Flying - Georgetown TX to Little Rock AR (round trip)
Beautiful day 200 knots at 9000 feet.
Stayed down low to avoid headwinds at higher altitude. Travel time just under 2 hours from Georgetown TX to Little Rock AR.
On the way back the next day the winds had changed direction and to avoid a 30 knot headwind I hopped up to 16,000 feet. Above 12,500 feet oxygen is required by the FAA hence the cannula.
Question on Facebook: “Wow!!! Why so high???”
Faster, smoother, no other traffic.
It was 20 minutes faster getting home at 16k feet. Two hours travel time vs 2 hours and 20 minutes at a lower altitude.
At 8k feet and below there was rough turbulence. At 9k feet there was a 30 knot headwind which kept getting less and less the higher you fly. At 16k feet the headwind was down to 4 knots. And, roughly, for every 1k feet above 10k the plane flys 2 knots faster because of less dense air.
At almost 250 mph this plane is fast. I start my decent about 100 miles out. As I descend over Waco I realise I’m less than 15 minutes from landing at Georgetown.
Since I almost always fly IFR you can usually view my flights on flightaware.com.
