Regina to Halifax
Opportunity of a Lifetime:
A Big Cross Country, DRCO, and other stuff
By Captain Dav1d 1998-03-10

Prologue

Solly (the airplane broker at our local airport) and I were chatting in the terminal one day, between flights on a solid VFR day, when the conversation turned to buying, selling, and delivering airplanes. Suddenly he said: "You know, there is an airplane in Regina that needs to go to St. John’s Newfoundland. It’s a Cherokee 140. Are you interested in taking it?" It took less than a millisecond for my decision: "Sure! I’d love to!" ... And that’s where it all started.

Preparation

I started the flight planning the next day. Solly had told me that the aircraft was having some work done in Regina before it would be ready, so I probably had a week to clean up some business things, and get ready to go. I spoke to Solly quite a few times over the next few days, for status reports of the plane’s readiness, and other details that I might need to know.

My flight planning software told me that the trip would encompass over 2100 nautical miles, almost twice as far as any other trip that I’ve done. (Florida/Bahamas is about 1100 nm.) It also told me, in a roundabout way, that there are very few airports in Northern Ontario in a direct line from Regina to St. John’s. (I have it preprogrammed to select airports every 250 nm, but a few hops were no less than 400 nm ... something that a Cherokee should not be asked to do!) So I had to "finesse" the AutoRoute function a little bit, by selecting some airports that were farther south, in a more populated area. This resulted in the flight plan growing to almost 2200 nm.

OK, quick math. I usually use 100 knots as the airspeed, and 10 gph as the consumption for Cherokees. This equates to 5 hours on 50 gallons, covering 500 nm, if the tanks are used to exhaustion. Of course, VFR fuel requirements are "... to the place of intended landing and thereafter ...for 45 minutes at normal cruising speed (RAC 3.13.1[a])", so it really means 4:15 hours and 425 nm. Now, I add my own margin of safety to this, which realistically means 3:00 hours and 300nm. This extra margin allows for bad winds, traffic vectors, taxi and wait time, and possibly busy circuits at the destination. That’s why I like to have the software automatically select 250nm legs. I still play with it sometimes to increase the legs to 300 nm for really long trips. And this was going to be one of those!

So what’s 2200 nm divided by 300 nm legs? It’s at least 8 hops, if every leg covers as much as possible. But, there were other factors to consider as well. I had to stop in Halifax, since the new owner might decide to take possession there instead of St. John’s. And, I wanted to stop in Montreal to visit my nephew. With these additional constraints, the whole journey was now likely to be 10 stops. And, since the aircraft and I are both "VFR only", even those 10 stops were only considered "working targets".

With the flight planning well under way, I still had to find a way to get to Regina. That too, was no easy task, since I knew that I’d be given the go-ahead as soon as the plane was ready, and that wouldn’t leave me any "7-day advance booking" time for the airlines. But that too, was overcome.

With no more obstacles, and the plane ready, the call finally came from Solly: "Dav1d, the plane is ready to you to fly it. Are you ready to go?" I got the necessary paperwork from him, gave him a copy of my proposed routing, and departed the next day for the adventure.