The planning has begun, phone calls to FBO's and hotel reservations are in the books. I have been working through multiple flight plan routes, taking into consideration last years plan and working a new plan. Day one will not be an early morning departure from Ocean City, Mary has a doctors appointment first, and then we can head to the plane.
The tentative plan is as follows. Depart OXB for our first fuel stop at W22 - Upshur County Regional Airport located in Buckhannon, West Virginia. A gas and go then back in the air for our overnight stop at KIMS - Madison Municipal Airport located in
Madison, Indiana. I've already talked to the FBO manager and arranged potential transportation and there is a hotel close by with very good taxi service if needed. No big plans for checking out the town, although we may wander around after dinner if we rent or have the courtesy car.
Rise and shine for day two and we launch for our first fuel stop at KFTT - Elton Hensley Memorial Airport located in Fulton, Missouri. This knocks out another state for me and gets us topped off at less then $4 a gallon. From Hensley Airport it will be a rather short hop to our destination of KIXD - New Century AirCenter Airport in Olathe, Kansas. We have a hotel booked for our stay and we are really looking forward to catching up with friends and fellow pilots at the Bonfire.
The next flight plan will take us from KIXD - Olathe to F10 - Henryetta Municipal Airport
in Henryetta, Oklahoma. This will be a gas and go plus knock out another new state for me. We'll get back in the air and head to our destination of KACT -Waco Regional Airport located in Waco, Texas. We have a room reserved and we are both really excited to finally see Magnolia Markets and some of the homes restored on the TV show Fixer Upper.
Mary and I will spend a few days visiting with friends; Sandra from Flights of the Mouse and Mark and Candy from the Beech Aero Club. At some point we will need to head home and hopefully have the tailwinds to speed up that portion of our trip.
We will depart Waco Regional and head for a quick stop at KIER - Natchitoches Regional Airport in Louisiana. This stop is only to knock out another new to me state and maybe get some eats if we skipped breakfast before departure. From Natchitoches we'll head north-east and make a fuel stop at 7M1 - McGehee Municipal Airport in Arkansas, another new state and $4 a gallon fuel. The last hop for the day will be to KDKX - Knoxville Downtown Island Airport in Tennessee. If we get in at a decent time we will do some snooping around town and find some dinner at a recommended local favorite. This will be our last overnight and hopefully we get a good nights sleep. At this point I think we'll be four to five hours out of Ocean City so we may get some additional sight seeing trips around town prior to our departure.
The last leg of our journey will be from Knoxville to Home, 442 miles, hopefully with tail winds. It's always a welcome sight crossing the Chesapeake Bay and seeing the outline of Ocean City come into view.
Stay tuned for the trip blog post !
Sounds like a whole lot of good times to me.
ReplyDeleteWave as you pass over AeroCountry!
ReplyDeleteJim and Sandie, we plan on having a great time catching up with friends and fellow pilots. Of course the journey is always fun too. ;)
ReplyDeletePaul, Yes, we'll be in your neck of the woods. We may be making a stop at T31 to catch up with Sandra before heading into Waco. Would love to see that Bo.
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