San Diego N329HP

September 16 and 17, 2005: San Diego, CA to Louisville, KY - the Purchase of N329HP

Jody Kirwan (President) and Steve Ballard (Treasurer) flew from Louisville, KY to San Diego, CA via Southwest Airlines to see, inspect, and (if all was right) purchase the Club's newest aircraft - N329HP a 2000.5 Piper Saratoga II HP.

Jody brought his portable satellite datalink weather system for the long cross country home. Below is a screen shot of the weather system showing the proposed route home. We ended up having to deviate to the North of the proposed route some, but we still managed to fly over 10 states.

The luxurious accommodations at the Santee, CA Best Western - it was only a mile from the El Cajon (KSEE) airport where the Toga was based.

The first view of the Toga.

Time for a test flight. Jody is in the left seat, Brian Ireland (the owner's plot) is in the right seat and Steve Ballard is in the back taking pictures. Some low clouds had rolled in from the coast, so the plan was to takeoff, go IFR to VFR on top, and then head East over the mountains (about 10 minutes away) to get to the desert where it would be clear.

Mountains everywhere.

Coming over the top of the mountains - the desert is straight ahead.

Amazing the difference 10 minutes makes!

Palm Springs is just over those mountains shown below.

These mountains were used during the filming of Top Gun.

Heading back to the airport after the test flight - you can clearly see where the coastal clouds start.

Jody, left, and Brian Ireland, right (the owner's pilot), flying home - Steve took the picture.

Back on the ground - time to sign the papers and wire the money - the Toga is coming to Louisville!

Steve standing next to, and Jody inside, the Toga.

A wildfire broke out while we were waiting for the money to arrive - the local firefighting helicopters and airplanes were taking off and landing every few minutes.

After 5+ hours for the wire transfer to arrive, we finally own the plane! Time for Jody (left) and Steve (right) to head East.

Leg 1: San Diego, CA to Mesa (Phoenix), AZ. After talking with the local mechanics and pilots, we decided to take a more Southern (less direct) route to stay lower, especially since the plane just had it's engine re-worked by Lycoming after SB 566 and the cylinders and pistons needed to be broken-in. We stopped just South of Phoenix for gas, and then headed North to Mesa to rest for the night.

Heading over the Southern mountains - we are just barely North of the U.S.-Mexican Boarder.

The desert.

Starting to see some signs of civilization.

Fuel stop Number 1 - Coolidge, AZ (P08).

From Coolige, we flew North to Falcon Field (KFFZ) in Mesa, AZ which is an Eastern suburb of Phoenix. We spent the night in Phoenix since we weren't able to get off the ground in San Diego until 6:00 P.M. Eastern Time - we were pretty beat. Thank goodness for the Toga's air conditioning - the temperature in Mesa several hours of the sun went down was still in the high 90s!

The next morning, we got up at 3:30 A.M. Eastern Time, and headed for the airport. We were there before the sun was up and before the tower opened. Below is a map of the next leg on the satellite datalink weather system.

Leg 2: Mesa, AZ to Tucumcari, NM. The leg took us over the big mountains, so we wanted to get an early start before the winds at mountain peak altitudes started to get too high.

We had some great ground speeds - 197 kts (227 mph) here! We actually flew North of our course during this leg (Leg 2) and again on Leg 3 because of some weather building to the South of our proposed route.

The pictures just don't do it justice. We had over 70 miles of visibility!

Just on the Western edge of Albuquerque, NM. Our proposed route was going to take us South of Albuquerque, but because of our deviations around mountains and building weather, we ended up flying just to the North of Albuquerque. We were at 11,500' MSL, and the mountains to the East of Albuquerque still had to be given a fairly wide berth as the winds were increasing.

The mountains protecting the Eastern edge of Albuquerque.

Fuel stop Number 2: Tucumcari, NM (KTCC).

The mountains were behind us, but density altitude was still alive and well - we used quite a bit of runway getting back off the ground!

Leg 3: Tucumucari, NM to Louisville, KY (KLOU). This leg ended up being about 900 NM with our Northerly deviations. With the Toga's speed and long legs, though, we had no problem covering that entire distance and landing with a one hour reserve.