A 48-state tour of the U.S. by light aircraft

by philg

Time to plan summer travel! Here’s an idea for pilots with kids: a 48-state tour of the U.S. in a four-seat airplane, hitting a bunch of historical sites, especially pre-Columbian, with at least a touch-and-go in every state. The tour should take roughly three weeks with about 50 hours of flight time in a Cirrus SR20 and cost about $5,000 for fuel and engine/prop reserves.

See

  • the route on Skyvector (note that coming down the spine of the Appalachians enables a lot of Eastern states to be knocked out without too much flying; staying on the east side of the West Coast states also saves quite a bit of flying time, though there is a lot of wilderness)
  • an annotated navlog with some information about what to do and see at each stop

A Cirrus SR22 with air conditioning would certainly be a more comfortable choice for this journey, but it could also be done in an even more basic plane, such as a Cessna 172.

Aviation rules:

  • Pick airports such that we can land within 60 percent of available runway (i.e., FAR 121 airline safety margins)
  • Avoid IMC/IFR since a big reason for this trip is to understand the landscape rather than be inside a cloud, despite the high level of avionics and autopilot capability of the Cirrus.
  • No night flying in the mountains.
  • No IMC/IFR flying in the mountains.
  • Wait out any afternoon thunderstorms; fly the next morning.
  • Cross big mountain ranges only when winds aloft are 30 knots or less, ideally first thing in the morning.
  • No over-water operations (go around Great Lakes); saves having to carry a raft

Prep:

  • Update Cirrus with ADS-B transponder
  • Upgrade Jepp and Garmin subscriptions to cover all of North America
  • Get oil changed by East Coast Aero Club (good for 50 hours so plane will be just ready for another change upon return)
  • Send oxygen system out for recertification
  • Send in PLB for fresh battery

Best time of year? If the kids are substantially ahead of grade level, take them out of school around June 1 so as to avoid (a) peak summer school vacation crowds, and (b) peak summer temperatures that will compromise aircraft performance. For home-schooled kids, maybe start this trip on April 15?

Readers: Thoughts on the overall idea or route?

[The airports: KBED KSFM KLCI KDDH KOXC KTTN KGED KGAI KROA KAVL KGSP KCHA KPDK KMGM KDTS KNEW KHEZ KASL KROG KEOS KIDP KAVK KDHT KSAF KCEZ E91 KGCN KPGA KBCE KBVU L06 26U KGEG KCOE KMSO KWYS KCPR KAIA KPIR KBWP KSTP KDBQ KJVL KPWK ZOGEB KBEH KEYE KGLW KPMH KPKB KJST KSWF KPVD KBED]

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20 thoughts on “A 48-state tour of the U.S. by light aircraft”

  1. Stop by Pagosa Springs, CO! It’ll add only 27 miles to your trip, and it’s gorgeous here. I’ll show you around!

  2. Sounds great!

    Note many schools outside of the NE start summer vacation in May. For example, May 25 for Atlanta and Chattanooga, May 22 in Santa Fe . . .

    And note Mass state laws on missing school are draconian.

  3. Colin: Those are serious truancy laws (e.g., at http://www.burlington.org/departments/schools/burlington_public_schools/docs/MPY__Parent_Info_Sheet_Truancy.pdf ), but do they apply to children who aren’t physically present in Massachusetts? Consider parents who work from November to March in Florida and from April through October in Massachusetts. It wouldn’t be illegal for them to bounce back and forth with school-age children, would it? So the kids would have to go to school in MA under MA laws when they are physically present in MA. And they would have to go to school in FL under FL laws when they are physically present in FL. But if the kids are not physically present in any state for more than a couple of days, is any state law being violated?

    [What if parents took children on a one-year around-the-world trip by sailboat? Is it illegal to be in international waters without getting approval for some sort of home-school curriculum?]

    [Separately, friends took their daughter out of 2nd grade about three months before the end of the school year. She was a year ahead of grade level and bored because the high-end suburban public school had never thought about “What should we do with kids who are ahead of grade level?” It turned out to be easy to get approval to do home schooling. So maybe the answer is “Get approval for a home-school curriculum and then follow that for the three weeks of the trip so as to avoid the heat and crowds of mid-summer. My friend’s daughter got through all of the required stuff in about 10 hours per week. So actually the last two months of school could be finished in one week before the trip and one week after the trip.]

  4. 20 years ago, whilst in college, I helped put a 13B rotary in a LongEZ. That got me exposed to the light aircraft / experimental crowd. Private light aircraft usage isn’t exactly like getting in your car and driving somewhere. What I realized was that between hassles of flight plans, airport reservations and the painfully SLOW speed of most light aircraft, I find that — for all the aggravation from TSA monkeys — I still prefer to fly commercial. Flight Level 33 and Mach 0.85 trumps all.

  5. I like it! Though I’ll modify it ever so slightly by moving the start and finish a few miles west to 6B6.

    It’ll have to wait a bit until I finish building my plane, which should be this year.

    Also, no kids for me as mine have already grown up.

  6. Why does an oil change from the east coast aero club last 60 hours when most oil changes last 25 hours if there is no remote oil filter or 50 if there is?

  7. toucan sam: flight school airplanes are heavily used and the bigger schools often adopt a progressive inspection program with intervals of 60 hours. The 50-hour interval is only a manufacturer’s recommendation, in any case, and is not binding for Part 91. Flight school airplane engines nearly always make it to TBO with oil changes every 60 hours so it is plainly sufficient.

  9. Phil,
    Stop in Roanoke and I’ll buy you lunch. Sorta like I did when you stopped in Lynchburg on an R22 a long time ago.
    PS
    I think you’ve nailed down a good route.
    Regards,
    Mark

  10. Phil! You were advocating yourself that people fly their own planes. You even said it would only cost 6,000 dollars for fuel and oil. I think you should recommend that anyone who contemplates this trip change their oil at 50 hours!

  11. toucan sam: The FARs allow a 10-hour extension beyond the 100-hour interval for a commercially operated aircraft (with no approved progressive inspection program) so I hope that a 50-hour run followed by a 60-hour run wouldn’t damage the engine! And the notes above are for our particular SR20, which currently lacks the ADS-B transponder, for example. But I will edit the original posting to clarify.

  13. Missing FFA for the aviation-themed educational trip? Anyway we did our December x-country flights in a rental DA40: https://youtu.be/MptwFlsd5X0 https://youtu.be/DocjFLVrSSg 37.4 hours on the Hobbs with a wet rental of $180/hr. Tried to see the Blue Origin launch (and say hello to Jeff Bezos) at van Horn, TX but they avoided us by one day. Would take a SR22 (a whopping $300/hr dry) next time as there are few options for any engine trouble (or icing potential) cross the mountains. Thought of this as a warm-up run to fly to China in April for a GA show there, but many geopolitical mountains to move from now till then.

  14. As a non-pilot, the ambition of this trip made me wonder about the safety of it.

    I found a good article on managing general aviation risk:

    http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/safety

    The author made the excellent point that ” using a small aircraft for scheduled transportation, as opposed to recreation, is an accident waiting to happen.”

    It would seem to me that the combination of limited time and set distance from the start suggests a *schedule* that the author warns against.

    So either drop the time element, which is hard to do unless you are permanently home schooling and have no adult commitments, or drop the long list of destinations. See what you can, in the time you can, be ready to enjoy yourself on the ground wherever you get to, rather than checking off destinations on a box.

    Now excuse me while I sit on the couch and play 2015 Madden.

  15. Mememe: Implicit in the above rules, e.g., “No IMC/IFR flying in the mountains” and “Cross big mountain ranges only when winds aloft are 30 knots or less” and “Wait out any afternoon thunderstorms; fly the next morning.” is that, absent perfect weather, it is not going to be happening on a specific schedule.

    Based on previous trips in four-seat airplanes and helicopters, I estimate that the 18-day “best case” trip will take about 24 days (i.e., just over three weeks).

    “Drop the long list of destinations”? I am not sure how it can be a visit to all 48 contiguous states without a destination in each of 48 states.

  16. When I was in high school the United pilot who lived across the street did this with his bright yellow piper cub – but not continuously. He used the free flight pass to bring them home and then back out to where they had left the place. I feel like they spent nearly a year elapsed time on it.

  18. fd: Awesome find. Thank you! That Mooney is similar in speed to the SR20. The author had essentially zero real IFR experience (says “So I filed my first real IFR flight plan and we got our taxi to the airport” on Day 2), was plagued with a lot of IMC, did a fair amount of sightseeing/resting, and yet completed the trip in 21 days.

    As a result of that I found out that this was done the hard way in 1991 by Stephen Coontz in an open-cockpit biplane with a 14-year-old (see the Cannibal Queen). Took him three months. No GPS. A Stearman cruises at about 90 knots, I think, so that’s 60 knots against a headwind!

  19. Sounds like hell to me. Just looked at your notes, lots of touch & go to check off states. Would the kids really like this for three weeks?

    I wouldn’t mind the trip, but it would have to be more leisurely. Like two or three months.

    You did include a stop in my hometown, KBEH, but I can’t think of anything meaningful to do in 30 minutes there.

  20. Would they enjoy being in an SR20 for 50 hours over 3-4 weeks? Well, a Phenom 300 would certainly be more comfortable, at the cost of some visibility, and it would cut the trip time to maybe 20 hours! I think as they get older they will enjoy the memories, being able to say that they’ve been to all 48 states, etc. Currently they are enthusiastic about flying and they also get excited when they can say that they’ve arrived in a state for the first time.

    The only touch and goes in the current plan, aside from Maine and NH where they’ve already been, are in South Carolina, Missouri, Idaho, Wisconsin, Michigan and WV (6 out of 48 states). I think the trip goes beyond the airport in at least 35 states.

    (When I was a kid I spent 20 hours round-trip in an unairconditioned dark green station wagon with black vinyl upholstery in order to spend two weeks in a Cape Cod rental house with my cousins and grandparents. The planned-out trip in the original post is maybe 15 hours of flying per week, which isn’t too much worse than our family Cape Cod 10 hours/week of Interstate travel.)

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