Final Thanksgiving Travels

After returning solo from the thanksgiving holidays I got to fly back down to UZA this weekend to pick up my better half and our young son Evan. I was able to take the Turbo down for this trip and loved every second of it. Charlotte was kind enough to give me slightly better vectors than normal, saving me a minute or so of flight time.

Being by myself I had some fun making use of the good roll rate of the Cirrus when I was entering the pattern. I kept all the banks under 30 degrees, but brought them in and out fairly sharply - lots of fun, but not something I would do with non-pilots on board. After 1.5 hours of near total straight and level flight banking felt good.

I had some lunch with the family and then we were back to the airport for the return trip. I tried to get the airport folks to fill up the oxygen tank but they require a maintenance person do that task. It being Saturday no one was there to do that for me.

Here's a video from the return trip which starts at take off from KUZA and ends with the landing at KJGG.

And I've got to include a few choice shots:

Evan "The Professor" Miller contemplates his new life outside Mommy:

MFD showing the highest groundspeed at which I have ever piloted a plane (209 kts in level flight):



Other things the MFD is showing:

  • KJGG is 21 minutes away and I will have 34 gallons in the tanks when I land
  • I am burning 17.3 gallons per hour (we use GPH to set the mixture in the Turbo)
  • I can fly for about another 2h:19m before running out of gas
  • KAVC is the closest airport and is to my left within gliding distance
  • The CHTs are good (cylinder head temps are under 380 F)
  • Almost all nearby airports report great weather (the little blue flags on the map)


My ground speed of 209 kts pales to what co-owner Mike would do later in the week, averaging 230 kts from DLH to CMH, with a peak speed of 279 kts! That was at 21,000' with one heck of a tail wind.

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