Trip to Montana
October 1-3, 2014
Bill
Schertz and Dave Spano
As many of
you know, I moved to Lolo,
Montana in July. I had not moved my
plane N343BS to the new location, being too busy packing, shipping household
goods, and moving the Motor Home. In late September, I finally felt that it was
time to go get the plane.
Since I had
not flown a lot during the packing and moving time, and since it was a long cross country, arranged with Dave
Spano to come with me. This was a good decision, as it provided extra eyes, and
a lot of help getting frequencies and communicating with centers and flight
following.
The original
plan was to leave Tuesday, September 30th, on a route of Aurora to Fairmont,
MN (KFRM) to Pierre, SD (KPIR), to
Billings, MT
(KBIL) to Stevensville,
MT (32S). As in combat, all plans
change once you are engaged.
Woke up
Tuesday morning with low overcast, and a long line of thunderstorms and nasty
weather to the west. IFR all over the place in the direction that we would be
going, so the plan was delayed until the next day.
Wednesday
still had the long line of weather to the west, and no way to go around it to
the North, so we altered the flight plan to go South on our first leg. Planned
to go to Columbia,
Missouri (KCOU) to skirt the bottom
of the weather system. Launched and proceeded on our way. As we went south, the
weather started getting closer, so we had to deviate East for a few miles, and
replan to go to Rolla,
Missouri (KVIH). We landed
and refueled, and started moving Northwest.
Our plan was
to overfly Lawrence,
Kansas (KLWC), and then proceed to
Grand Isle, Nebraska (KGRI) for refueling. We did accomplish this, with a
deviation south of the direct line to KLWC due to several thunderstorms. Landed
and refueled at KGRI, and launched for Pierre, SD. Flight was smooth and uneventful,
except for picking up a load of bugs. This was the only leg where bugs were
pre-eminent. Spent the night at Pierre. Basically burning ~10 gal/hr at
150ktas.
The next
morning, the plane had heavy dew, which made removing the bugs very easy, they
were soft and wiped off quickly. We left Pierre
for Billings, MT as our next fuel stop. Weather was clear,
good visibility, but a strong headwind. About 60nm from Billings, we decided that we needed to divert to Sheridan, Wyoming (KSHR) to get fuel. We were burning at
a higher rate, ~11 gal/hr trying to fight the head wind. Nice thing was, when we
turned South towards Sheridan, the tailwind component really helped
us scoot along on Ground Speed.
Refueled at
Sheridan, and took off for Billings. About 20nm north
of Sheridan, a
weather system started moving in and lowering the ceiling. Still VFR and
adequate ceiling, but it became clear that we were going to have to overnight at
Billings.
Terrain under our route was very rugged, and with the wind, we had a somewhat
bumpy ride getting to Billings. At Billings, we were cleared
to runway 28R, (long runway) with a pretty stiff wind out of the North.
Strongest crosswind landing that I have ever made. Weather became increasingly
poor, raining and snow showers, low ceiling. Met a fellow who was ferrying a
Tri-pacer from Brownsville, TX to Spokane. He was stranded at Billings also. Got a
room for the night.
Next morning
dawned bright, clear, and cold. We should have had the FBO put the plane in a
hanger overnight. It was covered in frost, plus numerous lumps of ice where the
water from the rain had frozen solid. We had to put it in a hanger to melt
off the ice. It was below freezing when we left Billings, but was warming
up.
From
Billings, we
basically followed I-90 to avoid flying over the higher granite formations. Set
an altitude of 8500 ft, then went on up to 9500 as the terrain rose. This gave
us 4-5000 clearance over the ground. Crossed over into the Bitterroot valley at
Missoula, then
turned South to Stevensville (32S). Overall, we covered 1509 nautical miles due
to the weather and fueling diversions.