Charged up and inspected (a post-buy I guess you could call it), I enjoyed flying this airplane for five years. I cruised at 110 knots and I got to fly fast eastbound and slow westbound. One flight from Chicago’s Meigs Field to St. Louis took over three hours at an average ground speed of 78 knots. At some point traffic on the interstate below appeared to outrun us. 

Time led to a succession of airplanes, each a little faster than its predecessor. A Piper Arrow gave way to a Cessna 210, which in turn was followed by a P210. The P210 could get up to the lower flight levels but was no faster, and maybe even a little slower, than the unpressurized 210.

This airplane was the winner for low flight. After a good tail wind on the east side of a cold front, I ran into furious headwinds out of the northwest after crossing the front. En route to Chicago, I descended to 10, then six, and then four thousand feet, watching the fuel reserves evaporate. Whew.

I flew that P210 for 13 years before buying a Cessna 340. Pressurized and faster, the 340 was flight planned for 190 knots true airspeed. It had the benefit of performing well at lower altitudes when we wanted to stay below strong headwinds and with turbocharged engines could climb into the lower FL 200s to take advantage of a strong tailwind. 

• READ MORE: That Sound of Music in the Air

It was when fortune shined upon me and I moved up to turbine-powered airplanes that altitude, speed and, for that matter, reliability became predictable. A Piper Cheyenne was arguably the best airplane for our needs. With a true airspeed of 230 knots and a penchant for lower flight levels (it was most comfortable at 23,000 feet), this airplane allowed nonstop flights from Tampa, Florida, to Lebanon, New Hampshire. Occasionally, though, that meant that a healthy boost from a quartering tailwind was required, but we did it more than once.

Over 17 happy years that airplane took us to Vancouver, San Francisco, Chicago, Colorado Springs, Miami, Key West, Marsh Harbor in the Bahamas and, of course, to our summer cottage in New Hampshire. The engines never hiccupped once. They were so reliable that flights across the Gulf of Mexico from Tampa to New Orleans were done without anxiety. 

All this turbine time allowed me to change careers at age 67 and be hired by a Part 135 operation where I flew Cessna CJ3s. Taught by some of the best and most patient captains, I became comfortable with true airspeeds of just over 400 knots and altitudes as high as FL 450. These weren’t my airplanes, though, so even though I was at the controls and became a captain, the special feeling you get from your airplane just wasn’t there.

The CJ3 experience gave me confidence to buy a single pilot jet when I retired. The Beechcraft Premier 1 was a real airplane, with sophisticated systems. MMO was .80. Two things about this airplane were really remarkable. As the sole occupant of the airplane, I occasionally found myself, alone, at FL 410—and the feeling was magnificent. And, yes, as a safety precaution, I always kept the oxygen mask nestled in my lap. 

• READ MORE: Riding in the Back of Some Nice Private Jets

The other remarkable thing about this Premier was its speed. My highest ground speed was 577 knots. A true airspeed of 450 and a quartering tailwind of 170 knots provided the push. These true airspeeds made headwinds less of a nuisance and made tailwinds a thrill. I have a picture of my daughter reading a magazine while the cabin information sign showed a ground speed of 629 mph. 

My fastest travel was, regrettably, as a passenger. Well, not too regrettably. In the 1990s you could cash in US Airways frequent-flyer points and book a Concorde flight. We didn’t have enough points for my wife, Cathy, and me to both fly Concorde, so she volunteered to fly to London the night before. I flew to New York, had dinner with a friend, and arrived the next morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK) about an hour before British Airways was to launch a supersonic flight to London.

Stuffed with croissants and coffee, I got in line to board. When I got to the cabin door, I said to the flight attendant, “I would love to see the cockpit.” With a look of practiced disdain and a clipped British accent, she said, “Most of the children do.” Ouch.

I sulked to my seat and ordered a cognac. About half way across the ocean, the same flight attendant said that the captain would see me now. Armed with all sorts of Concorde trivia, including the facts that the airplane is longer at Mach 2 than on the ground as a consequence of friction-induced heat, that the airplane was trimmed by moving fuel backward and forward, and that, speaking of fuel, there would be very little left when we got London. 

• READ MORE: Taking the Grand Tour at Gulfstream Aerospace

As I entered the flight deck, the engineer greeted me. I knew if I was to stay there very long, I had to make a friend. The flight engineer was great. He told me of a time when he kissed his wife goodbye and reported for a New York morning flight. When he reached New York, the engineer on the return flight had “taken ill,” so he was assigned to head back to London. “When I got home, my wife had gone out with some friends. I was having a pipe when she walked in and said, ‘I thought you were going to New York?’ I answered, ‘Well, I did.’”

As he was telling this story, I noticed an altitude of 56,000-plus feet. “We float around up here. There isn’t any other traffic.” That is the highest and fastest I ever flew.

The flight attendant reappeared to drag me away. I pleaded to the flight engineer to return. He said he’d try.

Sure enough, a different flight attendant came back during descent and ushered me forward. I had scored the jumpseat for landing. ATC cleared us into a hold. The engineer said this was just for show: “We don’t have the fuel to hold, but other airlines complain that we get special treatment, so we have this little dance.”

We were then cleared direct to Heathrow (EGLL). After landing we were momentarily told to hold short of a runway from which a new (then) 747-400 was departing.

As Air China rotated just in front of us, the captain turned to the first officer and said, “It must be like flying a bloody brick.”

This column first appeared in the September Issue 950 of the FLYING print edition.

The post Half Century of Flight Has Included Some Altitude and Ground Speed appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

“I doubt it,” I thought, after looking at the radar. There was a line of thunderstorms associated with a cold front stretching north to south across our route.

“Nah,” said Jason, “We’ll fly above that stuff.” Such was my introduction to flying jets, in this case the Lear-jet 31. With a service ceiling of 51,000 feet, there weren’t many clouds we couldn’t top; at least theoretically. I say theoretically because getting a Lear to Flight Level 510 before running out of jet-A was a challenge. Nonetheless, I was learning about the benefits (and perils) of high-altitude flight.

Starting out in a Cessna 150, altitude was a pretty simple matter. With careful attention to density altitude, most takeoffs were possible and cruising altitudes were seldom much more than a few thousand feet above mean sea level.

Owning a Cessna P210 got me thinking about pressurization, advantages of flights in the high “teens,” and the thrill of announcing my presence at a flight level. Though credited with a service ceiling of 25,000 feet, I doubt I ever made it higher than FL210. That was exhilarating enough for me. A Hank Williams Jr. song called “High and Pressurized” became my anthem. “It don’t take long to get there if you’re high and pressurized,” went the first verse. It is a tune about the satisfaction that comes with owning or renting a pressurized airplane. There’s a line about the mile high club, but that’s a topic for a different day (and maybe a different publication).

Pressurized piston airplanes have the admirable trait of being able to fly low into headwinds and to ride the tailwinds up high. Turboprops aren’t so lucky. These airplanes basically have jet engines that are more fuel efficient the higher they fly, so bucking headwinds down low rarely makes sense over long distances. With service ceilings of 28,000 to 31,000 feet, you aren’t going to top any big thunderstorms in a turboprop either.

Jets, however, make surmounting the weather a real possibility. That Lear 31 trip was my introduction to such magnificence. In fact, we laughed at my naiveté and at the wall of lightning and mayhem beneath us as we roared westward at FL430. Later that night, we retraced our route from Texas to St. Petersburg, Florida (KPIE), and climbed to FL470. We would have kept climbing, but the peninsula of Florida was fast approaching—and we didn’t want to overshoot and end up in Spain.

I don’t know how high I have been. I mean that in a strict sense of altitude msl. Redeeming mileage points, I rode on Concorde once from KJFK in New York to Heathrow (EGLL) in London. After much whining and begging, I was allowed to enter the cockpit. I was astounded to see the altimeters showing 52,640 feet (I think). Given a block altitude (who else was going to be up here?), the pilots said they just sought the best altitude for the prevailing winds and temperature. The airplane was so fast—it routinely cruised at Mach 2.0—that eastbound trips and westbound trips weren’t but a few minutes different in regards to time en route. Soon, I was ushered back out of the cockpit by a stern British Airways flight attendant, so I really don’t know how high we actually got.

Part 135 flying in a Cessna Citation CJ3 was my real classroom for learning about high-altitude flight. With a straight wing and hence relatively docile flying characteristics up high, we consistently flew at FL450 when possible. With generous and knowledgeable captains, I learned that although we could top those huge Midwest thunderstorms at FL450, it was still a good idea to avoid flying directly over them. Just because it looked clear didn’t mean there weren’t ferocious funnels of turbulence rising from these prodigious forces of nature.

I’m currently privileged to fly a Cessna CJ1. Its service ceiling is FL410, but I had never been that high in it until recently. Powered by two Williams FJ44-1A engines with a “mere” 1,900 pounds of thrust each, the CJ1 never seemed very enthusiastic about flying above FL390. Then I was taught a lesson.

While the airplane was parked at Wichita’s Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (KICT) for a routine maintenance visit, the Textron Aviation service center per-formed scheduled engine checks and replaced some seals. As part of their post-maintenance protocol, they flew the airplane. I watched with amazement on flightaware.com as the Textron pilots flew right up to 41,000 feet.

Two days later, I was headed from KICT to Lebanon, New Hampshire (KLEB), a distance of 1,200 nm. With just a modest tailwind and me as the airplane’s only occupant, ForeFlight calculated I would land with 908 pounds of fuel. Though certainly legal, my personal minimum is 1,000 pounds of gas upon landing. Good weather was forecast at the destination for the next eight hours. After that, Hurricane Irma was to wash the Northeast clean.

I decided to start out with the intent to climb to FL410,carefully check position, time en route, and fuel consumption against ForeFlight’s nav log, and see what happened. Thirty-nine minutes after takeoff, I was level at 41,000 feet; better than the 48 minutes shown on the navlog. The airplane felt exhausted, as if it had flung itself onto the shore after a difficult marathon swim, but gradually recaptured airspeed such that I was soon clocking 357 ktas and 0.62 Mach, as predicted.

The tailwind was slow to materialize but fuel flow was down to 320 pounds per side, less than 100 gallons an hour. The Avidyne 550s showed me landing with 855 pounds of gas—not ideal, but that didn’t include fuel saved when the power is retarded for descent. This number also improved when those 60 knots of tailwind made their long awaited appearance.

So, I sat there, fat, dumb, and happy. In time, the Nexrad radar update showed me skirting the hurricane and zooming along at a groundspeed of 435 knots. I was euphoric. I poured a cup of coffee and nuzzled the oxygen mask. I’m told the song “Eight Miles High” by the Byrdsis about drugs. With the cabin altitude at just over 7,600 feet, hot coffee at my side, and improving estimated fuel-at-destination calculations, I required zero drugs for mood enhancement.

Oh, yes, I landed with 990 pounds of gas and a 1,200-mile smile.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the Q2 2022 issue of FLYING Magazine.

The post Flying ‘Way Up There’ appeared first on FLYING Magazine.