Current Page: home > flight > caribbeanTrip > day1 | Updated 28 Oct, 2022
Journey to St. Thomas - Day One
07Oct20 - Montana to Kansas City
The Departure
Our trip begins at 6S5 in Hamilton, MT: N11VA's home. If I remember correctly weather was excellent; very little wind, and sparse clouds between Montana and the intended goal that day, Kansas City. Perfect for a mountain crossing! We departed Hamilton around 8:30am with little fanfare. A quick look at my log book reveals I had a total of 90 hours at the stick before leaving for the trip. A little ambitious?
Transponder & Detour
While passing over Bozeman, I was monitoring the tower radio. The controller called out asked an unidentified craft to turn on their transponder. After comparing the location he barked out to mine, I realized I was that aircraft! Looking at my transponder, I could see I wasn't broadcasting, so I turned it on. It was nice of the controller to tell me as I wasn't in his controlled airspace. Checking the transponder is now on the regular checklist.
A little ways into the first leg of the flight, my traveling companion asked if we would be flying over Mount Rushmore. Luckily we came into some cell service and were able to locate coordinates to the monument. After plugging them into my gps we discoverd on our natural course we would only be 5 or 10 miles away! Needless to say, the diversion was definitely worth it.
Valentine, Nebraska
Really up until the decent into Nebraska we hadn't experienced any turbulence at all. As we descended we experienced what I would call moderate turbulence below 1500 AGL. On short final we experience a fairly big gust which was a bit perturbing, but we got her on the ground without issue. Valentine was chosen for several reasons: close to half way on the trip, it was on the way, and cheap fuel.
It was a nice little airport, and apparently part of the first air mail flight in May of 1938.
Smoke on the Horizon
For the second leg of the day, I was expecting a fairly uneventful flight. The weather was good, airports were reporting good visibility, and the mountains were behind us. As we started making our bee line for Kansas city, I noticed some haze in the air. While I was used to seeing smoke in the west where I learned to fly, I was surprised to find it hanging over the midwest. As we continued, the haze became so thick that my vision of the ground was starting to become limited. This was very concerning as I was in an unfamiliar area, and visibility was decreasing by the minute. At this point I knew I needed to make a decision.
I began dialing in nearby airport's weather stations and listening for the visibility. After listening to a few, I realized that the visibility was less to the south of my position and more to the north. As I was headed southeast, I changed my direction to directly east in an effort to stay out of the worst of the haze. This worked, and we ended up flying past the haze and then turning south to fly down to KC. This was a good exercise for me as a new pilot, as I had to think on my feet to solve a slowly evolving problem.
First Day Complete
I was very happy to be at the end of my first day of flying! We swung down around the bravo airspace and came into the Downtown Airport (KMKC) from the south. What a thrill flying over the area I grew up in! I was a little apprehensive as this was only the second towered airport I had landed at in my small flying career. The controller had me fly a circle over Worlds of Fun, a local theme park, while several other jets landed. This was the first (of many) towered aiports I would land at that I had never approached/seen fromt he air before.
