March 5, 2001 Lockhart, Texas to Galveston, Texas

Steve Thomas/Proficiency and Training flights across America

Today was probably the best day of flying that I have had so far! We got up early again and I left Lockhart around 8:00. I flew east to the east side of La Grange looking for the Thunderbirds Southwest Private airstrip. The winds were light from the north when I took off and the ride was smooth. The sky was totally clear of any clouds and hazy. It was in the 40's or low 50's this morning.

I had encountered my first GPS glitch when I arrived at where it said the airstrip was and I found myself directly over the Colorado River! I knew that something was wrong. I just turned toward where I thought that it should have been using dead reckoning and waited for Chuck to arrive and let me know if I was heading in the right direction. I was about 3 or 4 miles too far south, but when I got a few miles away I could easily make out the green 2,000' grass runway.

I landed on the strip and met Lance and Mrs. Harrington, the owners of the private strip. They have quite the nice setup there with a long grass strip in the back of their car business. I saw a lot of super clean and very old classic vehicles there. They specialize in Thunderbirds and are called the Thunderbirds Southwest. We visited with them for about an hour and refueled the plane.

The chute never got packed up as I landed in the middle of the strip and just took off right from where I dropped the chute. I took off and headed toward Galveston with 2 planned stops to refuel south of Houston. My speed over ground was so good that I was flying at 45-50 mph!

After about 30 minutes I called Chuck on the radio and told him that I was going to fly right past the first stop and go all the way to the Flyin' Tiger Airport, a small airport with 2 grass runways. It was 100 miles from Thunderbirds Southwest to Flyin' Tiger and I made it in 2 hours and 10 minutes! I got there at about 1:15 and the winds were at about 10 mph and variable between northwest and north. I picked runway 34 and landed on the nice plush green grass.

When I met the owner I was surprised to find out that it was Bruce Bohannon the Owner/Pilot of the Exxon Flyin' Tiger. His plane was in the hanger and it was a real beauty. He sets a lot of records with it all across the country and from right there at his home field. Bruce and his associate Gaby Robertson were super nice people and invited us to stay a while, but I had the urge to press on for Galveston.

I stayed there a couple of hours and then took off again and headed for Galveston Island. I crossed the marshes and the Bay between the mainland and the island, arriving on the island at West Beach. From there I turned to the NE and flew the length of the island over the Atlantic Ocean to the East Beach.

At 4:00 I landed on the beach having flown 208 miles today. That is another personal record for my longest day flown. Also the 100 mile leg was my longest flight without refueling so far, and I had plenty of fuel left when I landed. The winds on the beach were calm! When In was here in September for a week it was never calm! It was just absolutely perfect. I landed and waited for Chuck to arrive.

My EGT's were getting too high on approach to the beach at this sea level altitude, so I changed the settings in the carbs and then took another flight to check them out. They are perfect now and ready to fly on!

We are going to take a few days here to relax and check over the equipment. I have a radiator ordered and plan to change it here before the one on the plane starts to leak bad. Here are some of the photos from today. I have now flown 1,570 miles from Oceanside, California to Galveston, Texas and was able to fly at least part of the day on 11 days.
Enjoy!
Steve

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