48 states in 48 hours single engine airplane
 

A local airplane I used to do the annual inspections on is going for an official record record attempt today. It actually departed from Michigan last night and is currently headed for Oregon from Washington. It took lots of planning to arrange for having someone at each airport available all night last night and tonight to sign off on their documentation when they land in each state for the record to count with Guinness.

Guy who owns the plane now that is attempting this is local and an ex Navy pilot and now a Delta pilot. Kind of neat that a plane I did quite a bit of work on over the years is now likely gonna be in the record books. It is a 1980 6 passenger Piper Saratoga. Been following his progress this morning on https://www.flightradar24.com/HRF48/3096ce15

https://48n48.org/?fbclid=IwAR0PE7mBhFC8rQUcwc23UXfhw-5e1q2ZdCfLHKxR-z6unOzxvcfOnPRY_80

Here it is about 10 years ago in my shop for an annual inspection.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1685979288.jpg

Wow - talk about exhausting. Hope it goes off without a hitch. I would think you'd want something a little speedier but I guess it's a case of "Run what you brung".

It was attempted awhile back by some other guy but a failed prop governor doomed the mission. These guys with this airplane have it figured to take about 43 hours if winds aloft and other weather works out as planned. It burns 15 gallon an hour so it will likely be around $4-5k worth of AVgas. I think they have 5 or 6 fuel stops planned. They are planning 10 minutes for each landing/document signing and 20 minutes for the fuel stops. The two pilots will be taking turns and they have a mechanic and extra parts in the plane also. Local radio station just had them on the phone at their Walla Walla Washington stop about an hour ago. So far so good they said. Some of the little airport stops overnight had multiple people waiting to greet them and cheer them on as each airport was notified of the record attempt.

I will wave hello. Pretty cool.

Cool story, and great goal. Weather will sure be a major factor. One line of thunderstorms and the flight plan is out the window.

Good luck to them.

The New England states are just a cinch. Once the get to Montana, they have some long legs of the journey. I presume they are going to land in the panhandle of Oklahoma. Cimmaron county is the only county in the USA that shares a border with 5 other states. They can go from Missouri, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado and Texas if they land at the Guymon, OK airport.

Very cool and thanks for sharing . I wish them the best .

Here is their flight plan/schedule. (They are headed east now and just departed Eureka Nevada)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1685993709.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1685993709.jpg

WooHoo, awesome, I love this!

Here is a screen shot of where they about 10 minutes ago on flightradar24.com. Just south east of Eureka Nevada. Their "call sign" for this flight is HRF48

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1685994370.jpg

Okay, a question for the pilots here. What single engine prop plane would would you choose for this stunt if you could select anything?

Probably a Bonanza
Faster, great flying qualities, comfortable seating position.
More like a sports sedan, while the Saratoga is more like a full size SUV.

^^
I was thinking the same thing - Bonanza would be a great choice but whatever works. Hope they make it!!

\Now over Oklahoma.
https://www.flightradar24.com/HRF48/3098a6fa

This is awesome!!!!!


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I missed the photo of both the mountain and lake Sunapee when they went by. They were already in puffy clouds! But I did hear them up there on the final leg. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1686090259.jpg

Well they made it to Maine earlier this evening. They had threatening weather on several occasions along with fog but somehow the weather just missed them for the most part. ISuper proud of these hometown aviators. Might sound easy to some, but it took a lot of planning and luck with the weather to pull this off. Going to a welcome home party tomorrow evening at our local airport in NW Ohio.

Amelia Lindbergh who?

This should be on the news.

If it were easy, they would not be the first guys.


People are strange, pilots doubly so, a lot of the time with ego. How many people have been eyeing this prize, impressive to say the least.

Pretty cool accomplishment. Lost of flying, and the luck to miss the weather and stay on the flight plan.

Congratulation to them.

So 48 hours of flight time. Time for an oil change, and cleaning off a lot of bugs. That will be an interesting entry in the airplane's log books.

Great that they made it safely.

I'm wondering how long it would take to do the same in a car, staying within the speed limits...

Tim just curious , did they run into any visibility issues with the smoke from the Canadian wild fires ? I talked to my brother in Binghamton NY this morning and he said it is very hazy from the smoke .

Great accomplishment for sure , congrats to them . What's their next adventure/challenge ?

Not sure about the smoke deal. Wife and I are flying over to the local airport this evening for a welcome home event for them. Will surely hear some stories then.

He posted a pic this morning and mentioned how tough it was getting 44+ hours of bugs off. ;):D

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1686154893.jpg

That is one major advantage of a low wing aircraft, easier to clean the bugs off!

Our Cessna 182 requires a step ladder and a lot of up and down the ladder to clean the top of the wings. Bottom side is easier.

To me it sounds like a real challege. If it was a jet then no problem, but in a single engine prop plane, I don't think it sounds easy to hit every one of the contiguous states in 48 hours. I was impressed by their route. A route that maximized coverage for minimum distance/time is impressively shorter than I would have expected.

Where's the fun in that? Hell, I don't think I manage that running to the hardware store. Trying to do it without speeding would likely kill me of boredom.

I'm picturing a pressure washer, at least for the worst of it.

The quick and easy way requires just the right weather. A light rain cloud and fly through that, and it is pressure washed with clean pure rain water. No thunderstorms however. :eek:

I use a bug scrubber sponge with the net mesh. When just doing the obligatory summer bug removal, I just wipe all the leading edges quickly with soapy water to start softening them then work my way around with the bug sponge removing the little bastids. Then I come back with a dry towel and wipe it all dry.

I can reach my leading edges of the wings on my Pacer, but to do a good job, I am on step ladder to get the upper portions of the leading edges. I positively HATE doing the bottom of the wing on the pilot side when giving it a real bath. Working over head with a scrub brush and having to clean basically the whole underside back to the trailing edge is a *****... Makes my arms sore just thinking about it. :D Due to the airflow from the prop, that pilot side underside of wing gets a healthy dose of bugs.

My Pacer is mostly fabric covered and powerwashing airplanes in general is not a wise idea.

Interesting. That makes sense, but clearly not something a non-pilot is likely to think about.

Just flew to the welcome home party. Pretty cool they had local fire dept spray across the taxi way on both sides as they taxied in. A couple hundred people were there to greet them local radio was there and a band played the national anthem when they got out of the plane. Glad I went.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1686188500.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1686188500.jpg

awesome...lots of work involved.

Excellent
Thanx for posting this

Nice to see a record broken. Hats off to all involved getting those two pilots and that airplane across the finish line.

It's also nice that the airplane isn't festooned in corporate logos. I'm sure the owner would disagree, and would welcome the sponsorship.

Thank you, Tim!