Mission: Fly Across America #1 - Day 2

Hi All!

So I realize that I’m behind on updates, but sleep in the evenings has taken precedence. Trying to get a brief update on Day 2 in today before we get started on Day 4 of the trip!

In short, our trip has been nothing but incredible thus far. If you didn’t catch the Day 1 update, you can find that here.

 Day two saw us departing Lubbock, TX (KLBB) and ending up in Tucson, AZ (KTUS). Our route was the following, with the only fuel stop being at El Paso, TX (KELP):

KLBB KELP KDMN P33 E95 KTUS

Taking off from KLBB was a memorable incident…
• After takeoff with Jon in the lead, the dialog went something like this:
○ Simon: “Hey Jon, would you mind slowing up? You’re faster than us and we’re pretty far behind.
 ○ Jon (without skipping a beat, a wry smile on his face, keys the mic…): “I’m sorry, Say again?”
○ Simon: “I said, would you mind slowing up as you’re faster than us and we’re behind.”
○ Jon (Beaming): “I actually heard you fine, I just like hearing it. Slowing down now.”
○ Mike C (Laughing over intercom to Jon): “Wow, dick move!”

We headed down to El Paso as a fuel stop, just to be safe. El Paso was quite busy and we had some fun finding the self-serve fuel. The tower (who kept us on freq for taxiing) gave instructions on finding it based on us locating an old, white, unmarked 727 on the corner of the ramp that seems to be a fixture of the field at the moment. On the way to the fuel we got to see NASA’s “Guppy” transport plane which was really cool.

While landing at KTUS, there were two F-16’s (“Vader”) that were doing overhead breaks into the downwind leg of the pattern. Once we cleared the runway, we were able to snap some photos of the F-16’s landing behind us on the runway which was really cool. We found our way to Velocity Air (FBO), and tied down the aircraft.

One issue we found with our planes was the co-pilot side mic did not work on Mike’s plane. Simon sent out a message to the local EAA chapter at KTUS, asking if anyone had the items (PTT switch and wire) needed to fix it. Per request, the President of the Tucson EAA Chapter provided Mike & simon with an extra push to talk switch to try to aid them in their future leg duties. It was really nice of him and his wife to come out and help us.

We then got a rental car and drove straight to the Pima Air Museum, which was phenomenal. They have a ton of aircraft there that are really unique. We ended up being the last ones in the facility when they closed. 🙂

Day 3 should include the Titan Missile museum, and hitting the West Coast!!

Click to continue on to Day 3 of our adventure!