I headed to Oshkosh as a four-ship with Greg’s RV-8 and two Bonanzas.  We headed out via the southern route through Albuquerque, NM to pick up a friend.  Here we are passing Edwards Air Force Base and the famous dry lake bed.

We started running into some buildups over Arizona.

We ran into a line of storms before our planned stop in Winslow, AZ and had to do an end run around them.

Here’s the four ship on the ground at Winslow in line for gas.

Greg and I flew into Oshkosh today as part of the Bonanzas to Oshkosh formation group.  They fly as elements of three planes with about 1/2 mile spacing between elements.  We were the photo ships for the flight, so we flew along the outside of the line of elements, slowing down to around 125kts at each element to take pictures then speeding up to around 175kts to catch the next element.  It was a blast, and I’m sure we had way more fun than the rest of the formation.

I left Oshkosh and flew down to Lexington, KY to visit family.  There was a line of storms between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, so I had to deviate a bit west to clear them.  I also popped up to 15,500 so I could get over most of the clouds.

I crossed the line through a low spot in the clouds.

It’s pretty dark under those clouds…

…as you can see on the weather display.  It shows yellow right where I am, but that’s below me.  If I had been in IMC, I wouldn’t have come through here.  You can see a really large buildup ahead and to the left.

You can see that buildup just to the left of the propeller tip in the distance.  I gave that a wide berth and then turned on course to Lexington.

I stayed in Lexington for a few days visiting family and giving some rides to family and friends before heading down to Tulsa, OK to visit some more family.  While I was out giving rides to family, one of the prototype Honda jets stopped for gas.  The crew was great and let us look over the airplane and ask questions.  They didn’t want any pictures of the inside since it was unfinished and loaded with test equipment, but they were more than happy to let us take pictures of the outside.

I got a very early start out of Tulsa, OK since I need to fly all the way back to San Jose, CA and then grab our Bonanza and fly up to South Lake Tahoe and back to get my kids.  I battled pretty stiff headwinds across most of New Mexico (over 30kts for much of the time).

I passed just south of Edwards Air Force Base and the famous dry lake bed.  There is so much amazing history at this place including all of the X planes that lead to our space program.  Coincidentally, I have been reading Chuck Yeager’s autobiography during the trip, and much of his flying career takes place here.

Overall, it was about 9 hours of flight time from Tulsa to San Jose and then another 2.7 hours up to Tahoe and back.  I’ve done a number of 12 hr flying days before and they’re always pretty tiring.  Over the whole trip, I put just over 30 hours on the RV and it performed flawlessly.