Category Archives: Bucket List Flights

Island Hopping in Hawaii (Part 2)

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After an exciting intro to island flying, the next couple of days provided more amazing scenery and even more challenging flight conditions.

The first stop, which was the island of Kauai, was the longest flight segment over water.  So we filed a flight plan (and actually used the autopilot a bit).  As we approached the Lihue airport, we decided to fly the ILS 35 by hand just for some practice.  The gusty crosswinds continued to give me quite a workout.  When I was about 200 FT AGL, the winds, which were favoring runway 3, seemed to be getting even stronger (gusting to 35 kts).  The tower noticed this and asked if “I really wanted runway 35?”. I said ” at this point I would prefer 3″.  He agreed and I quickly broke off the approach and circled to the left to land on runway 3.  With a strong headwind lined up straight to the runway I ended up having fairly easy landing.
The next stop was the island of Oahu, which is the most urbanized of the Hawaiian islands. With Laurence’s coaching, I asked ATC for a routing that provided some great photo opps of the Arizona Memorial, Honolulu downtown and Diamond Head.

Honolulu downtown

Diamond Head

I felt very comfortable flying in the Honolulu Class B airspace because there was lots of airline traffic on the radios and it felt just like the East Coast.  But that comfort was quickly replaced by shock as I approached the traffic pattern.  The tower cleared me for a left downwind entry to a visual approach for runway 4L, which they refer to as the  “little” 7000 FT runway.  That sounded easy enough.  But as i got closer I heard the tower clear an airliner for takeoff on runway 08R.
Yikes! This meant my traffic pattern would be just a couple hundred FT directly over an airliner!!
I tried to stay focused… But I really  wanted a picture of this … So I asked Laurence to grab the camera and try to get some photo evidence.  Here’s what he got:

Honolulu airport on approach.

The next day we had a very specific objective, which was to land on the last of the Hawaiian islands to complete my mission and hopefully fly over the active volcano (Kilauea).
There were no significant aviation challenges on this day.  So I was just enjoying the scenery and taking countless pix.  The Big Island actually had a snow covered mountain peak, which took me by surprise.  But the real highlight was seeing the lava flows and overflying Kilauea, which you can see below:

Kilauea volcano

Overall, my Hawaii excursion totally exceeded my expectation and definitely made it onto my Top 10 list!!

Now I am starting to think of the next challenge … Several readers have already sent me suggestions, which I appreciate…

The leading contenders are the Canadian provinces, which might work out nicely this summer, or every country in the Caribbean (except of course Cuba).

Would welcome other creative suggestions!

 
Cheers,
== T.J.==

Island Hopping in Hawaii (Part 1)

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As many of you know, I have been trying to personally land in all 50 states…
After 2 years of flying to every nook and cranny of the continental US and Alaska, this weekend I finally managed to check Hawaii off my list!
The first 49 states were all done in my Cirrus.  However, it just wasn’t practical to fly my plane to Hawaii.    So a few months ago, I started to plan this trip.  I was fully expecting to rent a plane there.  However, I was struggling to find a suitable plane that I would be comfortable enough in for this mission.  Then around December, as a direct result of this blog, I met a fellow Cirrus pilot that had a nearly identical plane to mine based on Maui!  Problem solved!!
The owner was not only a Cirrus pilot, but was also a Cirrus Instructor (CSIP), which really came in handy for this excursion.  (You will understand why shortly)…
When I arrived in Maui, I felt a huge sense of comfort and familiarity when I saw his plane:

N779LB is a 2007 SR22 G3 GTS, that is very similar to my plane.  So the flying part was familiar.  However, this plane was equipped with different avionics.  Since my mission was more about the flying and landing, I let Laurence handle the radios/avionics and I simply did all of the flying by hand.  Absolutely no autopilot… Just old fashioned stick and rudder flying.
But this was a lot more challenging than I expected.  The weather in Hawaii is VFR ~360 days a year.  However, EVERY day seems to involve dodging clouds, rain, terrain and some very unpredictable winds!
On the first day, we took off from Kahalui airport on Maui and went to the neighboring island of Lanai.  The views were spectacular (but somewhat distracting).  This is what I saw out the window while flying on the “right base”:

Then when I was on final ~ 75 FT AGL, the wind shifted from a tame 5 KT headwind to ~ 15 KT crosswind!  While it caught me by surprise, Laurence calmly stated “Happens here all the time – You get used to it…”
I thought that was intense… But that was just a warm up for the next island, which was Molokai.  Here we landed on a tiny strip of pavement, called Kalaupapa, that had the Pacific Ocean just 20 FT off of the departure end of the runway.  The airport had no PAPI lights, no precision glideslope, and none of the normal “crutches” that help me land.  Instead, I had to look out the window and “feel my way” to the runway while fighting a 40KT headwind.  In addition, the runway had ocean waves very close to the edge of the runway.  Being from Florida, I am comfortable flying around water.  But seeing waves like this on approach was a totally new experience!
After a quick photo stop, and an “elegant hot start” by Laurence, we were off to return to home base @ Maui, where we landed in winds of 15, gusting to 24!
Overall, day 1 was only 1.5 on Hobbs… But with the monster winds and using NO autopilot, it felt like quite a workout!
As you can imagine, I also got a ton of amazing pictures… Just haven’t had time time to download and sort through them yet.  That’s why this is only “part 1”
Cheers,
== T.J.==

Migration 9 Trip Summary

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I have finally arrived in Colorado Springs and the journey was quite amazing!

It is hard to summarize a 4200 mile trip.   (But here goes…)

Some of it what was “as expected ” ; Some of it reinforced how flexible you need to be on a journey like this. Between weather, customs formalities, spotty radar, icing, even the exact route was not as planned.  You can see the “planned vs actual” route below:

The blue line was the planned route.  The magenta line was the actual route.  As you can see, I tried to follow my plan.  But needed to make lots of adjustments along the way.
 
On my first leg from Tampa to Hopkinsville, KY, the weather in the picture below forced me to do an enroute diversion to Shelbyville,TN:

I landed and topped off minutes before it started pouring!

After the storm passed, I continued to Sioux Falls, SD where I did my first overnight.
The next day started mostly as planned Sioux Falls,SD > Bismarck, ND > Glasgow, MT.

As I made my final Preparations to enter Canadian airspace, the Canadian authorities (Canpass) informed me that the Kamloops customs was “Closed for the day” So I had to pick an alternate destination and chose Kelowna, British Columbia.

With a new destination, I entered Canadian airspace for the first time to find more surprises. While crossing the Rockies, Edmonton ATC informed me that radar coverage would be “lost over the Rockies”, which was not very comforting!  They gave me a frequency and told me to “try calling Vancouver” in ~ 30-45 minutes.

 
Luckily, the weather was good and of course the view over the Rockies was breathtaking.
(I am still trying to sort through the pix to make a Picassa album.)
 
Kelowna turned out to be a wonderful destination.  The  airport is rather  unique due to the terrain.  It is in a valley, which causes you to fly an unusual approach with a fairly steep descent. (Still working on editing that video)
The next day I flew to Ketchikan, Alaska, which was a very challenging flight.   Canadian ATC instructions/phraseology is just a little different than the US.  But I managed several surprise instructions and even a last minute approach change and had an incredible landing, which is shown in the video below:

After that landing (and enjoying Alaskan hospitality and seafood), I thought that Ketchikan would be the highlight of the journey.  But after a couple of more states, the real highlight of the trip materialized in Leadville, CO.  Lake County Airport in Leadville, CO is the highest airport in North America @ 9927 MSL.  I landed there on a precision approach with a “circle to land” into an 18 KT headwind Gusting to 28 KTs, (Perhaps NOTmy most elegant landing… But certainly  one of the most difficult and satisfying landings I had done in a long time.  
 
As you can see from the pic below, they really do issue certificates for landing there!!

After Leadville, a short 20 minute flight to Colorado Springs and I was warmly greeted by the staff of Colorado Jet Center.  So after this incredible journey, I am now ready for the main event (Migration 9), which is scheduled to start tomorrow morning.
 
Cheers,
== T.J.==