Apparently wanting more of this is worth shutting down the government over.

It’s clearly visible and in some areas there already is a fence/wall in place already (see the picture of El Paso Below). In the El Paso Area, we fly along the border with Mexico. Few buildings or mines dot the otherwise empty desert landscape. The Texas/Arizona border area is pretty empty. After about 3.5 hours we were cleared for the ILS approach and landed at Tucson International Airport.Īfter a quick fuel stop and great service from the folks at Millionair we continued IFR towards Texas. ATC giving us shortcut routing through several inactive MOA’s helped as well. Smooth air and a 26 know tail wind helped to make quick progress. After climbing through several layers of clouds we received clearance from ATC to clim to 11,000 feet, our cruising altitude. After a pre-flight check we started the engine, received our clearance and took off. The weather in Palo Alto was cloudy, but I had filed and IFR flight plan the evening before. You should also be able to track us on FlightAware. We re leaving tomorrow (12/24), and I’ll try to post updates here occasionally on how we progress. Planned route via Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Bahamas, Turks & Caicos to Punt Cana. N619TP is certified for flight in known icing, but it’s not build to stay in icing conditions for extended periods of time. The southernly route is safer as it reduces the chance of getting into clouds with icing.

Next is a fuel stop in Louisiana and overnight in Orlando and finally via the Bahamas to Punta Cana. The planned route is to head south from the bay area, stop in Tucson for fuel and spend the night in San Antonio. To keep me safe, Mark Erwin (my CFI) is coming along as co-pilot and as we are flying over water we are also bringing a life raft and a satellite phone. It’s also the most complex one due to flying in multiple countries, border crossings, customs, international airport operations. It’s a round trip time of 7,400 miles, by far the longest trip I have ever taken as a pilot. The idea is to fly our Cirrus SR22 (pictured below) to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic and back. To end the year, I am planning to do something slightly crazy.

Ifr flying in caribbean