The Steed

Some time ago Sharon and I decided we wanted to take a flying vacation, going from KPAO (Palo Alto, CA) to KWAY (Waynesburg, PA) in a small plane. Now, this means 40 hours of flying over mountains, valleys, plains and deserts so we needed to find the right plane for the trip.

The problem is, of course, that we are members of a club that gives us too many airplane choices: from blazing fast Mooneys that can go at over 230 kts to small trainers that fly at 100 kts or less. So we looked, poked, huffed and puffed and decided to take one of the club's Cessna 172SP, N669TW.


Why the 172SP? It's a plane Sharon and I each have over 200 hours in and feel very comfortable with. Add to that a very nice avionics package with GPS, a big moving map display, and an autopilot that can do pretty much anything and we have a dependable plane that can take us where we want to go with minimum fuss. With full tanks we can fly for 3.5 hours with another 1.5 hours reserve, which should give us a very nice safety margin.