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Imagine trying to plan a flight
through each of the lower 48 United States in a Cessna
172. You have been given 33 days to complete your
mission, which must also include a 50 hour oil change
and a 100 hour maintenance inspection. Throw in adverse
weather conditions, unexpected maintenance delays and
the possibility of a crew member falling ill and you
have a logistical nightmare ahead of you!
The first consideration of the
planning process was weather. Eagle Flight pilot Jared
Aicher knew that the weather conditions throughout the
southern United States can be very unpredictable and
quite violent during the latter part of May and first
part of June. Based on those possible conditions, the
decision was made to fly east from Boise, Idaho across
the northern United States and down the eastern seaboard
to Florida.
As predicted, the weather
conditions to the south of our flight path were less
than friendly with severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and
large hail hammering the region. The northern route
proved to be the best choice with only North Dakota
being cancelled due to poor weather conditions (icing)
and two weather delays along the route.
Once we reached Florida, the
weather was typical - afternoon thunderstorms every
day with pleasant morning conditions. We dropped our
plane off for its 100 hour inspection in Fort Myers,
Florida and the next day Tropical Storm
Arlene developed. She was headed straight north through
the Gulf of Mexico and the rain bands were expected to
be directly over our area. Eight inches of rain fell
in 24 hours and several tornado warnings were issued for
our area, although nothing developed The next day the
skies cleared and we were on our way once again. The
southern route proved to be more challenging than the
northern route with poor visibilities due to haze and
high humidity levels. We had several delays and
cancellations as we made our way thorough the southern
states, but the skies improved dramatically once we
reached central Oklahoma. We didn't encounter any other
weather issues from Kansas to Idaho and finished Phase
I seven minutes early on our planned arrival date.
The second consideration for the
Eagle Flight team was choosing one city, in each state
to offer three free flights in. We were working with
the Experimental Aircraft Association's (EAA) Young
Eagles program, which has local chapters in all 50 of
the United States. We chose a route with the most
direct line from coast to coast while zigzagging a bit
to include each state. Once that portion of the
route was finalized, we had to find a city near our
flight path that had an EAA chapter that was also
willing to host the Eagle Flight team once we landed.
This took several months and hundreds of dollars in
phone bills to organize and was by far the biggest
challenge of the entire trip. The entire Eagle Flight
team would like to thanks all the volunteers across the
United States who participated in our project this
summer. We couldn't have done in with out your
help!
The Eagle Flight team is already
busy finalizing Jared's route for next
summers circumnavigation of the globe. We will keep
you posted as details become available, so be sure and
check back often!
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