed to a wicked crosswind from 070 and climbed very slowly to 13500 ft. Slowly, because all my avionics and my engine didn?t like the heat. With an outside air temperature of 44C and a decline of 2 degrees every 1000 feet, it took a long time for the temperature to come down. At our final altitude of 13500 the air was still 18C but the avionics and engine was able to function normally again. The last 250 miles was flown slower at 130 kts. TAS with a ground speed of 150 kts.

Double Eagle II AEG

We arrived at AEG at 9PM in the evening. Since we entered the Mountain Standard Time, we lost 1 hr. Double Eagle II is a nice private airport, again where all the jetsetters land. Bode Aviation FBO greeted us cordially, gave us a parking spot for our plane and rented us a Herz car with the AOPA/COPA discount. And we were on our way to our hotel in the big city of ABQ in no time.
After a pleasant day at the seminar in ABQ we decided to make a side trip to Las Vegas on our way home. Instead of one loooong trek home, it will be one short and one medium long and besides, my wife likes the glitter of Vegas and it is only 415nm or 3hrs away. Why not?
There were thundershowers threatening to the east when we finally were on our way to Vegas. ABQ departure did not want to talk to us since they were too busy and we were on our own. The air was lumpy and as we climbed out slowly to 14500, it became apparent that this is going to be a bumpy ride. Virga activities were everywhere. We heard airlines detouring their flight path around them. Me, small plane for sure need to stay away from that, so we detoured around these clouds, which some of it were 40 miles in length. On our flight planning it was decided that we would try to land at the North Las Vegas (VGT) Airport instead of Mc Carran Int (LAS) or Henderson Exec (HND). LAS is too busy, surely they don?t like smaller GA planes to land there and HND is a bit too far from the strip and so VGT was chosen to be our destination.


Flight following handed us over to Vegas approach. When we advised Vegas approached that we were not familiar with the area, they helped us with vectors. We were assigned headings and altitude and were given the tour of the town. Our trusty autopilot was sure very handy at times like this, because it held you on your assigned altitude and heading. This allowed us plenty of time to look around and navigate at the same time. Vegas at dusk was impressive and we landed safely at the North Las Vegas Airport. A ?follow me? car met the plane and we were guided to the GA parking place on the field. Here we deplaned and got a ride from the FBO to the Fiesta Hotel just across the airport.


It turned out that the busses in Vegas are running 24 hrs. The connection between North Vegas and the ?Strip? was very good. The busses would run every 30 minutes, but they are unreliable. Sometimes 2 busses would come within 10 minutes and sometimes you wait for an hour for transit. Day passes are the cheapest and cost $2.50 for 24 hrs. Not by the day, but by the hour. Since we validated the tickets at 11 am, we were able to use it to go to the airport the next day, because we departed at 6 am. Our visit to Las Vegas was too short but memorable. We will be back.
Going out of VGT was not hard. They give you a vector and you are handed over to departure and then to center. We climbed in the calm morning air to 16500 ft, because of terrain. There were 2 MOA?s that we had to go in-between, but otherwise there were no other tasks to perform other than avoid the granite rock.
Marysville is 350 nm away and because of the 20 kts headwind the estimated time enroute is 3 hrs. My co-pilot slept trough out this leg and did not see some of the spectacular scenery unfolding below us. We landed in Marysville and went to hunt for Oxygen. The manager of the Red Carpet Aviation told us that the facility that filled the O2 cylinders was closed this day because of Fathers day and so was the caf? next door. He offered us a courtesy car to go to town to get brunch, which we gladly accepted. My wife was sure impressed that we could borrow a car, just by buying gas for our plane. Aviation people are nice people.

Refilling Oxygen at Eugene OR

Eugene Oregon was our next destination 310 nm away. ETE with the headwind was 2hrs and 26 minutes. Since we did not have Oxygen we flight planned for 10500. The RV9 sure climbed to altitude in a very short time. Now 2.5 hrs doesn?t seem very long anymore and soon we were cleared to land on runway 34 and asked the ground controller for taxi clearance to Flightcraft. There we requested fuel and O2 refill.
Canada Customs was notified that we were coming and a flight plan was filed. On departure ATC asked if it was a typo that we filed for ?one four thousand five hundred?? I guess most of the GA planes don?t have the luxury to climb and fly that high. I remember that it was a painful affair to climb to 10,000 ft with my Piper Warrior or the C-172. It took 45 minutes or so to get to that altitude, let alone higher. With the RV9 it is about 15 minutes to 12,500ft. As at the start of our journey 4 days ago, we climbed and flew over the tops of a stratus layer. The flight was smooth and Victoria, BC was clear. Two hours and ten minutes later we touch down on runway 09 and we were home again. Our 2500-mile adventure came to a close and will live on in our memory.Total Distance 2479.4 NM in 4 days.

ONLY in an RV...heheh

Great story.

Thanks Pete.

Great report Pete! Enjoy reading it. It motivates me to plan longer trips (so far only 1000 NM).

Ted
http://tc1234c.googlepages.com/
RV-9A, Lycoming (ECI) O320-D2A, 160 hp, Carb, Dual Mag, Sensenich FP
GRT dual DU H1, TT DigiFlight II VSGV, AnyWhere XM, 187 hr Hobbs since 8/06

Pete,

Glad you and the wife had a good time. I'm a fellow/native northwesterner (Eastern Oregon/Idaho), but temporarily living in MS. Nice to see write-ups from up there. Thanks for taking the time to share your first long flight with us.

Thanks for sharing, Pete. We like Bode a lot, too. They took care of our RV when we were visiting there in 2004.

Roberta

Hi Peter, nice to hear your story. What system did you use for your oxygen? I'm in the market so I can climb high on my way to the Okanagan.

Vern

Oxygen system

vlittle said:

Hi Peter, nice to hear your story. What system did you use for your oxygen? I'm in the market so I can climb high on my way to the Okanagan.

Vern

Click to expand...

Hi Vern,

I use Nelson System. Now it is Precise Oxygen Equipment. A friend of mine sold his plane last year and was selling all his toys. So I got this and I like it. No Headaches and feel not too tired at the end of the trip. I just got this system because it was there for a good price.

EBAY sells Oxygen flow meters. If you buy a flow meter with a flow of 0.1 to 0.5 cfm flow, aparently this is good for over 10,000ft. I stand to be corrected here. and just buy the nasal canules.

Vern I rent O2 system from the local medical supply house. $3.00/month for the cylinder(E size) and $15/month for the regulator. Not worth buying if you are only going to use it for a couple of months a year. I have had no problem getting refills in any major city. Lots of COPD patients everywhere needing O2. I have been using this type of system now for years. An E size cylinder will give you 11.5 hours of use for two people at a flow rate of .5 liters/minute. If you have any questions give me a call or drop a note to me. I have used this to 25,500ft and quite often fly along at 17500.

Norman CYYJ said:

Vern I rent O2 system from the local medical supply house. $3.00/month for the cylinder(E size) and $15/month for the regulator. Not worth buying if you are only going to use it for a couple of months a year. I have had no problem getting refills in any major city. Lots of COPD patients everywhere needing O2. I have been using this type of system now for years. An E size cylinder will give you 11.5 hours of use for two people at a flow rate of .5 liters/minute. If you have any questions give me a call or drop a note to me. I have used this to 25,500ft and quite often fly along at 17500.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Norm. This sounds like a good way to go. I would then purchase the cannulas and flow meters and rent the tank and regulator, correct? I'm sure I'll find someone in White Rock who supplies O2 given the high concentration of Oxygenarians living here!

Vern

Yes you will need nose canulas but not the flow meter. Rent a child's regulator.
11,500ft to 13,500ft .25 liters/min.
13,500ft to 15,500ft .5 liters/min
15,500 to 18,000ft .75 liters/min
above 18,500ft use 1liter/min

These flow rates are generous using the oximiser nose canula. They cost about $30.00 each in Canada and they save a lot of O2. Like about 75%.

I used a borrowed flow meter once and figured out the liter/minute flow rates, so then I never used a flow meter again.

There is absolutely no difference between med O2 and aviation O2. Med O2 the dew point is -62 degrees. If you get that cold you have more problems to worry about then your O2 system. All the O2 comes from the same suppliers whether it be med, welders or aviation.

You are supposed to wear a mask above 18,000ft but I have had no problem up to 27,500 using the oximeser.

Might see you tomorrow at the RAA meeting for supper.

Norm, I'll be at the RAA AGM meet&great tonight. Hope to see you there, WX permitting.

V