A Challenge flight
At 4:30pm on September 17, 1911, 32-year-old Calbraith Rodgers flew his Wright EX biplane from New York to Pasadena California, with no instruments, no maps, just power by a 35-horsepower engine and two chain-driven pusher propellers. He followed the train tracks made it to California. According to the record, he crashed between 16 to 39 times (depending on how observers defined a crash), traveled 4321 miles and made 69 stops across the country, it took him 49 days to reach California, with 82 hours and 4 minutes of flight time logged. He was the first pilot ever flown across the United States.
94 years later, on Mar 3, 2005, my flight instructor and I took a similar route, piloted a 64 year old vintage airplane (note 1) --- A clipped wing J3-Cub (note 2) from New Jersey to Chino California, traveled 2906 miles across the United States and made 19 stops for fueling, with the help of Garmin GPS 296, we made it in 6 days, with 40 hours of flight time logged.
Without the portable GPS we had in our airplane, we might have failed the mission to bring the plane home. I'm not talking about problems using the traditional dead-reckoning pilotage and flying by charts and searching for land marks on the ground, I'm talking about flying in the winter season, with the unknow weather lie ahead of us. The situation of not coming across stroms, snow, frost or freezing rain were almost nil, and we did went through all of that, we even flew into IMC without an option (Instrument meterological conditions), trapped on top of the clouds and look for a broken hole to dive down, with the GPS, we were able to identify the landing strip before even see it with our eyes; and looked for a place to land with the sudden change in weather. One time we were surrounded by three storm-cells, had to divert to different airport for fueling (note3). For all those urgent situations, without the Garmin GPS, the off-airport landing would've happened.
Note 1: J3-Cub (N38834), built in 1941, Continental 85 horsepower engine, no electrical system, hand prop to start the engine, 12 gallen main tank with a 8 gallon wing tank added.
Note 2: Clipped-wing J3-Cub is a traditional J3 with each wing clipped approx 2 feet, capable for aerobatic flight, with a FAA aproved STC (supplemental type certificate).
Note 3: The max fuel capacity is 20 gallens, it will support 2.5 hours of flight with .5 hour of fuel reserve. With such a small tank, we really didn't have the 2nd chance if missed the fueling airport. One time we landed with only 2 gallens of fuel left in the tank, 10 minutes from fuel starvation, simply because the airport we have landed earlier ran out of fuel.
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| Hackettstown Airport(N05),New Jersey We entered the hangar through the side window, then dug out two feet of snow and broke the ice to get the hangar door open, then shaveled another 50 yards of snow to get the Cub to the taxi way. The temperature at the time was 15 degree Fahrenheit. Local pilot warned us, do not take off if we hear the wind passing by the trees. This is the general rule they use to determine the x-wind for safe takeoff. There are tall pine trees on both side of the runway. Wise guy always listen to local pilot. |
| Wiring up the circuits for intercom, GPS and handheld radio in the freezing hangar a day before our journey, I was so honored to be able to sit there and be part of the history of this 64-year-old vintage J3-Cub. The airplane was disassembled and stored in a barn for 50 years, an airline pilot found it and restored the airplane completely, almost like a brand new Cub in her time. |
| March in Arizona is the most beautiful season in the year, no doubt it's the flying paradise for all pilots. |
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