Monday, February 4, 2013

States I Have Flown In


I have been extremely busy as of late with work and life, so I haven't had a chance to get on here and post anything cool in a while. So for my first post of the year, I thought I would share with you this map of all the states that I have flown to and landed in to date. Part of my "bucket list" is to land a plane in all 50 states in this great country. If I can pull off all 50 in a Cirrus, that would be even cooler yet, but we'll see. Of all the states so far, all 33 have been with a Cirrus so I'm off to a pretty good start, but Alaska and Hawaii are going to be tough to do but we'll see.

As you look at the map you will see two states surrounded by green that I have apparently missed. The first one is Vermont. Two summers ago, I took my family out to Ft. Drum, NY on business and in the process we attempted to hit all the states we could while we were there. The on the morning that we attempted VT, it was very windy and turbulent and as I set-up to land, my wife was NOT having a good time. Because of this, I aborted and we climbed back up to smoother air and hoped to attempt it another day. Unfortunately due to bad weather and short on time, we never got back up there and had to return home. This summer I once again went back to Ft. Drum, but like the first time the weather turned really bad and I was not able to attempt it safely, so I just came home.

Maryland is the other state that I missed, but this time it was purely due to poor planning. On that same trip last summer, I plotted out a fun route up the east coast both IFR and VFR to ensure that I hit all the states on the coast. It was executed flawlessly and was a fantastic trip. Upon arriving back home and working on my logbook, I noticed that I had picked an airport right on the border of Delaware that was just to the north and NOT IN MARYLAND. I was pissed to say the least, but it was a great adventure and now I will just have to find another excuse to go back and try again!

This summer I move again and this time to the West coast, so WA, OR, CA, NV, UT watch out, I’m coming to get you very soon!