THE FLIGHT OF A LIFETIME





This is my very first attempt at blogging so I hope this flows smoothly and we can all enjoy it.


This week, we (my best friend, co-pilot and wife) will be flying from Northwest Arkansas to Anchorage, Alaska via American Airlines to pick up Cessna 63082...a Cessna 150.


This plane was nicknamed "Mighty Mouse" some time back as this is no ordinary, run of the mill Cessna 150.

This is a 150-150 which means the stock Continental, 100 horsepower engine was removed and then upgraded to the Lycoming O-320 with 150 horsepower.

Additionally, Mighty Mouse has the full Horton STOL kit installed and 39 gallon long range fuel tanks.

Another big plus with this conversion is the 160 gross weight increase.

Mighty Mouse is a 1976 model with about 2,500 hours total time on the airframe and a new, zero timed, Lycoming factory rebuilt engine.




Here's a picture of Mighty Mouse in Alaska.










Cindy and I will be flying with (following actually) our good friend Terry Dickinson from Big Lake, Alaska.

Terry has two planes. One is a Piper Super Cub (on floats this time of year) and the other is a Cessna 152 which is affectionately known as Mosquito or......"Skeeter" for short.

Terry has a need/desire to reposition Skeeter to his winter home in the desert of Nevada and we (Cindy and I) have a need to travel with a highly experienced bush pilot (who also just happens to be a CFI) from the Alaskan wilderness, through the Canadian Rockies and on home.

Our generic plan will have us crossing back into the lower 48 at Great Falls, Montana and at this point (probably) we'll separate where Terry will turn right to the southwest and head to Nevada and we'll turn left to the southeast and head to Arkansas.




Here's Mosquito (Skeeter) parked next to Mighty Mouse at Big Lake, AK




All three of us consider this to be the ultimate flying adventure of a lifetime and we'll do our best to document this trip for not only our enjoyment but yours as well.





Jim & Cindy

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Lloydminster, SK - June 18, 2014

To add a little more to our post from last night, after flying yesterday from Dawson Creek on the eastern edge of the Yukon Territory to Lloydminster on the eastern edge of Alberta, it looks like we'll be here waiting on the weather yet again.

Our flights (2 legs) took us across the entire width of Alberta.  We left Dawson Creek and flew past the northern side of Grand Prairie, Alberta and across mostly flat terrain into Whitecourt to refuel and get an updated weather briefing for our next leg into Lloydminster, Alberta which in on the Saskatchewan border.  This first leg was 1.9 hours and was in mostly smooth, comfortable air. 

We departed Whitecourt with full fuel and continued on our way to the east.  Our path took us just north of Edmonton, Alberta where we skirted their airspace and where we saw Edmonton's downtown buildings rising above the horizon.  From here to Lloydminster is was all prairie with farms and many pump jacks slowly working their up and down motion as they pumped oil from the ground.  This leg was a bit longer at 2.1 hours en route.

If I had to guess, we'll be here a couple days waiting on the weather.  Since we have a rental car we'll venture out and see what Lloyd has to offer.


Jim & Cindy


Since Dawson Creek is located at Mile Marker 0 on the Alaskan Highway, I really wanted a picture of Mighty Mouse parked in front of this terminal.  Dawson Creek has 2 commercial flights a day land and depart here and one of those was inbound so security would not allow me to carry out my wish.  This was the best I could do as I took the picture from inside the Mouse with the engine running.  The dark shadow in the upper right is the prop......dang it. 
Cruising along at 5,500' eastbound and enjoying not only the ride but the progress too.

This has been a very wet trip so far and we flew over quite a bit of saturated ground.

Saturated ground or not, we're putting miles and miles and miles in our rear view mirror.

The Whitecourt, AB terminal building were we talked with a weather briefer about our next leg into Lloydminster and filed our next flight plan into Lloyd.

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