We landed at KFRK - Frankfort IN after flying for an hour to warm up. They have a nice FBO there and nice people. After some hot oatmeal and hot chocolate the sky started opening up. We took off and did a 1800 fpm climb through a hole and were above the clouds at 3500' to sunshine. We flew down to KARG - Walnut Ridge AR to get fuel. We decided to spend the night.
At KARG the manager and her husband greeted us, gave us directions to a hotel, recommendation for dinner, and gave us a nice 1990's Crown Vic to drive. They also had a hangar for us to use for the evening. The airport was an old AFB in WWII and there is a museum there that really looked interesting. I wish we had had time to go through it.
Tuesday morning we took off about 9:30 and headed to KDTN - Shreveport. The weather was warmer and it was nice and sunny with some haze. The haze got pretty thick from lots of burning but still about 15 mile visibility. We made it in just over two hours. KDTN is an interesting place to fly into. I am NOT used to class D and do not land at towered airports very often. On one side is Barksdale AFB and the main Shreveport airport on the other. I was handed off to the tower from flight following when I THOUGHT i had the airport in site. I was lined up for Barksdale! Lucky there were several planes in the pattern and the ATC guy must have known I was screwing up and told me to do a 360 for traffic. I noticed my error when I saw KDTN just in front of me and I was at 3000'! I told him I needed another 360 to descend. After that I made a great landing and got progressive taxi instructions to the hangar I had reserved at Tuberaux Aviation. I was in with a couple Cirrus and a nice Cirrus Jet.
The weather looked like it could be an issue over the weekend so we left a day earlier on Friday. At about 9:00 we took off and climbed to 5500. We were going to get fuel at KARG again but had a nice 15 kt tail wind and decided to change to KCGI - Cape Girardeau MO. About 2:20 later we landed for fuel and a rib eye steak sandwich. The fuel was $4:65 - the best price on the trip. The sandwich was great. We got them to go and started out for the flight home.
From KCGI we set the AP to KTEW. It was about a 3:00 flight. After about an hour we decided we should find a place to walk around and use the facilities. We ended up landing at CFJ - Crawfordsville IN. I topped the tanks and we headed out for the last hour of flight. It started getting pretty hazy as it got close 4:00 in the afternoon and we were glad we were almost home. Landed nicely and put the plane in the hangar.
Things I learned.
1. Having foreflight on my ipad right with the RAM mount on my left was great - especially the taxi and airport diagram.
2. My heater is crap. I need to figure out how to stay warmer or risk my wife not flying with me again
3. Flight following is great. They got me through MOA's class B and right into the busy KDTN airport
4. Tower airports are not as bad as I had feared.
5. I need to make sure I understand how to run LOP and that I am not going too far LOP
6. The cockpit of the 9 is small. Makes me want a Velocity or a 10!
Stats:
Miles Traveled: 1800+-
Hours of Flight: 10.9
Fuel Used: 86 +-
Landings: 6
Take Offs: 6
why Navy, simply because they are the best...
