Day three, Flying to Texas!

Waiting in Augusta, KS!

Due to a snag, were not able to depart from Augusta, KS this morning. I had to wake up the guys that were still fast asleep at 5:30. After a devotional and briefing for the Pilots In Command, Angela and her grandpa drove us to the small, but nice airport in Augusta.
While waiting, we were lucky and asked the pilot of a Citation CJ2 if we could check out the inside of his jet. Really nice, the aircraft only had 80 hours of flight time!
Finally, at 9:35, after saying goodbye to our new good friend we took off for Grand Prairie, TX.


Dallas's crazy airspace!

Flying through Oklahoma, was pretty much uneventful. Controllers seamed to have a hard time repeating our aircraft's call signs. This is Canadian Warrior: Foxtrot Echo India November, what? Canadian Golf Echo Lima November?


Arriving in the Dallas airspace was a CHALLENGE! We had to be fast, and react quickly and efficiently to where the controller was guiding us. It was a bit like the juggling act that Kyle gave us at the Wycliffe Center later! Walter provided an extra set of eyes for us... he sat and watched carefully, alerting us whenever he saw traffic! A number of Jets and small single engine aircrafts were close enough that it might have caused conflict.

Finally, arriving close to the Grand Prairie airport, south of Dallas, the airspace's controller handed us over to the Grand Prairie tower, who thought one of our aircraft was a helicopter, and he was going to clear them to land on the helipad!!! At the last minute, we were cleared to land on the runway, but unfortunately we were then too high, and had to overshoot the runway and land after a circuit (pattern in the US air vocabulary). We had finally arrived! and it was 22 degrees Celsius! Welcome to Texas!

Wycliffe Center Visit

After a quick lunch and welcome by the MacLean family, we had a guided tour of the Wycliffe Center (SIL Center) were both Mr. and Mrs. MacLean work. We had fun learning about this organization and what they are doing throughout the world. The rest of the day was spent relaxing, doing an acorn war, eating good food, Kelly doing card tricks, guys watching Holgin's Heroes, shooting air-guns in the garage... It's good to be here, and thank ya'll for your prayers.

I will praise You, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing to You among the nations.
For Your mercy reaches unto the heavens,
And Your truth unto the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
Let Your glory be above all the earth.
Psalm 59:9-11

HawkerBeech in a day!

After looking back at the day, we have decided to call it a success.

We finished our first full day in Wichita, KS with a bit of a "bang".

By "bang" we mean causing a ruckus in the town of Rose Hill and having the someone at the local corner store call the police on us! (Don't worry Harv and Bettie, its not as bad as it sounds!). Apparently, six Canadians walking into the store near closing time is not a normal occurence in this part of Kansas. I can't really blame them on that count. The police officer was really friendly, and was extremely intrigued by our trip. "If you guys were up to something bad," he said, "you woulda scattered like the Kansas wind!"

Getting back to the topic of the day, the goals for today were:

A) Tour the HawkerBeech factory in Wichita, and

B) Make it to Dallas, TX

To sum it up, we succeeded with one, and failed miserably at the other. Dallas was showing some pretty wicked winds, so we decided to put that on hold and wait for better, but an American Aviation icon was waiting for us, and we would not disappoint.

The HawkerBeech factory tour was a blast! We had our own personal tour guide in the form of one of our hosts here in Wichita, and it was really great to tour a facility like that. Some of the presses they use to stamp airplane parts are the same machines thats have been used since the 1940's!!! As well, we got to see in depth the inner workings of the new Hawker 4000 business jet. (Adam tried to take one with him, but it wouldn't fit through the security checkpoint)

Unfortunately, we couldn't take our camera's with us because of some top secret things that we saw but can't talk about now...and actually, I'm not supposed to have told you that.

We were able to take a couple of photos outside of the plant however... Note that "Walter" is now with us. Walter is a Beechcraft teddybear, and he elected to join with our squadron after the day's events. He has also decided on becoming a Flight Instructor at Harv's Air Service! (He'll teach in a brand spankin' new Bonanza, of course!)

After a lunch at the local diner, we relaxed for the afternoon with Jason getting to log some circuits. You can see him on final to the upper right of the fancy Citation Jet in the Photo above! (By the way, they call them "Pattern's" down here, not circuits, those crazy Americans!) Doing a few patterns was a great way to burn off some fuel that was overfilled into GPTO.

Weather was not a problem, with a high of +15 and clear skies for most of the afternoon.

P.S. Thanks so much Gracia, Guenther, Harry, Joyce, Ruth, Angela, and Steven for all the hospitality and care!

"Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." Psalm 97:11.

Augusta, Kansas

After an uncertain start with the fog this morning, we made good time and managed to reach Augusta Kansas in a day!

The morning seemed to be full of hope for a rush to the south, but we happened to be foiled just as we backtracked our runway for takeoff. As we reached the far end of the runway, a thick and heavy fog started to roll in, and the visibility dropped to less then 200 feet within literally a matter of seconds. Wow! The fog was of the freezing sort, and even though we were on ground, our props and wings collected bits of the white stuff. With the visibility near zero, we most certainly were not about to go anywhere! Dejected, we headed back to the base, and shut out aircraft down.

We quickly deiced the aircraft and covered them... then headed inside to hope for and watch for better weather. We were not at all disappointed... it did not take long for the brilliant sunshine to start punching through the thick billows of fog, and blue skies beckoned us just shortly after 9AM. We took off as soon as we could, and it was pretty much clear sailing to Fargo, North Dakota, where we cleared customs.

Next up, was Tekamah, Nebraska. Where is Tekamah? Well, its in Nebraska of course! Why did we go there? Because it was there, on our planned track, and the fuel prices couldn't be beat! The guys at J&D Aircraft were great, taking care of us and our airplanes. They ensured that not only were our aircraft fueled, but that we had a snack to go as well! Thanks bunches guys!

From here, it was next on to Augusta, Kansas, where we will be bunking for the night. We touched down shortly after sunset, with the many lights of Augusta and Wichita twinkling across the inky black of the prairie landscape below.

Oh... one more thing,,, we decided that while we were on this trip that we would call FEIN our "flagship." Before we all took off, we thought that it would be a great opportunity to take along a Canadian Flag and show off our boundless patriotism and love for our great country. Both FEIN and the students are carrying the flag well, and you'll be sure to see us with this flag wherever we go in the days to come.

As a matter of fact, a few of us are even quite literally "wrapping ourselves up in it!"

Just waiting for the fog to clear!

This is the first entry of the Providence Aviation 2008 trip! Fog has held us back at the moment, but we are all hopeful that in no time at all that we will be shooting towards the sky above! The deep south awaits us!