In a message dated 4/12/2011 11:32:19 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
gayford@golden.net writes:
Mark, perhaps if you can find the time you could share some of the details
of your big adventure!
Fred
Hi Fred et all.
I have a Garman 496 that I borrowed from Mike Commings. it has XM weather
down load.
I was watching the wwether wile on my trip, noticing that there was a woarm
spot about 200 miles to the west of Lakeland FL. it was generating mega
convective upwellings causing a lot of strong storms to file by Loke land and
as the wind direction would change also the panhandle and up in to gorgia.
I was rather concerned about it and decided to slow down and hang out in
Louisiana at Dave Lively house, He has an Odyssey with a 912S on it. I had a
battery failure in Arizona that caused the battery to read 0.00V. so I
needed to replace it. Dave had 2 in his Odyssey since he needed the extra
weight to balance the plane for the 912S engine. I had ben Prop starting the
HKS engine since Arizona without much trouble.
I waited till the temperature in the gulf equaled out than went to
Lakeland. I had good tail winds on that trip My average speed was over 120 ground
speed. I saw 136 for about an hr.
Flying at 9500 feet the ground was still moving by farley rapidly.
I was used to the 90 mph of the normal cruse so it was a real treat to be
pushed along.
I arrived at Lake land to see a sight that was like flying in to an airport
that had just ben attacked by an enemy planes and tents strune about. Some
still in trees with lots of trees shredded by the tornados and the strong
straight line winds. they say that over 70 planes were damaged and may be
40 destroyed.
It was a mess, the next day it was mostly cleaned up and things looked
pretty normal again.
While flying around the pattern I noticed the tracks on the ground were the
tornados were.
Twisted trees and stuff scattered all over.
I fly to Oshkosh and Sun-N-Fun every year for 18 years now and I see
tornado tracks frequently but not in my own back yard.
I was really happy that I was not there when the storm hit and sorry to see
the devastation that those that were caught in it had to indure.
The show was somewhat sparse after the storm, not suprising. But there were
still interested people coming by.
I spent a few days at my wife's parents house waighting for the major line
of severe storms to pas buy before I left for Chicago. Taking the Odyssey
that I was flying to its new home.
I left just after the front went through and had tail winds all the way to
Chicago, this was really good since I only had one day before the next
front was to role in to Chicago.
With all the bad weather that was about I dident even get rained on once
while flying!
That's a rearity on a trip to the Midwest and south.
All in all I really love to fly and the Odyssey or Gulls are definitely my
favorite way to travel.
Would I do it again? Ya! How about tomorrow?
Happy Flying
Mark