Day 1 - 6.5 hours flying to St Louis Missouri!

Our adventure began early this morning, when we met at Perkiomen Valley airport in the pouring rain, with the goal of flying to the Air Race Classic start in Denver Colorado in time for the start deadline of 11am on Saturday. It was cold, grey and miserable as we loaded our gear into the plane, and Arnie topped off the tanks for us. The weather services showed a heavy weather system over most of the East coast, with thunderstorms embedded throughout. But it was moving away to the East, and we could see a way through to clearer weather out West. We filed IFR to Columbus Ohio, with Mary flying the first leg. It was raining hard when we took off, and almost immediately went into the cloud. Mary climbed to 6000 feet as we contacted Philadelphia Approach. It was turbulent and a complete white out, and at one point Philly had to relay communications to us via another pilot because although we could hear them, they couldn't hear us. Mary said "this SUCKS!". We were in the soup all the way to Pittsburgh, but then we started to break out of the cloud tops and see blue sky above. Near Altoona we crossed a convergence of two fronts and the weather went down again, but although the cloud cover remained the bases were coming up at the airports further West. We took the ILS 28 approach into Columbus, but were able to approach and land visually. It was a tough 3 hour leg, and Mary did great.

We went to Odyssey Aviation at Columbus and managed to scrounge some fruit while the plane was refuelled. We picked up our voice messages, and I found that I may have bought a new house!! as the sellers have accepted my offer. Cool.

I originally intended the next leg to end in Peoria Illinois, but the weather showed a large convective system bearing down on Peoria from the NW at 35 kts, and there were severe weather watches and convective sigmets for the whole area. So we figured out that if we went further South we could avoid it, and filed to St Louis Missouri instead. I took off into nice clear weather. Around Terre Haute we heard some other female voices on the frequency headed West (call sign ...701...), so Mary asked if they were on their way to the Air Race Classic too, and they said yes! We think you guys might be one of the collegiate teams. We picked up headwinds over 30 kt at 6000 feet which were really slowing us down, so we descended to 4000 feet. The winds were better there, but there was a thick cloud layer so I also logged a chunk of instrument time. I was worried that at our slower ground speed we didn't have enough fuel to get to St Louis, but we did, and were given a visual approach to 28L following a regional jet. We left N29SP at Signature Aviation and checked into the Drury hotel for the night. We have no less than three free drinks coupons (each!), so are about to go down to the bar and restaurant for some real food.

Disgusting picture - when you're flying in cloud and have finished with your gum, there's no time to dispose of it nicely! Sorry Adelle.



Proof that we made it to St Louis - and that its almost 100 degrees here, which is why we look hot.

Mary unpacking the plane at St Louis.