Flight Map
I had decided to make the flight to Oshkosh in my Pulsar this year instead of Caro 1. I had not flown it as much as I would have liked to in the last few years and decided it could use the exercise. It can be very hot in California
in July but I was lucky on the day I left. It was cooler and there were some clouds that hid the sun on my early departure.
First came a long climb to get across the low spot of the Sierra Nevada
mountains at Lake Tahoe, but the relatively cool air helped with the climb performance. The air was smooth and there was little wind, so the crossing was not a challenge. Nevada and Reno lay ahead. The landscape changed to dry, brown and grey. I had hoped for a tailwind flying east, but was disappointed. I ended up having some headwind almost the whole way to Oshkosh.
My destination for the day was Logan, Utah, but even though the Pulsar is faster by about 25 kts than Caro 1, it has less range and I had to plan for a fuel stop on the way rather than going nonstop. I selected Battle Mountain, NV, which is almost exactly halfway in between.
Approaching the runway of Battle Mountain
There were two runways, and with almost no wind, I selected the one shown to be in better condition, landing to the northeast. I had not landed here before and was not sure what to expect. Sometimes these airports in the middle of nowhere can be neglected and shabby, but not this one. There was no other activity, but the self-serve fuel pump worked well and the FBO building was nice and actually attended. I wanted to use as much unleaded fuel as I could get on this trip, but here I had to use Avgas, nothing else was available. The airport was also used as a tanker / firefighter base, that may explain why it was in good shape.
In one open hangar sat a Super Cub, the right toy for exploring the area and landing on dirt strips or roads.
After takeoff from Battle Mountain, heading east low over a valley
I climbed back to my cruise altitude of 9,500 ft, which put me over most of the mountains. They were widely spaced, so even if there was one higher than me, it was easy to avoid. My ground speed was now down to 116 kts, a bit less than on the previous leg.
The visibility was still good in Nevada on the eastbound flight and the highway often paralleled my course. I soon flew over the Elko airport, which is located at the largest town between Reno and Logan. Next was Wells, a long runway mostly used by crop dusters, near a very small town.
Then I approached the Salt Lake. If you look closely, you can see the railroad in this picture, which crosses the flat land in a completely straight line. I had to stay a bit further north to avoid restricted airspace. All other roads are routed around the lake area.
This part of the lake has a weird purple color.
Crossing the eastern shore of the water. The over-water portion was quite short because I only flew over the northern edge.
When I approached the Logan airport, I dialed in the local frequency on the radio to find out what was going on. On this day, there was a lot of traffic with almost nonstop calls, mostly from students in the pattern. I reported my position and intention to land. There were about four airplanes doing touch-and-goes and a few other in the vicinity. I kept my head swiveling left and right in the attempt to spot them. When I got close to downwind for runway 35, I heard a student announce himself as solo student. Ok, I thought, I will give him a little more space as I positioned myself behind him. I made a radio call and said I would extend my downwind leg a little for that purpose. Wrong move. When I turned base, another airplane, that had been behind me, was cutting me off and flew his base inside of me. I turned away and flew a circle over the town to get back into the pattern behind him.
But there was already another airplane, following closely on his heels. I flew away and looked for another opportunity to enter the pattern. When I thought that I was back in the flow, I noticed another airplane so close in front of me that I had to go around again. These guys had no intention to let anyone from the outside interfere with the standard pattern that had been programmed into their robotic minds.
I was not used to this, elsewhere it is the custom for airplanes in the pattern to make room by extending the pattern enough for another plane.
By now four flight school airplanes had landed ahead of me and I was getting the hang of how things worked here. I saw a slightly larger gap on downwind and squeezed the Pulsar into it. I kept it tight and followed the plane ahead of me so closely that when he turned off the runway, I was already touching down behind him. When I had reached the taxiway to exit the runway, the plane following me was on final at only about 200 ft in the air. I had finally made it.
On the ramp I saw a purple P-51 Mustang called “Plum Crazy”, which was flown by Vicky Benzing, also on her way to Oshkosh. At noon the thermals were already bubbling over the mountains to the east.
Ryan came to meet me and we borrowed a couple of gas cans so that I could buy mogas at the local car gas station. These gas cans were of the new and “improved” style, which made them so difficult to use that the user is required to have a rating for them. It is almost impossible to fill them because of the filter inside, which restricts the flow and the nozzle keeps shutting off every few seconds. It is equally almost impossible to pour fuel from them into an airplane tank without spilling half of it. A transfer hose can hardly be used, again because of the filter inside the can. But at least the mogas was cheap here.
I was up early the next morning because I wanted to cross Wyoming while the air was calm. While I was getting the Pulsar ready, another airplane took off on runway 35, which was very long and twice as wide as most other runways. When I lined up on it for takeoff, I noticed something that looked like black stripes far down the runway. The sun was still hidden behind the mountains to the east, so it was hard to tell what it was. I pushed the throttle forward and the Pulsar accelerated slowly, because of the high elevation (4400 ft). Moments later, when I got closer to the black “stripes” I finally recognized that they were three large birds, Sandhill cranes, just standing on the left side of the runway pavement. I did not expect that; the airplane that had taken off only minutes earlier should have chased the wildlife off the runway. I had often seen Sandhill cranes on the grassy parts of airports in the east, but not this far west. They were usually foraging and did not let the airplanes bother them.
By now I was getting close to liftoff speed and could not have aborted the takeoff roll in time to stop before reaching the birds.
I eased the Pulsar away from the centerline, to the right side of the runway. If the birds stayed where they were, it would be ok because the Pulsar has short wings. At that moment I was glad I was not flying Caro 1 with its long wings. When I was really close, one of the birds took a few steps to the left, away from me. The other two just stood there, unconcerned. I tried to lift off before reaching them, but had to pass them on the right with a few yards to spare, at about their eye level. Shortly afterwards, the Pulsar climbed away from the ground. Phew, that was close. Hitting them would have made a major mess. Pulling off the runway into the grass at that speed would not have been real pleasant either.
Finally I could climb over the mountains to the east, facing the low sun.
The elevation of the terrain to the east was really high, so that even at 9,500 ft msl I was not flying far above the ground. As expected, the air was smooth and even though there was little wind, it still was on the nose. The air temperature was low, between 50ºF and 60ºF (10ºC and 15ºC), so I turned the cabin heat on to stay warm. It is simply a valve in the firewall that lets warm air from behind the radiator into the cabin. It is very effective, especially for keeping my feet warm.
Trying to stay warm at high altitude, but blinded by the low sun.
The low sun highlighted the rock formations over Wyoming. There was not much to look at on this part of the flight.
These were the last mountains before leaving the high terrain behind. I had selected Torrington, WY as my next stop, which was closer than Valentine. This flight was one of the longer ones with 3 hours, 20 minutes, but it was all the Pulsar can manage with safe fuel reserves.
There was some talk on the radio, indicating that several other airplanes were in the air at this and another airport in the vicinity on the same frequency. A very common frequency at small airports here is 122.80, and one can often hear the planes from several airports at once. Pilots need to include the name of the airport where they are landing at to avoid confusion, and the runway number. Even so, sometimes I have trouble understanding the airport name and have to figure out by the runway number where the other traffic is. One plane I heard clearly was a Kitfox, but it was still far away when I landed.
Torrington airport with its two runways
I was tying the Pulsar down and sorting out my things when the Kitfox arrived. Its pilot, Byron, came over to look at my plane, because Skystar, the company that built the Kitfox had for a while also produced Pulsar kits. I asked Byron if I could somehow get unleaded fuel here, because the airport fuel pump only had Avgas. He said that he also had an engine in his plane that needed unleaded fuel and offered to drive me and a gas can to a car gas station in town, only a few minutes away. I gladly took him up on his offer and during the ride learned more about the Kitfox he had built. He also told me that there was unleaded fuel available at the Wheatland, WY airport but they did not advertise this. He gave me the phone number of the person to call if I was going to stop there on my way back.
Mogas from good gas cans for the Pulsar.
He had finished his Kitfox only a year ago and it looked very well built. He had even come up with his own engine conversion from a motorcycle engine, producing 80 hp. He made a suitable cowling by himself from carbon fiber, but complained that it was his worst build experience of the project because he was not familiar with working with composites, at least initially. I thought it looked really good.
With the big wheels, he can land on rough surfaces. He decided that he had learned so much while building this airplane that he needed to build two more, with improvements.
Byron’s Kitfox in Torrington.
Soon after I had landed, cumulus clouds were popping up everywhere in the humid air. Soon showers and thunderstorms were dominating the sky and I was glad that I had come early enough to avoid the rain.
The humid air continued on the next day, when I took off into the hazy morning air. At least the sky was clear. I soon crossed the eastern Wyoming border, only a few miles east of the airport into Nebraska. Initially there was only empty prairie, with widely spaced small farms and the elevation of the terrain dropped from 4500 ft to 2600 ft. With no more high mountains in the way, I only climbed to 7,500 ft before leveling off. My transponder light stayed dark for long periods, indicating that there were no stations out there requesting a reply. I needed food, so I landed after 1.5 hours in Valentine, where I could walk to a store. The Pulsar had to be satisfied with Avgas. Before leaving, I checked the radar picture and it showed a line of thunderstorms moving towards my next stop, Albert Lea in Minnesota. I was wondering if I should wait and let the storms pass, or hurry up and try to get there before it hit the airport.
The storms were moving slowly, so I decided to take off again before noon. Now clouds were developing first below me, then rising to above my cruising altitude of 5500 ft.
Thick haze over the Missouri River, South Dakota.
I encountered sink and fewer clouds around the river.
For a while I was on top of the few clouds, and over Iowa my ground speed dropped down to 104 kts, indicating a strong headwind on my easterly heading. Eventually I could not fly around the towering cumulus anymore and had to descend to 3500 ft to get below the base. This had the advantage of better visibility and I could use the lift from the thermals. They were often lined up in cloud streets, which I followed for a while, enjoying a higher speed, before swinging back onto my original heading.
About 30 nm from Albert Lea I saw the first signs of the storm. The high overcast became thicker, the sun disappeared and rain showers were ahead and to the north. Further south it looked clearer. This meant that the storm had not reached the airport. By listening to the AWOS weather station at the airport I heard that the weather there was ok, but the storm was beginning to move between me and the airport. Rain started hitting the canopy and I kept the speed up. For a while things looked murky. Finally the visibility improved again and the sky lightened.
On downwind to runway 35 at Albert Lea, MN
The ground was dry when I landed and taxied to the mogas fuel pump. This was the only airport on my route that actually sold unleaded fuel and this made it a mandatory stop for me. 3:10 h flight time required 8.7 gal fuel, not bad. The added advantages were stores with food nearby, but because I had shopped earlier in Valentine I skipped the extra walk. I had enough flying for the day and looked forward for a break.
The sky remained overcast, so it was not too hot. Later an orange and white RV-9 landed and also taxied up to the mogas pump. I was curious, because usually these planes use Lycoming engines which can digest Avgas. I was wearing my Reno Race team 79 T-shirt (that I had done some work for) when I walked up to the RV-9 pilot. After a quick look at me, he asked “Do you know Justin?” I was briefly surprised by this question, but it turned out that he was from Vacaville, California, where Justin Phillipson, Reno race pilot 79 lived. Small world.
This RV-9 had a Subaru engine which, like the Rotax, has problems with leaded fuel, which Andy had found out the hard way as well. Of course he was also on his way to Oshkosh.
RV-9 with Subaru engine.
When I started up the engine the next morning and turned the radio on its display remained blank. It was not working and I shut the engine down. I decided to take a closer look at the radio and removed it from the panel. Inside the airconditioned FBO I opened up its cover but did not see anything wrong. Up to the day before it had worked just fine, so I suspected that the increased humidity had something to do with the issue. After I reinstalled it, it decided to work again. Maybe it had dried out in the cooler air inside.
I took off and climbed to 5,500 ft. It was still hazy and soon cumulus clouds started growing underneath me.
Crossing the wide Mississippi River
The clouds quickly grew taller until I had to fly around the tops rather than over them. The green fields and increasing wooded areas indicated that it rained frequently here. I soon reached the well defined boundary between Minnesota and Wisconsin: the very wide Mississippi River. All that water suppressed the thermals, there were no clouds over the river. After and hour and half I reached my next stop, Reedsburg, WI. I slowly descended through the gaps in the clouds to get below them, but I had to get quite close to the airport before I could see it in the haze.
Arrival in Reedsburg
It was always good to visit here, and Tom who ran the airport greeted me at the fuel pump, Avgas only this time. Even his father Bill was still active and helped pilots headed for Oshkosh by providing food in the FBO building. Just across the street were a car gas station and several stores, restaurants and hotels. If I had brought a gas can, I could have gone there to get mogas, but I had no spare space in the plane. I only needed less than 4 gal, so I saved myself the trouble. If there is an airport where one would be well supplied if stranded there, this was it. And actually someone was stranded here with a R44 helicopter. He had landed with a rough running engine and with Tom’s help was troubleshooting it on the ramp. Eventually they found a stuck valve, and a bent pushrod. So he was not going to leave real soon. I spent the rest of the day there with the intention of flying the remaining 65 nm into Oshkosh in the morning.
In the evening several other pilots landed, after failed attempts to fly into Oshkosh after the airshow. There simply was too much traffic and not enough time because the airport closes at 8 pm. Among them there was a yellow RV-8 owned by a pilot who flew to OSH for the first time and a couple from Oregon in a C185 amphibious float plane. The woman was from Germany, but had moved to the US a few years before me, so that she could fly more. They reported bad smoke conditions over the Rockies, from the numerous fires in Oregon.
During the night a thunderstorm hit the airport, but without much wind. In the morning, the clouds hung low and the visibility was only 3-4 miles. The other pilots left, one by one, to try their luck. I waited a bit to see if they would come back, but apparently they made it.
When I started up, the radio came briefly on, only to die again after a few minutes. I had brought my handheld radio along and plugged my headset into it. That way at least I could continue flying.
Getting close to the initial point of the Fisk arrival procedure, low over Wisconsin
The clouds were only at 900 ft agl, but for the first time it seemed that I had a bit of tailwind. I did not see or hear any other airplanes and at that distance and altitude I was too low to hear the OSH arrival ATIS. So I did not know what the current conditions there were and which runway they were currently using. I just flew to the first waypoint of the arrival route and followed it. Finally I was close enough to hear a call from the Fisk controller, who advised another airplane ahead of me that runway 36 was in use. Good to know.
I kept my speed up, there was no reason to slow down to 90 kts if no one else was around. Finally I reached Fisk where the controller waited on the ground to identify incoming airplanes and clear them into the OSH airspace. I managed to hear his instructions over the static noise that the handheld radio picked up, flew towards runway 36 and switched to the tower frequency. I was cleared to land on the main runway and rolled off into the grass when I had slowed down. Only then did I see the other three airplanes which had followed me in.
Made it! I parked in the homebuilt area, which seemed strangely empty. I later realized that most other homebuilt airplane pilots preferred to park in the camping area, which was further away from the flightline. This way the Pulsar stood out and got more attention. Many people asked what it was or had questions about it.
Then it was time to look around. First I attended a forum given by the famous and creative airplane designer Burt Rutan. He had not made it to Oshkosh for the last several years because of age and health issues, but now he was back.
One of Burt’s best designs was the Boomerang, a twin-engine plane with an asymmetrical structure, but better and safer flying characteristics than regular twins.
In Burt’s honor, a lot of his canard designs like VariEze, LongEze, Solitaire, Grizzly were lined up in a row, here another twin, the Defiant.
Burt himself had arrived in style, by hitching a ride in the last surviving Starship, also his design.
This was very nice looking Bellanca, designed in the 1950’s, built from wood with a steel tube fuselage with good performance.
“Bonnie” was parked in the warbird area.
There were quite a few manufacturers from outside the US, mainly Europe
and South Africa. The Risen here is considered the fastest one in its class.
The South African Sling was available in a low wing and high wing version, which otherwise looked very similar. Both are all-metal 4-seaters.
The Rans S-21 is a fairly clean two-seater with a tailweel.
This GlasStar or Sportsman looked brand new, it also is a fairly clean airplane that can carry two large people and a lot of baggage or four smaller people.
This Italian-designed Falco looks like a sleek composite airplane, but it is actually built from wood.
Among the older airplanes, this Buhl Bull Pup reminded me of a dragonfly, eager to take off in the slightest breeze.
This Aeronca C3 on the other hand looks like it had just swallowed a huge meal and felt too heavy to lift off any time soon.
A huge B-52 was parked on the central ramp. Its landing gear arrangement is rather unusual. It has two narrow wheels attached to the fuselage ahead of the wings, and two more just behind the wings. In between is the bomb bay. In order not to tip over and rest a wing tip on the ground, it had a single wheel on each outboard wing. Would you call this a nose wheel or a tailwheel airplane? Because it cannot rotate nose up for takeoff, it needs large flaps that provide enough lift for lifting off in level attitude.
A C-47 in the warbird area.
Lineup of military prop and jet trainers.
Jabiru 4-seater
The Australian Jabiru is designed as a 4-seater, but Sport Pilots can only use it as a roomy two-seater. It is fairly light and aerodynamically clean and should have good performance with just two people.
After giving my forum on engine cooling and several days of roaming around thousands of neat airplanes, it was time to fly back. Except for the first day, when a strong shower hit the airport, the weather was good and fairly cool. My radio was still on strike and I had to use the handheld.
I had a long line of airplanes in front of me all wanting to take off. Again and again landing airplanes delayed us. The controller and his helpers were stationed right at the departure end of runway 36 band were directing the airplanes with hand signals. Two pilots would line up side by side on the wide runway, then the right one would get the takeoff clearance first, and the second one a few seconds later. I was on the left side, and once the Pulsar got going, it was quickly catching up with the yellow RV in front of me, who was slow initiate the right turn away from the airport. I had to do some low level maneuvering to avoid him and get past him.
Low flight after departure from Oshkosh
Once I was clear of the class D airspace, I was free to climb westbound to 4500 ft. I knew there were many other airplanes in the vicinity, going in the same direction, so I kept looking outside. I spotted several, thanks to the large canopy of the Pulsar which offers a great view of the sky. This is not the case for many other airplanes, which have small windows or high wings which block much of the view. I am always concerned about a collision with someone who overlooks me and comes from behind.
I was looking left and right, and spotted a high wing airplane to my right, same altitude, same speed, maybe half a mile away, on a course converging with mine at an angle of about 20 degrees. If we had not done not done anything, we would probably have met in the same spot in the sky. I wagged my wings to find out if he had seen me, but got no response. We were coming closer together and he had the right of way, so I needed to do something. I turned right towards him and crossed his path behind him so that I could keep him in sight. At one point in the maneuver I was pointed directly towards him (still at a safe distance), but plainly visible. If he had noticed me, he probably would have been scared by now. But the airplane continued calmly on its course. I bet he had not noticed me.
After some time the radio must have dried out because it started working again. I stopped for unleaded fuel in Albert Lea, MN. It was very windy there, warm and humid with overcast clouds just above pattern altitude. This time I stocked up on food before taking off again, westbound. It was bumpy and I again had a headwind component. Further to the west, the cloud base rose and thinned so that I could climb back to 4,500 ft.
I wanted to get into Yankton, South Dakota, were pilots from Oshkosh were welcomed with food in the FBO by the very friendly airport manager and his wife. The square green fields continued under my wings from Minnesota, across Iowa and into the south-eastern tip of South Dakota to this airport on the Missouri river. I landed on the long runway 13, with some crosswind. Avgas again for the Pulsar, and a nice dinner for me.
I was so tired that I did not wake up early the next morning. The sun was already up and the sky was clear but it was very hazy from smoke. Low on climbout on course I only had a ground speed of 80 kts, which was disappointing. The air was smooth, and I decided to keep climbing in search of less headwind.
Further west there are more round fields, for easier automated irrigation. Above is a thin layer of smoke.
At 6,500 ft I saw another airplane near me, also westbound, at about the same speed. Just then the air became turbulent, and I suspected wind shear. I continued climbing and the wind direction must have changed, because my ground speed increased suddenly to 120 kts. I leveled off at 8,500 ft and started to pull ahead of the other airplane, which had remained at 6,500 ft. Obviously he had not seen me either or he might have followed me up. This one would not be a factor for me.
Further west, the farmed fields were becoming very sparse. I passed under a small front marked by clouds over South Dakota and sadly my ground speed was gradually reduced to 107 kts. But this was still sufficient for me to continue without an unplanned stop. I wanted to get to Wheatland where I was promised access to mogas.
Wheatland airport, looking south
After getting fuel from a friendly local pilot I parked the Pulsar between the two other airplanes already tied down on the ramp. In the afternoon, clouds were developing into thunderstorms over the nearby mountains to the west and I watched them drift towards the airport. I walked over to an open hangar, where some people were working on an RV-7. A couple returning from Oshkosh had noticed that their battery was weak and after replacing it (why??), further noticed that it was not getting charged, because the alternator was broken. They were in the process of removing the alternator and trying to find a replacement. A Cirrus landed, deviating from their original plan of going to Cheyenne because of the weather. I was in the pilot’s lounge building when I noticed a commotion outside. The Cirrus pilot had tried to taxi to a tiedown spot by squeezing his airplane between the Pulsar and the Comanche parked to the left. Unfortunately he was not paying enough attention to his wingtips and with a crunch, his right wingtip shattered the lens on the tip of the Comanche wing. The four guys traveling in the Cirrus and a few people from the airport who had seen it happen swarmed around the airplanes to sort things out. I was glad that he had not hit my plane!
Soon afterwards a strong storm hit the airport, with >30 kt wind gusts and rain. The Pulsar was tied down well and rode it out without moving much.
After the storm moved off, I was looking for evening entertainment and wandered over to the fairgrounds behind the airport fence because there seemed to be something going on. I saw a bunch of horses, actually a herd of mares with their foals and one stallion in a corral. They looked a little rough, like they had lived out on the range on their own and they were wary of people. Cowboys with trucks, trailers and their working horses were arriving and a group of small black cattle with long horns was packed into another pen.
First there was an auction, probably for the horses I had seen, some going for as little as $100-$200. Then the cowboys rode into the arena swinging their lassos. Their job was to catch
the two cows and one calf that were released together. One cow had to be “mock-branded”, the other one had to be milked and the calf had to be thrown and marked with a paint stick. Milking a wild cow which has no intention of cooperating was quite a job, mostly tackled by three riders together. One caught it by the horns, the second one caught the hind legs and the third one jumped from his horse with a plastic bottle and tried to get a tiny amount of milk into it. Then the cow was released, and most expressed their opinion on this treatment by chasing the closest cowboy and trying to punch a horn through him. Being successful in this task was not easy, and not all teams were successful or took too long.
But one guy really earned the crowd’s admiration when he managed to do this job by himself, just with the help of his well trained horse.
I rode off on my pony early the next morning under a clear sky. These were the first mountains of the Rockies. They don’t look like much here, but the field elevation was already 5,000 ft and the high peak in the background was over 10,000 ft msl.
Even though the wind on the ground had been light, in flight I noticed right away that I had a hell of a headwind, over 40 kts. This was not going to be fun. If I had been in the motorglider, a mule-drawn wagon might have beaten me to the next stop. In the Pulsar I was at least making slow progress. When I reached my cruising altitude of 10,500 ft and was flying past Rawlins, the ground speed had increased to 100 kts. As expected, I encountered some lift and sink from wave action.
When I passed north of Rock Springs, Wyoming’s “windy capital”, the windmills on the ground were still turning rapidly.
Sand dunes west of Rock Springs
There were some areas of altocumulus, where the air was quite turbulent, even this early. The rest was smooth.
At last the mountain range just east of the Cache Valley was close. I was still at 10,500 ft to cross it and needed to descend down to 5400 ft within the next 10 nm. But I could only start the descent once I cleared the peaks and was looking down on the airport. At least I had plenty of time to observe the Sunday morning traffic at the Logan airport, which was fortunately much lighter than on my previous visit and I was able to land without trouble.
Logan airport ramp, the tower is not in use.
I had another good visit with Ryan and his family and got mogas for the Pulsar. In the morning, I noticed a large jet starting up his engines and thought to myself: this guy is going to chase the birds off the runway for me. I waited, and there was even a second jet which took off right after the first one. This time there were no “pedestrians” left on the runway when it was my turn.
After takeoff from Logan, the last high clouds move off to the northeast.
The visibility was reported as 7 miles, smoke was in the air. I climbed back up to 10,500 ft so that I could stay clear of most mountains, even if I could not see them. The ground speed was ok here with 108 kts, but I still had a headwind.
Climbing past the first larger mountains in Utah.
I had to stop in battle Mountain, NV again for fuel. The visibility there and in Elko was reported to be only 4 miles, which was ok but not great, considering the high terrain around those airports. During cruise I was high enough to be near the top of the inversion and could use the line formed by the boundary of haze and clear air as my horizon, but it was hard to see anything else.
So during the descent I made sure to fly along a valley, and the highway led me towards the airport.
Descending through a valley towards Battle Mountain
The wind was calm on the ground and I made a straight in approach to runway 22 (the numbers marked on the runway claimed it still was runway 21). The actual visibility down there was better than reported, 7 miles. After a quick stop, I took off again, direction southwest. I followed the valley and only flew on direct course once I cleared the highest peaks. Quickly the smoke got worse, it felt like floating on the surface of an ocean, with small islands visible here and there.
Smoke in Nevada
I spent more time looking at my instrument panel to make sure I stayed on course than looking outside.
Finally, in the Reno area the visibility improved dramatically. I could again see where I was going. The air was still smooth and I approached my crossing point at Lake Tahoe. Everything looked good, but when I reached the western shore, things got turbulent. The air mass on the west side of the mountains was quite different from what was to the east.
On the west side, it was clear with thin smoke layer when I was crossing some small lakes at an elevation of about 6,000 ft.
I lost several hundred feet in downdrafts, and got tossed around by the unstable turbulent air. I started the long descent towards home, now only 50 nm to the south. Even on landing I had to fight a gusty wind from the northwest, but I had made it.
Total flight time for the trip was 30 hours, slightly more than half of that was spent on the return trip. About 74% of the fuel I used was unleaded mogas, the rest was Avgas. The engine ran well on that mixture, at all altitudes and temperatures. The only (preventive) maintenance was one upper spark plug change with cleaned ones. I used a fairly low power setting to increase range and minimize the use of Avgas. Average fuel burn was 2.7 gal/h, average fuel cost was 13.1 $/h.