From North to South - Trip Summary

The pace of the journey down from Chicago to New Orleans was constant but un-strenuous. We where only once held up by the weather. The aviation community provided all that we needed and more than we would even have expected. Everyday was different and presented new challenges. As a pilot I was challenged on many occasions and constantly found myself managing and minimizing risk. It was amazing dropping in on random towns along the Mississippi and beyond, according to odd factors such as runway directions, facilities and atmospheric conditions,for example. Where ever we landed we where confronted with something different that we had no pre-requisite of, we just landed there because we needed to or wanted to.

The journey across the USA north to south basically got in the pace of a morning flight for 1-1.5 hrs, arrive at airport, relax, jump in the courtesy car, eat lunch, tour town, fill up gas, come back to terminal, snooze, then fly in the afternoon to our next destination. As we got further south the local's would be increasingly amused that we had flown our little aircraft from Chicago. In the rural south there was definitely a reticence and an initial barrier to cross. The rural southern seem to be on there guard at first. After all we were foreigners in an alien aircraft!!! (or more correctly aliens in a foreign aircraft). They were really friendly, once they established what we were doing there !

Some of the things we saw and heard on this leg amazed, shocked and/or stunned us. Unfortunately we are often not in a situation where we can easily pull out the camera and start recording, (like when we where hauled in to the sheriff car in Mississippi),without breaking the flow of conversation or ruining the situation. I guess these moments belong to the traveler yet we share these as best we can in written form below.



The Actual Route and Basic Stats from North to South

10 days, 850 Nautical Miles, 18 hour of flight,300 liter of petrol (79 gallons)

Click to enlarge map.