Flying the Edge of America
Planning
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Here is a map of our planned route.
Well, Julia and I just cannot stand still and so we are
planning our next adventure. This time we will not leave the borders of the
good old US of A, for foreign parts, but instead we will focus our travels
around the United States. In fact, we intend to fly our airplane around the
edges of the contiguous United States. If we are successful we will be the
first (I believe) people to do this. We could not find any record of this
being done before, at least from our limited searches of the Internet, so we
believe this to be a first.
The trip will take approximately three months.
I do mean approximately as flying general aviation aircraft is highly
dependent on the weather. But given good weather we plan to leave on June 30th
and return home on October 2nd.
As you can see from this map we stay as close to the
edges as possible only deviating to avoid military airspace, and making
visits to national parks we just do not want to miss. Glacier and Yellow
Stone National parks pull us away from the northern border for a little
while, but believe me we really aren't missing much.
Here are some of the criteria that directed our trip
planning:
-
The maximum flight time per day should not exceed
four hours.
-
The flight track will stay as close as possible to
the west coast, Canadian United States border, east coast, and Mexican
United States borders.
-
The trip will stop at as many National Parks as
possible.
-
Visit friends throughout the United States where
possible.
-
See as much of the United States as we can, and have
as much fun as possible.
Here is a photo of our airplane. It is a Commander 112A
and is a beautiful thing.
We are flying in a clockwise direction to ensure we are
in the northern parts during the summer and the southern parts in the fall. The
weather is always very unpredictable but our biggest concern is flying down
the eastern seaboard during the hurricane season. If all goes well we will
not have to spend too long on the ground waiting, due to bad weather.
Today the airplane was given a clean bill of health after
passing its yearly mechanical inspection. Also today we purchased the final
items we need for the camping parts of our trip such as a tent and other
camping necessities.
Wish us good luck and watch out for trip updates.
Trip Plan Video