As I have mentioned before, I fly full scale as well as RC. This past weekend my daughter and I flew from San Diego to Albuquerque to spend some time with my wife who is at our house there while my daughter and I live in our RV in San Diego (I am here for work).

About 2 months ago I started flying again after a 5 year hiatus. I made a couple short trips (breakfast at Flo's Cafe and the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, CA which I highly recommend), getting ready for a solid long cross country trip.

We departed KSDM (Brown Field, San Diego) at 4:02 last Friday afternoon, and 5 hours later arrived at KAEG (Double Eagle II Airport) outside Albquerque. Below are a couple shots from the flight out.









The drive from San Diego to our home in Rio Rancho normally takes 12 hours (about 700 miles by road), so the plane becomes a real time machine and makes weekend trips possible, if not expensive. The C-182 is a rental, cruise speed is 140 knots (161 mph), and it burns about 11-12 gallons of fuel per hour. The rental rate is very reasonable for a plane as capable as the 182, and compares favorably to the airlines for this trip since it actually takes about 2 hours less time each way and can be flown on my exact schedule.

On Sunday afternoon, we were loaded up, fully fueled and my daughter got a serious nosebleed just before engine start, so we stayed another night (not easy to do when on the airlines' schedule). Monday afternoon we loaded back up and launched at about 5:20 PM. With favorable tailwinds at 10,500 feet, we made the trip back in 4 hours flat.

















It was a great experience with my daughter, her first long cross country by light plane. She had taught herself the Nav2 page on our GPS on the way back to San Diego, flew a little, and was very helpful looking for traffic when we got close to the congested airspace of San Diego.

All in all, a great trip!