Trip from Pittsburgh to Grand Junction

I was recently transferred from Pittsburgh to Denver with Schlumberger. I had brought Cessna Skylane N71317 to Pittsburgh to keep myself current, and to avoid boredom on the weekends. I used her several times to go to Alabama to visit my family there.

The photo to the left is of the Steubenville airport, where she lived in her own private hangar for about 8 months.

After the move, I had to decide what to do with her. I could sell her in Pittsburgh, move her to Rifle (closer to our place in Parachute, CO) or put her back in Grand Junction.

Short term, my old hangar was available in Grand Junction at the old (expensive) price, so off to Grand Junction we go.

Original plans were to fly to Des Moines, IA and grab lunch, then on to Denver. Spend the night in Denver on the East side of the mountains, then fly across to Grand Junction in the daylight.

Filed IFR from Steubenville, OH (2G2 ATWOO V8 FDY V38 MZV V8 DSM) for take-off. Punched through a layer of clouds with clear above. Deviated around some rain across OH and then had to shoot the ILS approach in Des Moines due to low clouds. Lots of fun.



http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N71317/history/20090926/1240Z/2G2/KDSM

I bought some of the most expensive LL100 on the planet, grabbed a sandwich using the crew car (which I felt I bought with the fuel) and got back in to head for Denver.

The starter sounded like a wounded dog when it tried to turn over the big 6-cylinder... I tried it several times, but no luck. The over-priced FBO had a mechanic on-call and he agreed to come have a look. We removed the starter and tested it, and it did spin, so he deemed that the problem was inside the engine and she had to come out.... done until Monday, but more probably Wednesday before they could get to it........ not good.

I had him reassemble it, fill my O2 tank, just in case my plan 'B' worked. I tied the tail down and tried to hand-prop it. Kids... don't try this at home... unless you have to.

There was an older pilot flying a Cessna Skymaster (old twin Pusher-Puller) who had a few suggestions. And on attempt 2, she started.

I tossed 2 $20's and a business card out the window at the mechanic, told him to call me if I owed him anything else and to cut the tail loose.

I knew it would be better being stuck in Denver than Grand Junction, but my plan was to skip Denver all together. No way I could hand-prop this beast twice, especially when it had hours to cool down.

The tower helped me file KDSM -> KGJT direct at 16,000' while idling. and I was off for the longest flight of my young flying career.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N71317/history/20090926/2039Z/KDSM/KGJT

All the way, I was monitoring and managing fuel. At 16,000' my burn was about 8 gal/hour and I had 78 gal to go. I had picked KMTJ (Montrose) as my alternate and I had fuel to GJT, then to MTJ, then an hour. Not a lot of things could go wrong if I were to make it. Denver approach re-directed me, although barely a change, but they did make me climb to 17,000'.

And it was a slow climb from 16 to 17,000'.

I had weather on the Garmin 495 and 'Nearest Airport' up on the Garmin 530. This was my first trip across the mountains at night. If she loses her fire at night, it's not going to be good unless you can find an airport.


Great trip... smooth landing at Grand Junction... almost like she had been here before. ;-)

Dana, my trusty mechanic in Grand Junction checked the starter... it was bad, so no teardown required.