Christmas 2009 - Cold Flying to Florida

In the morning I spent a lot of time scouring the weather on the internet and through my Foreflight software on the iphone, and tried to look at every bit of weather imagery I'd need to make a good go/no-go decision.  The weather outside wasn't very nice on the ground, as you can see in the first photo.  Nothing horrible, but the sky didn't seem to be the place where you'd want to be.  But, the pireps and info I got from Voyager's flight planner had all showed me a couple of key things, and they were backed up by the briefer I talked to....the cloud layer topped out between 4,000' and 6,000', which is only about 3-5 minutes MAX for my climb, and although the clouds extended for 1/3 of our trip to Florida, we could have a 30-50kt tailwind if we got what was forecast. So off to the airport we headed.  I reasoned that the total time in the clouds on climbout would likely be under 3-5 minutes at the RV-10's climb rate, so even though there were some clouds and it was below freezing, the time spent in the clouds should allow me to get to a good cruising altitude with not much icing worries.  To be extra safe, when I decided to call clearance delivery on the phone instead of post-takeoff, and have them request that my initial climb be directly to my assigned altitude, with no intermediate steps.  My request was granted and I was cleared as filed, so we were on our way. Within 2 or 3 minutes max, we were on top of that ugly grey day, in much more comfortable and safer looking clear skies, zipping along with a good tailwind that was projected to pick up even more as we climbed.  We did see just the smallest discoloration on the leading edge of the wings as we passed through 3000', indicating that the clouds contained enough moisture for very light ice to form at a very slow rate, but we were in the clouds such a small amount that you could barely make it out.  As we cruised comfortably along at 9,000', high above the undercast, we could see in the distance that the plan would perhaps be changing shortly.  To the East was still blue sky, but directly ahead we started to get another grey overcast...another layer of clouds above us, and with cloud layers at altitude, it's very hard to predict sometimes if those clouds 10 miles ahead are at or above/below your altitude.  Since they didn't look too thick, and we brought our O2, I was prepared to go to 15,000' or more if necessary, to make this a clear-sky trip.  I waited it out a few more minutes and it didn't take long before we had to make our next move.  The clouds started skimming our canopy top....time to either decend or ascend 2000' to the next IFR cruising level.  Well, down would have likely been fine, but the tailwinds were lesser, and as I looked up at the clouds, I could see a very sharply distinct round sun.  I knew then that the cloud layer was thin, so I called ATC and requested 11,000' and they approved it.  As I approached 11k, I called them again and said I thought I might still be just a little bit out of reach of the tops, and they said I could just keep climbing and they'd give me a block clearance from 11k to 12K'....perfect...a block clearance works out real well in that it gives you the latitude to go where you need to go.  As we moved through that layer of clouds, we once again picked up some light ice, but this time it was enough to sparkle the windshield too, but at 11,400 we were out the top and in clear skies once again.
Cruising on top we had a great view of all the route of the flight, and it looked beautiful. We were making good headway with groundspeeds sometimes approaching 205 or more kts.  Running LOP at between 9.5-10gph, we were getting anywhere from 155-165kts TAS, and had a perfectly smooth ride. When we were about 45 minutes into the flight or more, I did a quick range check of our total range available with full fuel and we were only 5 minutes short of our destination, KLEE and our remaining range was over 1000nm.  That means that with one fuel stop planned, we had no issues getting down there in record time.
We stopped at one of the nicer little fuel stops along the way, KSYI, where the fuel price was the lowest in the area, and we made a turn time of maybe 15-20 minutes max, so in no time we were back in the air and on our way.  As we fly past the Nashville area, we started picking up ADS-B TIS-B traffic targets from our NavWorx ADS600 receiver.  I wish we had ADS-B at our home field, because as we left Shelbyville we could watch traffic departing the airport and knew right where all the planes in the area were.  As we flew over Georgia and Northern Florida, the sun began to set, giving us a great view of the setting sun.  We didn't leave early enough to arrive in daylight, with the short days of winter, but the weather was plenty good and the flight would be easy and uneventful.  It was a record speed trip for us, with about 1100nm flown, in 6 hours flat, including all taxi time...which even with taxi time leaves us with about a 180kt average speed with the tailwind.  What a way to fly!

The next day we decided that with a couple of days to play before Christmas, we would go to Ft. Lauderdale and do some dive gear shopping and meet up with those very famous RV-10 builders, Lenny and Hugo.  To get down the coast, the most fun way to go is to fly the coastline itself, at low altitudes, where you can go completely VFR.  To get through the Orlando area, I grabbed flight following and got cleared through class Bravo for some of the route out near the Kennedy Space Center.  You could see the launch pads and bulildings in the distance.  Once out to the shoreline we just kept flight following for much of the trip, staying just offshore, at about 1000-1500msl, or agl...whatever you want to call it when you're flying over the oceans. :)  We took in the sights along the way and soon approached KPMP, Pamano Beach airport, where we spied the GoodYear blimp, out doing some flights.  By the time we were in the pattern, they were landing it on the field and we got a good look at it up close.  We met up with Lenny and did lunch and some shopping and then back to his place to meet Hugo for dinner.  A fun couple of guys and their gals, we had a good meal and prepped for our next day.
In the morning we planned to fly down to Key West, again along the coastline.  Key west is very quick to get to by air, but miserably long by car.  We enjoyed the trip, trying to stay behind Lenny's Katana for a while.  It takes a lot of work to get an RV-10 to fly that slowly...most of the time I was maintaining only 12-14" of MP, and by my throttle quadrant, that's about 1/4 throttle.  We literally ran some circles around them as we took some aerial photos along the way.  Don't feel too sorry for Lenny's Katana though, as he'll be graduating to the RV-10 soon enough.  The Katana is serving very well right now as a trainer for Lenny's wonderful lady.  Below are some aerial shots of the trip.
Approaching Key West, we called Key West Approach and got cleared offshore through the military airspace and for a downwind to KEYW.  It was pretty windy and very bumpy on the approach that day, but we all made it down no problem.  Once on the ground we took a cab to town. It's a little pricey at $8 per head, but it seems to be the only way into town....and the $8 only gets you one way.  We had the cab driver take us directly to a beachside restaurant, and then we walked to the point and took in the town, making it just a short day in Key West so we could get home as soon as possible after dusk to KLEE.

For the return trip we filed IFR direct, climing straight to 8,000' and making the trip faster by shortening the distance, and also giving us a neutral or very slight tailwind.  As we neared 8,000' over the vast water, ATC threw me a curve that I've never had to officially completely do before...they called and said I should plan on flying the Minnie.4 IFR arrival, which would allow them to predefine my flight route through the Orlando area.  Where I usually fly, and to and around the airports I fly to, STAR's (Standard Arrivals) are not really used often...they're mainly a tool for the big planes.  Pilots from the West Coast are much more familiar with them, but not us flatlander Midwesterners.  Well, when they asked if I had the procedure on board, I said "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I got it, but can you give me until I near the coast to prepare?"  They said, "Sure, for now just go direct RSW and that will be where you enter the arrival."  I didn't want to do anything to add to my workload while over water until I was completely leveled out, trimmed out, leaned out, and had things all set with the autopilot on.  There's just something about being over water that makes you take things slow and easy. :)  Well, I knew I had the STAR on board, because I had my 2 favorite tools on board....one is Seattle Avionics Voyager.  I have every chart for the 48 states downloaded and updated at all times, including all approaches and arrivals.  I don't download Alaska and Hawaii, because I know I won't be going there on the spur of the moment, but the way we travel in the RV-10, we could end up in any of the 48 states on a days notice...we don't plan our vacation destinations very far in advance.  The other tool I had was the recently updated Foreflight Mobile 3.0 on my iPhone.  The 3.0 version was just released before this trip, and I found the trip to be the perfect opportunity to test its features.  The added GPS integration to IFR Low/High Enroute charts and sectionals, and they added a good download manager to download each Sectional, IFR Enroute, TAC and Approaches on a state-by-state basis.  I could have fired up the Voyager tablet to get the arrival, but as I didn't have a hard IMC approach to fly, I figured I'd try using just my iPhone.  With Foreflight 3.0, I had the Minnie.4 arrival pulled up in seconds, and was able to zoom and pan and read all the appropriate notes, and soon knew the details of the arrival.  The Cheltons, by the way, also had the whole arrival in them, so all I had to do was say I wanted to add the Minnie.4 arrival on to my destination, with an entry at RSW, and it drew the entire arrival into my flight plan, and calculated my distance and fuel remaining and everything I needed to know.  It's always nice, and appropriate though, to read the entire chart and all it's notes, to know the procedure.  Oh, and the side benefit of the trip...we got to see another sunset in the distance. ;)

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