I just came across a very good deal that I thought I'd share with you.
If you go to vfrmap.com and make your way over to Knoxville Tennessee you can follow along on our odyssey.
The trip started out of Knoxville Downtown Island Airport (DKX).
I met the local examiner Jerry Rasmussen a retired FBI agent, who can do all types of check rides.
He is available full time.
The first stop was Sky Ranch Airport. It is located within the class C airspace of Knoxville Tyson-McGee Airport. I know it say (R) for a restricted airport, which is privately owned, but very open to the public. You must talk to Knoxville approach before entering their airspace, but apart from that one time, it was the only time we ever spoke to anyone during our three day trip. All other communication were just position reports over Unicom frequencies.
We landed there as a part of a check out from the owner of the plane, and to get to know the locals. It's a really down to earth fun community of flyers. Their web site is skyranchairport.org.
They have three very nice older Cessna 172s for rent at $80 an hour wet. They are the 140hp and 150hp versions that can be run on 87 octane ethanol free car gas, known as Mo-Gas. Flyunleaded.com has a map of Mo-Gas airports, and puregas.com a list of everywhere you can buy Mo-Gas from. Do not over load these models. Two people with full tanks, three with half tanks maximum. If you throttle back to 2200 rpm, they burn just 7 gallons per hour. I do not know what the dry rate would be. It is a club that has a $225 membership fee and $48 a month dues. But if you fly a lot, this is not a lot.
The club has five instructors. They are all part time instructors that have full time jobs. So they won't be up and gone half way through your training.
A word of warning. This is a grass strip, down by the river. Sometimes the runway gets soft and slippery. All patterns are over the water, not the hills. Their web site shows how to get in and out of there. The runway is only 2100 feet long. It is NOT suitable as a touch and go field for flight training. There are plenty of other airports that you can go to for that.
Another word of warning. You are in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains. These can be very dangerous for novice flyers. I did not venture into them.
I thought Sky Ranch was a great deal. Mine of free was better, but still.
From there we went to (if you'd like to follow along on the map)
Monroe, McMinn, Chilhowee (paradise) This is a glider port, where you can get a GPL as the examiner runs the place, Cleveland, Collegedale, Dallas Bay (busy, be careful), Marion (mo-gas), Stevenson, Scottsboro, Guntersville (beautiful), Moontown (great), Hartselle, Addison (paradise), Double Springs (stunning), Posey, Pugh, N-W Alabama (night stop), Iuka, Savannah, Hassell, Tucker, Beech River, Benton, Humphries, Houston (lovely), Pirate Cove (restricted), Murry (Mo-Gas), Lake Barkley (nice), Kentucky Dam (impressive), Princeton, Tradewater, Muhlenberg, Bowling Green (night stop), Glasgow, Tompkinsville, Jackson (beautiful, but be careful), Livingston, Jamestown, Scott, Campbell and back to Downtown Knoxville.
All in all a fantastic few days.
Today I'm in Northern Florida, doing some sight seeing with Sky Warrior in Pensacola. It's a very professional Pt 141 school. But that part of the country is a nightmare for private flying because of all the military activity and restricted airspace in the area. The weather in June is awful. I don't know why people think of going to Florida or Arizona in the summer time.
The United States is a great big beautiful country, go explore it.
Last edited by button push ignored; 17th June 2017 at 00:11.