Made it out to New Mexico, ended up doing it in a day which turned out to be a lot of flying in such a small plane, and a bit of an adventure at that. Left out of Northwest Arkansas at 7:30 AM, I was planning a stop in Kingfisher Oklahoma, but weather and winds were very favorable so after a little math with fuel I decided to press on towards Hemphill county Texas.
Things got exciting between Kingfisher and Hemphill county. Never anything unsafe, but cloud deck kept coming down, and vrf on top looked like a solid option. However, I didn't want to hose myself since the little 140 has nothing to safely get me through clouds if they decided to close up on me. So even though the terrain slowly rises going into Texas it's all pretty much flat and un-populated. I figure worst case ill just find a safe place to put it down and tie down till conditions improved. Also the wx brief in the morning gave me a bit of warm fuzzy that things wouldn't be really developing till later. Once I picked up the Canadian river, I just followed it to Hemphill county at about 1000A running under the SCUD deck. Once there, there were some good winds but I was able to fuel up, eat some food, and get another weather brief before I continued on. The briefer basically told me the sooner I can leave the better my chances would be.
About 30 minutes later there was a good looking sucker hole to make it out. It was windy as hell and I saw blue skies so I went for it. Was able to take off nice and short but also lost about 20mph of cruise speed. Not a big deal, after some quick math, I had plenty of fuel to make it to my final fuel stop which was Santa Rosa NM. After I got past Abilene weather had really improved just as the briefer said and I was able to continue to Santa Rosa at 6500 where it was relatively smooth.
Getting into Santa Rosa was mostly a non event, almost easy, winds were 150 at 17G25 per the ASOS and the DA was 8900ft. I knew taking off would be fun. Fueled up real quick. Taxied back to 19 and poured on the coal. I'm sure that little c85 was mustering everything it could give me, which I can only assume was about 3hp, but I got into ground effect in about 500ft. However, that's kind of where she stayed till I had enough go by the end of the runway to eek out some climb. Between Santa Rosa and my final destination there was really nothing but empty fields and constant turbulence as all the wind was coming off the mountains just ahead of me. At this point I saw the gap I wanted to shoot. I was going to go just south of Manzano Peak, and of course it was just in front, taunting me never seeming to get any closer. Constant headwind, turbulence, and at this point I was almost 9 hours into the trip and I just let the 140 ride the wind. There was no one out here so I wasn't too concerned about vrf hemispherics and I don't think I could have made 3000A for that to even matter. Then, I made the gap. Manzano Peak and the Sandia's were behind me. The winds were gone and the sun was shining. I dropped on down to 1000A to pick up speed and run into my final destination, I could see it just ahead. I was getting 120 across the ground into Belen, winds were calling calm so I set up for 21, landing was uneventful and I taxied up to the 140's new home.
At this point I was tired, dehydrated, sunburnt, and sore. It was exactly the trip I was looking for! Now I am looking forward to exploring New Mexico and hopefully I don't end up wishing for more horsepower too soon. To be continued...
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) We paid top dollar for this 1948 Cessna 140 with a Lycoming O235...it was our first plane. I learned to fly a tail-dragger and my wife got her private license. While she was doing that I learned to fly right seat, which was harder for me than the tail-dragger transition by a fair bit. Lots, and lots, and lots of landings.
