Flying MYSELF 600 miles to work because Southwest CANCELLED my flight

all right i got a job to do in albuquerque i'm gonna be shooting some stuff for a really popular tv show and uh my commercial flight actually out of burbank got cancelled yep just a few hours before departure the airline cancelled my flight from burbank to albuquerque sometimes if you want something done right you gotta do it yourself including jumping in an airplane and flying yourself 600 miles to work luckily this sweet cherokee 6 is up to the task i got my mountain bike loaded up i'm going to try to hit up sedona on the way back after the job is over and do a little mountain biking in the middle of the day throw the bike back in the plane and get home so la albuquerque do the job albuquerque sedona ride the bike sedona home should be a nice weekend let's go fly all those gauges are green air speed's alive flying a longer trip like this in a small airplane isn't necessarily as simple as hopping in and going especially when there's weather along the route that involves clouds over the mountains of western new mexico and possible icing conditions a storm system was forecast to clear out of the albuquerque area by the afternoon but cloud layers would remain until the early evening so my plan a was to fly an instrument flight through the clouds in order to fly on instruments i would need to fly at or above the minimum end route altitude which along the routes to albuquerque are mostly 9000 feet with a stretch over the mountains requiring 11 000 feet clouds were forecast to be overcast at 10 000 feet around noon and mostly clearing around 6 pm according to the cloud coverage depiction but the terminal area forecast for an airport near the mountainous area called for a scattered layer around 11 000 feet as late as 7 pm the freezing level was forecast to be around 11 000 feet right at the minimum altitude for part of the flight flying through the clouds with temps at or below the freezing level could lead to ice accumulation on the wings and tail of the airplane which can quickly turn into a very unsafe aerodynamic situation icing has led to a lot of general aviation accidents and it's another risk that a pilot must manage there was an air mit warning for icing starting at 12 000 feet for the area on my route of flight for the early part of the day i always leave myself a couple outs with a forecast like this if i noticed any ice accumulation i could turn around and very likely make the flight visually under the clouds and i could always fly farther south to lower terrain or land and wait for the weather to improve since it was forecast to clear out so with the forecast expected to improve i decided to attempt a flight with an afternoon start all right i took off from wyman i am over the desert here uh just south of el mirage dry lake bed over there southwest of it and uh i'm on my way to albuquerque i'm gonna stop [Applause] so i thought i might as well stop a little bit on the way instead of filling up at home because that gives me lots of fuel reserves total flight time should be about four and a half hours plus the stop started by to step for needles i had never landed at needles airport before and i was in for a bit of a surprise guess what the fuel pump doesn't work so i can't seem to get any fuel out of it i tried calling ahead before i took off to make sure they had fuel but nobody was here there were no nodems so anyway uh i can't get that clump to work so so i hopped over to havasu just a quick 10 minute flight away got fueled up at havasu air center and finally got on my way to albuquerque a bit behind schedule should make it there about half an hour before sunset so that'll be good i don't love to fly after dark especially over the mountains and stuff so the weather hopefully will clear out of there by the time we get there that's what the forecast is i had filed an ifr flight plan so i picked up the clearance in the are cleared air the albuquerque airport by a direct break delta romeo kilo all right we're just about over winslow arizona i see a guy down there standing on the corner [Music] along your route for you i am able one one thousand one brought whiskey uh okay great yeah i'd love to stay here as long as possible because i think i'm gonna be under the uh of the clouds here at one zero thousand what brought with you i am just under this cloud layer and it's cool cloud surfing is awesome it works on top and below sometimes below the clouds we get more uh bumps and stuff it is a little bumpy but it's not too bad those clouds probably are at about 11 000 so they mentioned i am gonna have to climb up to 11 000 in a little bit for terrain but i'm going to try to hang out here out of imc as long as possible oh this really is beautiful out here number six three one broad whiskey if i maintain one one thousand okay climb and maintain one one thousand one probably all right that means we're gonna be going into the clouds as i flew through the clouds at 11 000 feet i constantly monitored the outside air temperature and kept looking out for any ice accumulation on the wings i haven't seen any little ice accumulation and everything this was the stretch of the flight i was most nervous about the minimum altitude was 11 000 feet and the temps were starting to get close to freezing looks like we got some darker clouds up ahead so we just have a short area here where we got to be at 11. about a 70 mile stretch until we could descend outside air temperature 36 according to the dyno albuquerque center cherokee 631 bravo whiskey i'm showing some precipitation ahead about 40 miles four zero miles wondering if i could get the vectored around it number one probably i'm showing moderate precipitation 12 o'clock and approximately yeah 35 to 40 miles about 10 miles down a couple small cells of moderate precipitation are you asking if you can deviate yeah i think when i get closer i can wait till i get closer and then get to the right of it just go south of it that'd be great one brought with you i should be able to prove that just let me know as you get a little bit closer if you still want to go to the right albuquerque center cherokee is a 31 broadway i would like to try to get south of this uh cell that i'm showing precipitation here on the adsb weather for foreign [Applause] okay uh southbound the deviation approved one able direct to albuquerque looks like we are coming out of that bit a little i could see the ground up ahead the outside temp had dropped to 33 degrees so i was watching the wing carefully and we're sure to have the pedo heat on still good on the way the airplane's getting a free bath i can see ahead that underneath this cloud layer looks pretty clear i can even see some sunlight hitting the land over there so i think once we get past this i think the worst bit of the weather is right there and i can see it and that doesn't even look too bad albuquerque center uh cherokee 631 bravo whiskey i could go direct to albuquerque now number one probably let's go at your twitter albuquerque vr thank you clear direct albuquerque vor 631 broad whiskey thank you all right i got around the uh precipitation over there i could see it it was dark clouds i could see it on the adsb i'm around it i'm just still in imc here i could see up ahead it's bright i'm about to be out of it and he's cleared me direct albuquerque vor i got 30 minutes left and here we are breaking out of this one there's a rainbow there and albuquerque is the pot of gold at the end of this rainbow you guys saratoga one bravo whiskey turn right heading zero six zero descend and maintain eight notes right zero six zero and down to eight thousand with rob whiskey flying into a new airport is always a fun challenge and a bigger one like albuquerque is always a little intimidating especially when there's still a bit of weather ahead saratoga one drop of whiskey albuquerque airport is two o'clock and one seven miles a 631 whiskey i've got that airport inside there bravo whiskey cleared visual approach runway one two okay clear for the visual on runway one two one thank you r2 for your services albuquerque tower cherokee century one bravo whiskey is uh on the nine mile visual for runway one two okay thanks for watching turkey tower wins one six zero at niner runway one two cleared to land all right i got one two in sight got a little bit of precip looks like there's a little bit of the virga over there on the right i should be maybe out of it but none of this stuff is real violent or anything it's just you know it's a little bumpy under here pretty sure that that's runway one two cleared to land from one two gas undercarriage mixture power seatbelt safety items mixture is a little lean because the airport's 5000 feet looking really good here expecting a little bit of a right crosswind a little bit of rain flying myself 600 miles across three states to get to work when my commercial airline canceled their flight was super fun and landing at the same airport with the big jets was just icing on the cake now i just gotta do the job and i hope that goes well and then make it to sedona for some mountain bike i'll be covering that along with a very eventful flight from albuquerque to la with a mountain biking stop in sedona on another video so subscribe to get in the loop if you like this video come join our patreon membership and get exclusive perks like bonus content our own discord chat server zoom hangouts and merch discounts thanks for coming along on the journey with me

Channel: SoCal Flying Monkey

Views: 37,928

Rating: 4.9758101 out of 5

Keywords: aviation, socal aviation, general aviation, piper cherokee, pa32, pa32-300, flying adventure, dynon hdx, trutrak, trutrak vizion, avidyne, avidyne ifd540, ifd540, single engine airplane, family flying, whiteman airport, southwest airlines cancellation, southwest airlines cancellations, KABQ, albuquerque flying, avoiding icing, airframe icing, instrument flying, full IFR flight, IMC flight, flight in IMC, flying in IMC

Id: qM2g8z5KiFw

Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 04 2021