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Comment by Danny Creech on June 27, 2013 at 8:46am

It was some of the most amazing and beautiful countryside I have ever seen. COLD! is an understatement. As you may know, the CH-701 isn't the most well sealed up aircraft and this one had LOTS of ice cold air flowing into it. I had the heater on but there just wasn't much it could do to warm that ice cold air. I was wearing thermals, blue jeans, a blanket, several shirts, a thick leather jacket, gloves, and a pair of sweat pants wrapped around my neck and head and I was freezing my ass off. You just sit there so it's not like your heart rate is up pumping a lot of blood through your body. I flew like this for two LONG days (Sun up to Sun down). I purchased the plane on the cost of Washington state and flew it all the way down to Louisiana. Would have took me only three days but ran into a bad snow storm in Arkansas (just a few hours drive from home). So, it ended up taking me four days. I was so cold my finger tips were blue. The temp on the ground was -12c.  The one thing I did learn is that Continental O-200 does NOT like to start when it is cold. Finally figured out I had to either preheat the engine or put it in the hanger for a few hours to knock the cold off of it. I will say I was glad as hell I had a REAL airplane engine sitting in front of me as I started over those mountains. I was over them for a long time and although I could put this aircraft down in a front yard, EVERYTHING was covered in SNOW and it would have destroyed the aircraft no matter where I had to put it down. But despite the COLD and the snow storm where I was flying in IMC conditions with almost no instrumentation, I made it home safely. Was a GREAT trip ( - the cold), but I don't think I ever want to do that again. hahahaha

Comment by Adam Hess on June 27, 2013 at 8:17am

I can almost see my old home from here- I saw this picture and knew right where it was. These are my old stomping grounds. You are just north of a little town called Honeyville- that's where my wife is from. I grew up in Brigham City- it's a few miles south of here.