My route was CYXS-CYCW-KBLI-KMMV-4S1-KSTS-KSQL-O43-KVGT-KPGA-U42-S78-KPUW-CYLW-CZAM-CYXS, that's 15 airports in 7 states and one province. Over 28.1 hours air time we covered 3162 nm at an average speed of 112.5 knots, burning about 957 liters of avgas (calculated, I didn't keep receipts).
My random thoughts:
Long distance travel by light aircraft is the form of travel with the highest workload I have ever experienced. I've traveled overseas a few times and traveled across Canada extensively by every kind of conveyance and going by small airplane is the most work. In addition to planning the usual travel details like where to stay, what to do etc. you have the logistics of the airplane to deal with and the actual flying, dealing with weather etc. It's a lot of work, but it's happy work and immensely satisfying.
Customs and cross border flying in general is a piece of cake. Reading some of the guides to border crossing would have you believe that if you're 37 seconds late you'll have F-16s off your wings and the machine gun toting border guards will be pulling on their rubber gloves in anticipation of a cavity search. Oh and you'd better write down the badge number of everyone you talk to because it might be your only way to avoid Gitmo. Nonsense. File Eapis, call the airport of entry, get flight following to cross the border, clear customs and you're in. Just about the reverse to come home though flight following isn't necessary, FSS will give you a code when you file your flight plan. Squawk it, but you don't have to talk to anyone. Clearing customs in the USA was easy, the agents on the phone and on the ground were very friendly and helpful, the guy in Bellingham even cracked a 'Murica joke and gave us a good natured ribbing about taking so long to clear his box. Coming back to Canada was easy too, We spent 14 minutes on the ground in Kelowna from touchdown to takeoff after taxiing over to Shell and calling customs to report. I'm not registered with CANPASS so I expected a bit more of a process, but we just landed, called, and off we went. Before the trip customs caused me more stress than anything else, stress that was totally unwarranted.
I discovered that there are different kinds of mountains. Of the meager number of hours in my log book a significant portion have been spent in the mountains, mostly the Rockies and to a lesser extent the Coast range. I don't claim to be some kind of mountain flying expert, but I'm not quite a neophyte either. The Rockies and the Coasts are big angry intimidating dragon's teeth that will joyously rip your airplane to shreds if given the chance. The Sierras look almost soft by comparison, no stunning jagged peaks, very little snow on top and no glaciers. The difference is that, while the Rockies and Coasts look mean and scary, they are full of low valleys and passes that allow a low performance aircraft to pass with relative ease. Not so with the Sierras. The Sierras are a solid mass of rock with no convenient place to cross. Leaving San Carlos I opted to head North East toward Lake Tahoe as the mountains are a little bit lower there. The Sierras are much more gently sloped than the Rockies, so they kind of sneak up on you. It was a little surprising to cross at about 11000' and see the pass go by closer than you expected beneath you. I also experienced mountain wave in the Sierras in quite low upper wind conditions. I've only seen it in the Rockies when the winds are getting to be over 20 knots.
An IFR equipped airplane and an instrument rating would definitely be an asset. We didn't get out of San Carlos until noon due to a marine layer about 2000' thick. This meant we got to climb up and over the Sierras as the day was heating up and we crossed the desert North West of Las Vegas during the hottest part of the day. That was one bumpy, hot ride and in a headwind to boot. If I was able to file IFR to get though the layer we would have been out way earlier and had a more pleasant ride. On the last leg of the trip we were almost weathered out North of Kamloops, being able to go IFR would have been handy there too.
Density altitude takes on a whole new meaning in the desert and in Utah. I never had a real problem with it. My airplane has a full fuel payload of 800 lbs so with my girlfriend and I and all of our stuff we were still several hundred pounds under gross. Even so we were climbing awfully slowly (it's not often I wish for a long wing PA-28 over my short wing, but this was one of those times) out of our stops in the desert and over Utah. When I change tanks I tune the nearest AWOS and I was regularly hearing density altitudes around 8-9000'. Utah is seriously high country, and hot. It was interesting to be cruising up a valley at 9500', around 2000' agl look up an adjoining valley and see a lake (and I mean proper lake, not a mountain tarn) at nearly our altitude. If I were more heavily loaded I would definitely have to be more careful in route planning and airport selection in consideration of density altitude.
American ATC is a little different than ours, they use different phraseology and have some different procedures. They almost always use your type when they call you up, even after initial contact. So it's always "Cherokee SQW" rather than just "SQW". I think that's not a bad idea, as soon as I hear "Cherokee" I listen just a little more closely for what comes next. The first time I was cleared to land behind a Citation that was still touching down was a bit of a surprise. When there's another plane ahead of me I'm used to waiting until short final to receive my landing clearance after they've cleared the runway. Also American towers don't let you know when they're done with you. Unless you're being handed off to another controller all you'll get is something like "Left turnout cleared for takeoff runway 6" and then they don't speak to you again unless they have to.
Canadian ATC has never once screwed up my call sign. American ATC has never once gotten it right on the first try. Must be my thick foreign accent. They read back the wrong letters, insert numbers, and leaving Las Vegas they called me "Canadian GSQW".
American airspace is busy. I'm from Northern BC, if there are 2 airplanes flying around any of the ATF airports that I regularly fly in and out of it's an awfully busy day. All the time, but especially in and around the larger cities it pays to make your passengers spot airplanes for you. My girlfriend caught a couple that required me to change course to avoid and one Super Cub in a very steep descent toward us that required some rather sporty maneuvering for us to stay out of his way. I got a much better look at that airplane than I would have liked.
I am very glad that I fly a bright yellow airplane. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry has a white airplane with some kind of stripe. My yellow airplane is easy for other airplanes to spot, easy for ATC to pick out ("Are you the yellow Cherokee over by Jet Center?") and simple when I walk in to the FBO and say "Hi, can I get some fuel in the yellow Cherokee over there?".
Flying is much cheaper in the USA. In Canada I burn in the neighborhood of $80 per hour in fuel (sometimes more if I have to fuel here in CYXS), in the USA it's easy to keep it under $60 and possible to do it under $50 if you shop around. Before I bought my plane I was renting an old 172 for $180 per hour wet (with taxes in). For that price in the USA I can rent a 260 hp Comanche, or I can rent the same 172 for $108.50. Booze is cheaper too, I'm quite partial to Knob Creek Bourbon. It's $50 a bottle here, $30 south of the border. Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc it great with seafood, $24 per bottle here and $12.98 down there.
There are a lot more airplanes in the USA and much nicer airplanes than you generally see here. Fly in to nearly any little hick town airport and you'll see the ramp loaded with airplanes on average in much better shape than those you see in Canada. There are also far fewer airplanes rotting out with grass growing up between the wheels.
There are many more airports in the USA than here. It was common to press the NRST button on the GPS and find the first page of airports all within 25nm. Shopping around for fuel is easy, and the price does vary quite a bit.
American FBOs kick ass. It's quite average to pull up to the FBO, have them run you to the office in a golf cart where they throw you the keys to a complementary crew car so you can run in to town to get something to eat. When you come back your plane is fueled and you have some bottles of cold water for your trip. Try finding that in Canada. Even the little place at Emmett ID, which is just a self serve fuel pump and a little pilot's shack has an old car there for transient pilots to use. The one that takes the cake though was Interstate-Aviation at KPUW. We went up there, having not booked a hotel room in advance because I didn't know if the weather was going to cooperate. We landed and the line guy came out right away and started chaining us down. We told him our plans to get a hotel and he said all the crew cars were out, but he offered to drive us in to town when he got off work in half an hour. I figured "Great, that'll give me enough time to find a hotel and get the plane buttoned up". Unfortunately there were no hotels available. I even tried to book a roach motel at $260 per night (plus $25 "resort fee"), but someone snapped it up before me. I expanded my search to everywhere I could fly to without getting in to the mountains as night was approaching and no luck. We were standing at the plane starting to stress about what to do when Doug, the owner, came up and offered to let us stay in one of the rooms at the FBO. He drove us in to town so we could get something to eat, we picked up an air mattress at Wal-Mart and overall it wasn't a bad night. It was a real life saver, we were completely out of options. If you're ever though KPUW, definitely stop in at Interstate and tell Doug that the Canadian with the yellow Cherokee says hi!
There is no 126.7 in the USA and I sure didn't miss it. Not long after crossing the border I switched to 126.7 and almost immediately I heard "Dodo Lake area traffic on 126.7 Cessna 180 on floats FUKT currently over the West edge of Dodo Lake at five point seven heading 320 en-route from Dumbo bay to Likesthesoundofhisownvoice Lake intending steak possibly chicken for dinner. Any conflicts please advise FUKT on 126.7" American pilots fly all over the place without any of that crap and somehow survive. Why can't we?
Americans don't jabber on 126.7, but they do call every single leg of the circuit which seems a little excessive.
The Grand Canyon is very grand indeed, but it's a bit of a pain in the ass to fly around with all of the restricted areas and it's hard to get a decent picture from the airplane. It's worth flying over if you're in the neighborhood, but not worth making a special trip for.
The sheer variety of terrain to be seen flying around the western states is really incredible, and the trip was worthwhile just for that alone.
A good GPS is worth its weight in gold. I have a Garmin 495 in an AirGizmo mount and it was awesome. I sprung for the AOPA airport guide and for the Safetaxi diagrams and they were both worthwhile. The GPS is especially helpful when navigating around busy, complex airspace and makes staying clear of the bravo simple. The Safetaxi diagrams let me navigate around unfamiliar airports like I knew what I was doing and the AOPA guide completely negated the need for an Airport/Facility Directory (it also make it easy to find an airport with a restaurant or crew cars when we were feeling hungry). The GPS is not a substitute for charts, of course, but I view it as a necessity for any long distance trip.
I really like American TAC charts, specifically the back of them. They have a really handy guide that shows easy routes to stay clear of class B airspace and the altitudes to stay at to keep you out of trouble.
Skyvector is the best tool for cross-country flight planning, hands down.
My airplane likes to be flown lean of peak, but it's finicky about it. Sometimes I can lean LOP directly, sometimes I need to add carb heat to get it to run smoothly. On different days with similar conditions it will need something different to run LOP smoothly.
I believe that I own the world's only old airplane with accurate fuel gauges. Every time I fill I take exactly what the gauges say I should take. Don't worry, I still don't rely on them.
That's a mouthful, but hardly exhaustive. Cut me some slack though, this trip represents more than 15% of my total time! This trip was very satisfying as a traveler and as a pilot I gained a wealth of experience and knowledge that it just wouldn't be possible to gain by flying 30 hours close to home. It was a whole lot of fun, a great challenge and I recommend something similar to anyone who wants to gain experience and become a better pilot!
Here are a few crappy phone pics from the trip:
The Golden Gate Bridge. I may or may not have been humming the Full House theme flying by this one:
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