Brian flies the RANS to Motown

        Article and Pictures by Brian Gilomen

Last year, in October of 2007, my SCUBA diving took me to the island of Little Cayman, where I met up with a bunch of wacky fellow divers from the Detroit area.  Several of them were MDs, and the rest were Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists.  Amazingly, this lone lawyer integrated well with them, and they adopted me into their group.  As of this writing, I have now met up with them on a total of 3 SCUBA diving adventures.

One of those divers, a doctor by the name of Danny Applefield, professed to be fascinated by my flying habit.  "Fly on over for a visit," he kept pestering me.  "It should take you, what, an hour or two?"  Like most laypersons, Danny didn't have a clue as to the type of machine I have chosen to fly for the past 26 years.  But he kept it up, and I decided to bite the bullet this past September and plotted a trip to Detroit.

Mid-week, Wednesday, September 17 and Thursday, September 18, were shaping up to be spectacular days for flying, with the unheard of potential of my enjoying a tail-wind both coming and going.  Joe Simosky must have been flying nearby!  During my pre-flight planning I decided that I would push the RANS up to its fast cruise range of 80-85 mph; something that Mick told me he used to do all the time but that I rarely did because I usually flew with slowpokes Barry and Rickey.  The RANS has twin 9-gallon wing tanks and a theoretical range of over 4 hours at 80+ mph burning about 4.5 gph; or over 300 miles.  While the plane's fuel tanks could conceivably cover the entire planned route nonstop with appropriate reserves, MY tank couldn't, so I decided to split the entire trip, fuel-wise roughly into thirds.  My route was expected to be about 275 miles each way, or 550 miles for the round trip.  Thus, I wanted to find a pleasant fuel stop after about 180 miles or so.

Hauling out my trusty, CURRENT sectionals (I bought a new Detroit sectional so as to be legal for the trip), I decided on the following route.  First, I would leave Clow and fly 40 miles to Griffith.  Using Griffith as a turn point nicely avoided both the Midway and Gary controlled airspace.  After the turn I was positioned to fly the next 135 miles direct through South Bend (keeping it under 2000 feet) and Kalamazoo ("oh what a gal..." -- keeping it under 3000 feet).  After 175 miles total, or roughly 2 hours and fifteen minutes of airtime, I would be right at a little airport called Brooks Field (RMY).  I would gas-up, visit with the locals, and then take off on the remaining 100 miles or so of my flight.

My friend Danny wanted me to land near Detroit at Oakland County/Pontiac (PTK), which was quite close to his house, but I decided against it.  Having, shall we say, "issues" regarding a Mode C transponder in the RANS, I really didn't want to fly into a towered airport within the Detroit Metro Wayne (DTW) Mode C veil.  So, I located another, non-towered airport nearby -- Oakland County/Troy (VLL) and decided that I would put-in there at the end of my journey.

Having flown, carefully preflighted and gassed-up the RANS the day before, I left my house in Chicago bright and early Wednesday morning so as to be able to make a wheels-up departure of about 8:45 am.  I didn't miss that target time by much.  After another careful preflight and a taxi to the North end, I departed Clow on Runway 18 at 8:51 am.

Man, ya gotta love a tailwind!  The city of Chicago was shrouded in haze shortly after my initial lift-off, but things were clearing nicely as I came up on Griffith in a mere 24 minutes.  Cruising in my planned 80-85 mph range, I was showing a groundspeed of as much as 105!  I then turned Northeast to my next leg, and started taking in the sights of the exciting city of Gary.

(Gary Steel Works)

With the wind now fully behind me (surface winds at Gary were 240 at 10 kts), I was moving along sprightly.  I was over Michigan City airport (MCG) by 9:35 (Chicago time), and hit Tyler Memorial (3TR) by the end of my first hour.  I had covered 102 miles at that point!

(Michigan City)

AWOS lies.  Well, maybe not.  But the "winds out of 220 at 5" report that I got from Three Rivers (HAI) at 10:10 Chicago time certainly didn't square up with the kick-in-the-tail I was getting at 3000 MSL.  Clearing Kalamazoo airspace, I continued to zip onward towards Brooks Field at a high rate of speed.  The first bumps in a thus-far flawlessly smooth flight made themselves felt at 10:30, 1:40 into my flight and 11 miles from Brooks.  At the speed I was going, I was on the ground at Brooks by 10:40 Chicago time, having covered a little more than 180 miles in 1 hour 50 minutes.  That's flying!  (Well, maybe not to Mick and Bob...)

Brooks was delightful, and totally empty.  They had 100LL at the self-serve pump for $4.99/gal, and I helped myself to 9.6 gallons of the stuff for a total cost of $47.90.  The tach showed 1.9 hours since the last fill, so I had burned about 5 gph.  That's the highest consumption I have ever experienced flying this plane, but it wasn't bad considering my 85 mph airspeed and my 98 mph average groundspeed!

(Interesting hardware at Brooks Field)

The chatty locals ("what is that there durn thing that you are flyin'?  You flew THAT from Chicago?") and my own sightseeing kept me on the ground for 50 minutes, but I was soon back in the air for the remainder of my jaunt.  The bumps that I felt an hour ago were now coming out in force, so I kept climbing to find smooth air.  Quickly approaching my destination due to the ever escalating tailwind, I level off at over 3600.  By now I was consistently showing  a goundspeed of over 110 mph.

(Time flies when you are having fun)

My approach to Oakland/Troy was "interesting."  Rather like flying over parts of Chicago.  No wide open spaces here; only endless rooftops.  I easily located the airport in the middle of a dense suburbia, announced, and landed.  The time was 12:30, Chicago time.  I forgot to note the GPS trip distance (according to the chart, adjusting for a little pattern work, my last leg was about 95 miles), but my tach indicated 3.1 engine-on hours since firing the bird up at Clow.  Less the ground time at Brooks, I was showing that I had been in the air for 2 hours and 50 minutes.  Not bad for covering 275 miles!  I calculated that my average groundspeed was about 97 mph.

(On approach to Oakland/Troy)

My friend Danny was Johhny-on-the-spot to pick me up.  He helped me cover the RANS, which was tied down at its assigned overnight parking spot, and we soon left to take in the sights.

Danny lives in a lovely lake community North of Detroit.  He has a house on the water like we might all wish WE had.  We put a few beers in a cooler and took his excellent ski boat out to the middle of the lake to enjoy a fabulous Indian Summer afternoon.

(Danny on his boat)

(Danny's place on the lake)

One interesting local sight was the statue of a bear scratching a tree in a neighbor's back yard.  Danny told me that the "fur" of this bear was actually made up of many thousands of iron nails:

Well, all good things must come to an end, so after an excellent day on the lake, followed by a great dinner with my SCUBA diving buddies and a good night's sleep, it was time to depart.  Danny drove me back to the airport, but then -- feeling bold -- he asked for a ride in the RANS.  "Sure," I replied, so I got him buckled in for a sight-seeing trip over his neighborhood.  (Curiously, before we had left his house, his wife inquired as to the status of his life insurance).  After a nice climb out and a not-too-aggressive right turn, Danny asked if it was the right time to tell me that he was afraid of heights.  He sure did have a death-grip the entire flight on the compression tube that runs through the cockpit...

(Danny:  Before)

(Danny:  After)

Wheels-up at Troy at about 9:50 Chicago time, I flew the reciprocal of my original flight-path, amazingly enough enjoying a tail-wind yet again.  Landing for the second time in two days at Bucolic Brooks Airfield, the place was devoid of other aircraft.  Here's proof:  according to my receipts, my fill-up on Wednesday at 10:55 am was "transaction no. 9282."  My fill-up the next day at 11:03 am was "transaction no. 9283."  Nobody else had bought fuel in the intervening 24 hours.  That fill-up, by the way, was 11.8 gallons.  My tach showed an engine-on time of 4.9 hours (that included about 30 minutes/.6 TT of giving Danny his ride), and my GPS was showing 407 miles for the trip.  The locals took up less of my time this stop, and I was back in the air by 11:30 Chicago time.

I'm now wanting to get back, so I'm keeping the revs up and climbing so as to avoid both the bumps and the various controlled airspaces enroute.  6100 feet ended up suiting me just fine.

(Over the top of Kalamazoo airspace)

I brought things down to a little below 5000' by the time I was over South Bend, and kept descending as I got nearer to Gary.  Although I wanted to keep altitude so as to minimize the impact of the thermals, I also needed to descend as I approached Midway so as to not mix it up with all those Southwest 737s.  With the tailwind assisting, I was soon within sight of the I-80 quarry, and was nearing the end of my journey.

(Almost home)

I landed at Clow at 1:30.  My return flight had taken me a little more than three hours.  I topped off the tanks, checked the tach and GPS, and made the following calculations for the trip (which calculations include the 30 minute sightseeing excursion North of Detroit:

Total Tach Time:                      7 hours
Observed Flight Time:              6 hours, 25 minutes
Trip Miles per GPS:                 586.2
Total fuel burn:                         30 gal (about 2 less than planned, even with the sightseeing)
Total Fuel Cost:                       $147.84
Average gph:                            4.29 (a little better than planned)
Average Groundspeed/TT:      83.75 mph
Average Groundspeed/
  (per observed flight time):       90+ mph
Average MPG:                           19.50