Planning a 900-mile Trip in a Cessna 172 - EPIC Sunrise!

would you look at that oh my goodness it's just like I know why don't I get up this early or often to go fly watching the sunset is one thing watching the Sun Rise and breaking it a brand new day is just totally different like ah come on cloud nine right now this is amazing this is amazing I do wish somebody was here to share it with me bet we'll have to settle mahoto over here okay don't be like that through another one two seven one two good morning Ken another one morning morning Houston purchase sky hog gauge zero and one hundred one hundred thousand banging through nine nine one you both have me on the meter three zero zero five three zero zero five been a net one flying yourself on a long distance trip and your own airplane is incredibly rewarding and when you plan it right with locations and timing you can turn an otherwise uneventful trip into a spectacular adventure I get the question a lot asking how I even begin to plan a long trip in a general aviation airplane and I found that a lot of owners of small airplanes hardly ever get out of their local area to take a long trip I need to head to Orlando Florida from Texas to be a groomsman and a friend's wedding and the obvious option is to airline and make it a quick trip but flying to and from Florida and our 172 will honestly come out to about the same price and fuel so I might as well take a full day and just fly myself for those of you who follow the channel November 8 0 9 and NR 1 is back online after a long process of overhauling the engine due to high time it's back up and running in the engine is purring better than ever in this video we're gonna walk through how I go about planning a multi leg trip items I like to carry in the airplane on these trips tools I use to plan etc let's get to it the rest of these items are gonna go in this backpack drone all that kind of stuff in there this is Pelican Bravo computer equipment camera charging over here is Pelican alpha survival kit flight bag tripod I get all that stuff packed up and ready to go then we'll move on to packing the personal stuff suitcase duffel bag all that and then once all that we weigh it so that will be there and I believe I'm good to go so we're gonna take a look at the iPad here and first we're gonna do a weight and balance four eight zero nine nine one based on all of the equipment that we have everything's been way too wrote down the weights for everything and then after that we're gonna look at our entire route of flight and we're gonna start picking our fuel stops okay so first we're gonna do the weight and balance here on for flight we're gonna go over two more and tap weight and balance and we're gonna choose 8 zero and nine nine one and then here is the weight and balance envelope so that being said I know the stuff that I want in the back seat is my flight bag camera backpack and the survival equipment and I want all of that stuff within an arm's reach of me from the front seat so let's go ahead and calculate that we're gonna hit edit and the app seats here we're gonna say add new load the survival kit weighs 10 pounds gonna add a new load call this the backpack 25 pounds light bag and that one weighs 10 pounds let's go ahead and start doing that so let's hit edit again let's go to baggage area a we're going to add Pelican Bravo suitcase is going to be 25 pounds we'll go ahead and load our duffel bag garment bag with my suit for the wedding Pelican alpha so just for the fun of it let's go up here and let's check let's add a 200-pound copilot and see where that puts us and then actually shifted our CG forward and obviously brought us up closer to max gross weight so it doesn't look like it's gonna be possible to have any sort of a backseat passenger with all my gear in here but we can absolutely handle a 200-pound co-pilot so that is a complete weight and balance now watch this this is so cool you can go to the box with the arrow at the top and hit print and it'll recognize my printer I want double-sided and let's go do two copies and there we are a nice weight and balance report and right down here it says in the notices loading appears ok it shows exactly where everything is all of your data here and it lists everything for your takeoff weight and your landing weight we've got our entire route here obviously we're not doing this direct 400 nautical miles with no wind is generally my limit an 8 0 9 9 1 so we've got the entire route here we're gonna go on filters scroll all the way down and click fuel 100 load list so we're gonna use two fingers here and tap and hold and you get this ruler so I'm going to put one end of this right on same mark and I'm gonna get the other end where it's about 350 or so nautical miles away so right in here somewhere is where I need to be looking so let's zoom into kind of Baton Rouge and let's see what's around we got false river that's 395 a gallon down here we got Louisiana regional 454 a gallon 454 is still not bad let's let's tie what's going to port of south Louisiana KPS so that's 379 nautical miles on our first leg so from ApS to Quincy that's 314 nautical miles and that's a little short for my taste so we can go where I went last time and that is Perry Foley four zero Juliet son I'm gonna fly virtually the exact same route I flew it a Sun and fun so what kind of plan for that and that way on this route from New Orleans our port of south Louisiana just to the northwest New Orleans will fly in front of downtown New Orleans and well you get to kind of chase the coast here and that's just kind of a cool area to just chase the coast it's really picturesque really pretty and then eventually we'll cut in from the coast and go inland right around Panama City and then right into Perry Foley 379 on the first leg 364 on the second leg and 133 on the last leg so that's pretty much how I play in the flight I think that's what we're gonna do tomorrow from here into Port of south Louisiana just outside New Orleans from there we'll fly over to Perry Foley Florida following the Gulf Coast and then from there we'll go from Perry Foley into Apopka Orlando Apopka it's gonna be an awesome day of flying I want to go to bed in about 20 minutes it's getting close to 9:00 p.m. and I want to be up at 3 a.m. out by 3:30 I'm gonna be wheels up by 6:00 a.m. and that'll give me about an hour of flight time before the Sun rises a long solo trip a long solo cross-country it's gonna be gorgeous it's gonna remind me why I love flying so much and this is gonna be awesome come along all right I think we're all good to go trucks loaded up it's 3:40 in the morning so we're a little late but that's okay I'm probably gonna make up for it and the drive down to the airport there should be no traffic hit the road [Music] 8:09 another one hold for release clearly off-pump the airport via the radar vectors trick victory uniform hotels tear up Bravo India direct maintain breathe out expected Niner thousand your departure frequency is one-one-niner point zero four five zero lon well hold for the release we're clear to the alpha Papa seer Airport via radar vectors direct to Galveston and Sabine Pass then direct on the maintain 3000 expect Niner thousand departure frequency one one out of point zero squawk four five zero one eight zero nine on that one one reback is correct about number one where you go on your departure runway Ocoee Jeff I don't know I can't look at the interior Laurel of a climate of 13 1604 either 19 over the grounders farm and maintained for the loop two three zero this right here is what it's all about how beautiful is this just those colors it's like a fiery orange at the bottom and then it kind of fades to a pale blue this is gonna be an epic sunrise [Music] ladies gentlemen I think that I'm gonna witness the most spectacular sunrise an aviation 101 history and I've got some very nice campers in the cockpit here that are gonna help me capture this getting up at 3:00 a.m. was totally worth it it's already worth it and the Sun hasn't even come up yet but I'm starting to see the fiery orange start to show on the clouds up here this is just gonna be epic turn 10 degrees right for your climb 31:51 take the United force after the first one to 7.1 shoot today what is that pointer so 60 not for I want to identify 127 12 ourselves 16 not for ya [Music] oh yeah all right our panel lights are obvious then pop a contact and when all of our displays have the brightness turned up so we can see them down and we should be more like getting a turn five good morning good morning [Music] maintain 3000 PD down to three thousand eight zero nine oh all right PD down to three I'll go ahead and pour altitude bug on that but those of you who have seen the movie airplane congratulations for those who have not seen the movie airplane shame on you this pillow is in reference to that movie so Auto over here is tagging along helping out in the cockpit right don't look at me like that hey zero minute I don't want vacating Niner thousand use the power back just a little bit gonna maintain for about a minute and we're getting a yellow on the engine monitor that's just for fuel descent checklist mixture enrichment let's get a couple swipes and fuel selector is on both the car Pete we don't need it ADIS and a once we have got it we've got all the weather outside here three zero one six is what it was and altimeter is cross checked and calibrated and instruments cross-checking calibrate descent checklist complete New Orleans approach scan k0 another one has the airport site when you can't fly far far frequency free no squawk could talk via far easier I'm at another one I got a quick question for you - we're gonna depart here in just a little while after this fuel stop we're going to proceed eastbound toward Florida VFR we'd like to see if we could transition across New Orleans on the south shore of Pontchartrain okay look I appreciate it alright descending through 7,000 and we are walking and talking VFR squawk VFR obviously have been talking VFR is just what I say fur changed it advisory it's going to talk to you bar they get the idea we have made it to the other side of Mississippi River we are over some swampland here mainly off to our left off to our right there's you know lots of farmland but gets the river there and stuff but off to our left it's nothing but trees and you know that all looks dry but if the Sun were to glint off the ground down there you would actually see it that that's all water and it's that's all swamp you do not want to put it down down there I would I would definitely be jumping over to this highway put it down on the highway report of south Louisiana traffic sky okay zero no one is over the top of the runway now transitioning from west to east we're gonna enter the left downwind for roughly 1 7 . quarter south Louisiana port of south Louisiana traffic Skyhawk turning a left downwind runway 1 7 . quarter south Louisiana 3 landing brakes pedal test landing light is on autopilot soft seat belt shoulder harnesses are on a fixture set the best power cart beats on you own both flaps is required we aren't already in the wide arc car Pete's out one one thousand two one thousand three one thousand add the first notch of flaps and let's get the nose down we do have a displaced threshold we need to make sure we land past that shouldn't be a problem oh yeah these are the wetlands lots and lots of water down there you don't want to go down out here port a south Louisiana traffic sky ok 0 no one left base runway 1 7 . port of south Louisiana one one thousand two one thousand three one thousand flaps 20 put a south Louisiana Skyhawk tourney final one Senate full stop for South Louisiana [Music] let's get 30 degrees flaps one thousand two one thousand three one thousand a little bumpy then float down the runway just a little bit will keep this nose down this is the you can barely see the markings on this runway I knew it was here because the last time I was here but that is a displaced threshold you don't want to land before that all right little nose up trim 65 knots let's give it a little bit of right rudder and we're just gonna hold it off in the flare here there we are and just like that that's how you test a stalwart port of south Louisiana traffic's cocky zero no one is clear the runway I poured us out Louisiana all right very nice and uneventful flight made it here to Port of south Louisiana executive Regional Airport and nice place I've been here before a reasonable price on fuel 450 a gallon and it's overall just a nice airport nice FBO there was absolutely nobody here last time I came here but I just know that it's a good fuel stop and it's a good place to stop so we're gonna grab some gas and continue on that's one leg down and two to go until I make it to my final destination of Apopka Florida I'm gonna divide this day into two parts because on the next leg I go into quite a bit of detail about the items that I think are important to carry on a long trip and an airplane and that deserves its own video giving up super early for this flight was extremely rewarding and I forgot just how much I loved seeing the sunrise from the cockpit shout out to this video sponsors they make this content possible and you can find links to all of their websites down in the description if you'd like to support the channel you can shop merchants get at aviation 101.com slash store and you can gain exclusive access to content and giveaways in aviation 101.com slash cockpit Club I'll be posting the full-length footage of my planning processes on there soon keep an eye out for that second video and until next time I want you to stay happy healthy and current and of course stay proficient fly safe and we'll see in the next one [Music]

Channel: Aviation101

Views: 93,435

Rating: 4.9675198 out of 5

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Id: 4XaGsH01ZgI

Length: 15min 55sec (955 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 16 2019