Plan change, we are heading through the US. Weather is just not looking good between us and Regina. Lots of lightening. We just hope we can get through to Montana. We will rebook with customs when we know where we will end up.
SPOT Tracker
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Update!
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Got in today around 14:45. As mentioned we had to change our plans this morning once we saw the radar. Going direct to Regina was not going to work. I really had my doubts about getting through the US as well. Sigmets issued for most of our flight. The plan was to see how far we could get. We got going just before 7 Calgary time. I really like to make a final plan once airborne. I use the Internet to come with an idea but I really do not commit until we are airborne and reading the XM weather. It seems to be the most accurate over anything, foreflight radar is an idea but not accurate enough on its intensity in my opinion. If I did not have XM many flights would be canceled after information gathering and talking to a flight briefer. Briefer s are very pessimistic, sometimes I wish I hadn’t talk to them.
Once on course I decide if the route will actually work. Direct to Harve MT looked like the best choice. We had two systems to get around, if we could get through them we could make it. The first required us to make a slight deviation to the north, it got fairly rough but we did not have to change altitude. The second was totally blocking our route but was not that wide. We hoped it would not grow to large before we got there. I picked the narrowest location based on the XM and amazingly that was the only location that we could see light on the other side. We told center we were dropping down to get through the line and would be back up in short order. The curtain was closing fast, I slowed down, we all tightened the belts and pounded our way through. It was all over in a few minutes. Back up with center and on our way. Never even got that much rain. We landed in Chinook MT for fuel and a snack. This place is a whole other story, it was a great stop to say the least.
On our way to Lethbridge we had more storms to deal with. We had to come around from the south side to avoid the storms to the east. Weather was marginal but way better than Ontario😉
Costums done and a quick flight to home.
Summary
- Total flying time for the trip was 32.5hrs
- Estimated fuel used 375 gal
- Estimated fuel costs $2600
- Total distance flown was 4950 NM or 5755 SM
- Stopped in many places that no airline could have taken us.
- 2 weeks of great quality family time
All and all a really great trip, even if it did have several stressful moments. That is just part of flying.
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