fly with me from CA to AZ | tiny airplane, big adventure! day 1

Hi, I'm Stevie, and this is my 1949 Cessna 140A that we're going to be flying all the way from California to Wisconsin for EAA Air Venture. If you're not familiar, Air Venture is like the pilot event every single year. 600,000 people and over 10,000 planes show up every year, and everything that you can imagine under the sun in aviation is at EAA Air Venture. My airplane is going to be on display at Air Venture, so we are going to fly it all the way from California to Wisconsin, which will take us 25 hours of flying spread across 5 days.

Today's flight, our first leg, will be from Camaro, California, to Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona, with two stops along the way in Palm Springs and Buckeye. It's 6:41 on Monday, July 17th. Right now, we're waiting on some of the marine layer to clear up, so as soon as it's clear, we can blast off and head to Oshkosh.

Got to have the snack bag; it's way too hot on. Come, let's go! Floors are locked. Okay, we've got doors; let's get seat belts. Fuel selector is on both; trim set for take off; flaps are down; primer and unlocked; mixture is rich; carb heat is off; throttle we'll pump in a second. Our beacon light is on, but all our other switches are off, and we probably want some keys also. I went and got Starbucks because it was still cloudy for a while, and by the time I came back, it was VFR, so can't complain. Both masters are on, all twice.

Clear, I maintain 3,000; expect 5,000 five minutes after. Oil temp and pressure are good. CLS at 600 C. Tower information, Pop Urren, time 1455 Zulu, wind calm, visibility 6, haze, few clouds at 600 C, ground. Good morning, N477 Alpha East End with Papa, ready for taxi for an eastbound departure.

N477 Papa, Cam ground, 26 taxi Golf Alpha, 26 V Golf Alpha, 9477 Alpha. So unfortunately, it's now 8:00 a.m.; just had to wait for the clouds to clear, but they're all clear now, and we are taking off for our first stop, which will be Palm Springs. Should take us an hour and a half to 2 hours to get there, and then after that, we'll be off to Buckeye, Arizona, and then Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona.

I'm super excited! I'm a little nervous just because, I mean, three times I've done this stretch in the Bonanza, and the last two times I had all my new Garmin stuff, including the GFC 500 autopilot, so it was definitely on easy mode. I think this plane goes half as fast; it's a tailwheel, so you're much more limited by wind. It'll take us 25 hours of flying; I have, give or take, 5 hours of flying a day planned if all goes according to plan, which I'm sure it won't. But if all goes according to plan, we'll be there by Friday morning.

So we're coming up on the run-up area here, so we're going to do our run-up check and get out of here. We'll check our flight controls first; feels good. Mixture's coming rich; throttle all the way up, about 1700 RPM, about there. I'll do our mag check—over drop good, back to both looks good. We'll do our carb heat check—good drop. We got oil pressure and temperature, amps are looking good. Pull it back to 1,000; we'll turn on all of our lights.

I think we're ready to go now. I think our flight following frequency will be 24.7, and we're going to go up to 7,500, so why don't we bug that in as well? Cool, okay, here we go—off on our adventure!

Camaro Tower, SES 9er 477 Alpha, holding short Runway 26, ready for departure eastbound.

9477 Alpha, Camaro Tower, Runway 26 cleared for takeoff; right downwind approved; winds are 240 at 26; clear for takeoff; right downwind departure; 9477 Alpha. Final is clear, runway is clear, upwind is clear. Mixture's coming rich; keys are on both; hold the stick.

[Applause] Back, okay, here we go.

[Music] Get the tail up; oil temp and pressure in the green. There's [Applause] 50 [Applause].

[Music] Beautiful! Turning our right crosswind, and we're clear. So our right downwind, 9477 Alpha, frequency change approved. See it? Frequency change approved, 77 Alpha, and is MEU on 24.7? Affirmative, thank you.

M Approach, good morning, Niner 477 Alpha, VFR request 974 Alpha Alpha.

M Approach, stand by. November 974 Alpha, say request.

S 9477 Alpha just departed Camaro at 1,800, climbing 7,500, looking for flight following to Palm Springs.

Step number 77 Alpha, squawk 4775.

4775, 9477 Alpha...