Solo return to Houston My return to Houston would be much faster paced than the outbound flight, with no stops for tourism. I headed back to San Diego early on Saturday morning, performed a careful pre-flight and departed, headed back to the east. As I took off, I flew over Sea World, getting great views of the park down below. I had requested a “VFR-on-top” clearance, which is designed to take you up through an overcast layer into good conditions…
Day 4 – Salton Sea to San Diego, California The temperature rose quickly, and fairly early in the morning it was already uncomfortably warm to be in the tents. This suited us well, however, as we wanted to spend the afternoon in San Diego at the famous San Diego Zoo! We headed west across the coastal mountain range and were soon flying overhead a low undercast layer, the typical marine layer that covers the California coast of a morning. We…
Day 3 – Bisbee, Arizona to Salton Sea, California Today’s flight would take us as far as we could go along the southern border before hitting restricted air space. Our first stop was Nogales, for fuel. As we flew along the border we could see imposing fencing along much of it; and the harsh terrain would surely be a difficult barrier in itself. Nogales turned out to be a rather strange airport; the FBO seemed to dedicate most of it’s…
Day 2 – New Mexico We woke early, mainly due to the very loud water pumps that were running the irrigation for the farming nearby. We snacked for breakfast, and then departed; no fuel or services available at Dell City! Our initial direction was north, to get around the restricted areas that were on the direct route to Alamagordo. We had to climb high to avoid the hills east of the city, and made a steep descent into Alamagordo once…
Day 1 – Across Texas Departure day came around quickly. We’d taken the rear seats out of the C172, which gave plenty of of luggage space that we’d filled with our bags, two tents and other camping gear, plenty of firewood, and a cooler filled with ice and food for along the way. I worked during the day and headed out from the office as early as I could get away; I’d called ahead to the airport and they had…