Day 1 ''Let's hit the road''

Hello all,

Well,  I will be lying to you if I told you I am not excited because I am!  Big time excited. butterflies and all.
In less than 12 hours, at 14:30 UTC (05:30 California time) we will be rolling down 16R here in KVNY and starting  a one hell of an adventure that will take us who knows where?

In the last two days, Shiko and I were busy with the final setup the airplane's Radio, Intercom and Go-Pro camera mounts as well as distributing weight correctly in the airplane while closely monitoring our center of gravity.  Although  personally packed very light, we have lots of  ''Equipment and furnishings'' items  that need to come on board. Lap tops and chargers, Mechanic's tool bag, cold weather gear (for our early morning departures) and a small but heavy duffel bag full of portable tie down equip.  and chocks.


Also, we could not do  without  some  cleaning  and buffing dirt off  the airplane using the good old Simple Green  to get her clean and shiny for the world to marvel . She is a true eye candy.

Testing 123...123 testing.  Setting GoPro angles

Follow me

So there are a number of  ways you can follow us live.

 1)    You can follow our SPOT GEN 3 beacon and see our  progress + history as we  make radial engine noise over the 

   California central coast. This beacon pings Google maps in 10 minute intervals as long as the airplane is in motion. 

  This option gives position only.

 2)     You can log on to Flight Aware website and key in our ''Tail Number''  N67119 . This will show us live from local ATC          Radar feeds.

 3)     A similar option is Flight Radar 24 (download the free app). same thing - key in our Tail number and voila.

 4)     I am not really sure if I need to file an FAA VFR (Visual Flight Rules) flight plan in order to ''get into the system''        and be seen. (I will file one anyway, before our departure) We have our good friend Lahav Gabai monitor these systems                   tomorrow during our first leg to San  Luis Obispo.

Lahav and Gideon Came by  the hangar this afternoon with a water melon surprise.Thank you boyz.  You came at the right time 

Tomorrow's Flight plan:

We will leave KVNY and head to KSBP for a quick fuel stop.

Then we will plan to fly along the coast to Monterey bay, another possible fuel stop at Watsonville and on towards Half Moon Bay. From there up to the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Napa/Sonoma area where we will make our overnight stop. 

This is one of the longest planned days in our journey. most days will stay at or around 4 hours. 

 Day's Stats:

Distance to fly:  348 nautical miles.

Planned Flight:  aprox    4:40 hrs 

Fuel Burn :        aprox    70 Gallons.

So we took off early Saturday from VNY and headed up the coast to SBP. while enroute my good friend Lahav    came up the whatsup channel and said he had just passed Santa Yinez and will meet us for breakfast at the airport restaurant. What a pleasant surprise. We quickly fueled at the Self Serve and taxied up to the restaurant (Spirit of San Luis). had a great

breakfast and ofcours since I am such a seasoned   VFR  pilot, Naturally I forgot to close my flight plan. My phone soon rang and the FSS guy on the other end said he was just about to dispatch a search and rescue possy.  We later took off from San Luis Obispo and headed to our first overnite stop: Petaluma While Lahave is chasing us in his Jetranger Helicopter and taking great shots of the stearman. Thank you Lahav.

  Stiff  headwinds forced us to drop into Watsonville for a refuel. Met some really nice people and found their reaction to our story amazing. some Stearman U.S.Tour  patches were given out to the ladies in the crowd.

Petaluma proved to be a  challenge.  but landing  N67119 in a 12 knots headwind  was uneventful.  We filled up and were looking for a hotel for the night when a local came walking and said.. ''You boys got nothing here close. Its a cab ride everywhere, there is no Uber and no one to call us a cab. I guess 33C temperature kept everyone inside... ''You better continue up to Santa Rosa'... A quick check of the Santa Rosa airport weather called for 5 knots down the runway. No problem. We took off and within 15 minutes were in the traffic pattern on a left downwind to runway 14. 'Wind check?  tower comes back with- ''wind 350 12 knots gusting to 19 knots '' WOW!! what a day... will there be a tomorrow?
I quickly recited all the good tips and methods taught to me by my friend Chris Miller of the Springfield Flying Service of Columbia CA who is a master and instructor of Stearman flying.
Landing was made on runway 32  in a diagonal across the runway and that helped me shave off a few degrees of crosswind. Not the best of landings but hey I walked away and the airplane is still in one piece.

Rest of the evening was spent swimming in the Russian river and having a diner style dinner before we needed to return the crew car to the FBO