I completed the flight this past Saturday. 12.0 on the Hobbs. I can't believe how incredibly lucky we were with the weather across the entire country. I couldn't have asked for a better day to fly. 180kts across the ground on 13gph.
The only part I was remotely worried about was the cold front pushing down from the northwest over the mountains and the small stationary over central CA. I was electing to choose the southern route (I-10) to stay as far away from those fronts as we could. We even had a tailwind (15+ kts) going WEST at 12k!
First leg was from the Atlanta area to Ardmore, OK ($3.90 for 100LL) and was just under 4 hours. We had a cell to the north but it proved to be a non-event for us. Stopped for about 20 mins and we were off again.
The next leg was from OK to the El Paso area due to impending weather building around the ABQ area. This was the shortest leg being just over 3 hours. The weather wasn't showing up on the MFD, but we had a bit of deviating to do to get through everything. We had a really nice, isolated, extreme cell right on an extended final into the El Paso area. An incredible downpour complete with lightning gave us a short chase but we prevailed. Again, we were at 12k on the way down. Made it through with no issues.
Once in the El Paso area, we sat on the ground for about 45 mins, made our go, no-go decision, bought the airline tickets, gassed up, and got ready to head out. This was going to be the longest leg, across hazardous terrain, during the evening/twilight/night hours. Planning was key. Not being familiar with the area, I elected to fly Victor routes the entire length to keep myself clear of any potential terrain and once again, go at 12k.
Weather was mostly CAVOK with the occasional isolated cell. The bases of the weather was about 14-16k MSL and we just had to dodge the rain shafts but it turned out to be the easiest leg to keep clear. ABQ Center was more than helpful giving us reports and aiding us in what we needed at the time. Kudos to them. And, of course, this was the most beautiful leg of them all. Just incredible. Once night came around, you would never be able to count all of the stars in the sky. The closer to the garbage dump of CA we got, the less we could see in the sky. I'll post pictures when I can.
Crossing the mountains in to the LA area, all we could see was a sea of white and yellow lights with bumpa-da-bumpa traffic anywhere you looked.. at 10:30pm...
We were vectored for the ILS 16R (weather was clear), started flying the approach, and then received a report saying that the airplane ahead of us was shot by a green and white laser at 500 AGL. I had a feeling that someone would get hit with one. I held my hand over one of my eyes until short final just in case they got us, but they didn't. The police were already on their way over.
Greased the last landing onto the famous 16R, taxied onto the ramp, shutdown, cleaned the airplane up, and called it a day. We were exhausted.
The airline trip back to GA was a mess and worthy of its own post, but maybe another time.
*I was worried about the terrain out west, but we were at least 5,000'-6,000' AGL and didn't have any issues with navigating. We were above anything we could see in the distance. This is was an easy route to go and wouldn't hesitate sending a green pilot on it.
