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

Monday, June 2, 2014

Monday - June 2, 2014

Yesterday (Sunday) I wired up Mighty Mouse for the portable GPS's as planned and they are up and running and functioning well.

Passing showers were the norm while I was doing this and giving the Mouse a visual once over while I checked him over.

The passing showers prevented a planned trip to Talkeetna that Terry and I had planned but we did take off and we flew around the local area for an hour while we were in hopes of the rain dissipating.

It didn't dissipate and seemed to be getting worse so we called it a day, landed back at Big Lake, put the Mouse in his spot and tied him down.

The weather was forecast to improve today (Monday) allowing us to fly our mountain flying instructional flight to Tok, AK and back but was still raining when I woke up at 4:00 this morning. 

We'll see what today actually brings us but this was the view out the motel window this morning.

39 degrees with rain and low ceilings at 4:00 AM



Jim & Cindy

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