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 30^th, 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.