There was a bunch of frost on the plane and Marcus was running a little late.
Once airborne things were fine.
We had a nasty headwind the ENTIRE way out to Amarillo.
Our average GS (ground speed) was about 80 knots!
Compare that to a no wind situation of about 110-120 knots.
It's like driving your car on a 70MPH highway at 40MPH.
A flight that should have taken just 7.5 hours, ended up taking us 10.
We ended up making 3 fuel stops.
Not one of the airports had winds less than 20 knots.
Luckily for us the wind was coming straight down the runways and never really had to do any crosswind landings.
We had stops in Oxford, MS..Mena, AR..and Chickasha, OK.
The weather wasn't too bad on the way out.
We had VFR on top conditions in Arkansas.
There was a spot of some pretty wicked turbulence by Mena, AR.
We were passing over a bunch of hills and mountains and we were throw about like crazy.
At one point I literally lifted out of the seat.
Once in TX we landed at Trade Winds Airport with 40 knot winds!
The plane was still trying to fly as we were unpacking it!
Ended up hanging out with my cousin for the evening and passed out.
Got up lazily the next day and slowly made our way to the airport.
After our goodbyes with Linz we took off in some more strong winds.
Going into the flight we knew there was going to be some cloudy conditions over the middle of our trip.
Luckily for us....that headwind that slowed us down on the way out....SHOVED us forward on the way home.
I don't have a picture of it yet, but Marcus took a picture of the GS at 190 knots!!!!
190 knots GS in a DA-20 is unheard of!
To say the least, we made some good time.
We stopped for fuel right before the cloud layers started.
We planned on pushing it and trying to get back home on 1 tank of fuel but we quickly realized we should play it safe.
As soon as the clouds started to break up we landed at Oxford, MS again for our 2nd and final fuel stop.
By then the sun started to set and we stayed under the clouds rather than above them.
This seemed to work out for the better.
That way we didn't have to be in any IFR conditions and we could still see where we were at at all times.
We had a decent GS of 130 knots from there on out.
We arrived back in Peachtree City just before the heavy clouds rolled in and we had the first smooth, no wind landing of the entire trip.
When it was all said and done we logged 18.1 hours.
10.0 on the way out and 8.1 on the way home.
And as you can tell from the title and my little Twitter over there --->
I have surpassed the 200 hour mark!
I now only need 50 more hours to go for my Commercial Certificates!
This trip exposed me to a lot of new flying experiences.
It indeed made me a better pilot.
So what did I learn of the whole experience...
Don't mess with Texas.
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