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

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Monday - June 2, 2014

We didn't get our flight to Tok in today but we'll try again tomorrow.

It cleared up enough to get some local flying in though so Cindy and I took advantage of that.  This was actually the first time Cindy was able to fly in Mighty Mouse and we flew from Big Lake to Wasilla where we refueled.  After that, we flew around the local area for over an hour before landing back at Big Lake.


A sample of why the Tok flight was postpone today is revealed in the photo's from the weather camera's in the Tahneta Pass that we would have to fly through to get to Tok.

This is a picture which shows what the geography for Tahneta Pass looks like on a clear day with the elevations listed for a point of reference.  




This is a shot from the same camera today.  The pass is obscured which prevents flying through it.  These camera's are worth their weight in gold when deciding if it's safe to fly through a pass.

The Chickaloon Pass is another pass that we woud have to fly through to get to Tok and Chickaloon suffered from the same mountain obscuration as Tahneta.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is another day and the weather forecast is encouraging so we'll see how it shakes out tomorrow.


Jim & Cindy

 
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