Today we went on a day trip to Dubuque, IA. We hopped into the Archer and set off to the West. It was Chuck’s first cross-country experience and his longest trip in an airplane to date. We started out around 10 a.m. and by the time we got to the airport it was boiling hot outside. We were seeing temps in the low 90’s and it wasn’t even noon yet! We got loaded up quickly and got the big fan in the front turning, but it didn’t help all that much… it was just blowing hot air.

Once we were up at altitude, which was 6500 feet in this case, it was nice and cool and comfortable. As we neared the Mississippi river the cloud bases were coming down and we needed to descend to 4500… right into the hot and humid air. What a difference 2000 feet will make in terms of air temperature and comfort in the cockpit.

We arrived at Dubuque and were able to grab the crew car to go get lunch. We ate at a place in town called Brazen and the food was exactly what you imagine when you think of Iowa farm food. If you’ve ever been to the Hash House A Go Go in one of their many tourist hot spot locations, the food was like that but actually tasted good.

After lunch we headed back to the airport because we needed to return the crew car. They had a 2 hour limit on it. When we got back to the airport, there was no one there so we asked if we could take another 2 hour block to go to see the Crystal Lake Cave and they obliged. So we were off!

The Crystal Lake Cave was a pretty cool little cave with lots of natural cave formations and fun stories delivered by the tour guide. The real standout here was Chuck. He really loved exploring the cave with us. It was quite unexpected how comfortable he was and how much fun he had on the adventure.

After the cave we headed back to the airport to plan our trip back home. The weather was starting too look a bit unstable and we had convective activity starting to form storm clouds to the north and west of the airport… it’s a good thing we want to go east and south! I deduced we had about a 30 minute window before we were going to be stuck there waiting out the storm so I quickly filed my flight plan and went outside to pre-flight the plane. It was now in the high 90’s and super humid outside. The plane had been sitting in the sun on the ramp for nearly 5 hours at this point and I’m pretty sure you could have cooked a Thanksgiving turkey inside the plane. What a miserable pre-flight that was. After the pre-flight, we boarded the hottest on the planet and we were off.

The flight back to DuPage was uneventful and a little bumpy. We landed and taxied back to the hanger. I called the fuel truck and unloaded the plane. When the fuel truck arrived, I noticed a problem. The left main tire had gone flat. In the span of the 20 minutes we were waiting for the fuel truck, the tire had completely deflated! This isn’t a huge issue except the plane won’t roll now. We have to push the plane up a slight incline and into the hanger. The tire is so deflated that the plane won’t even move. Eesa, the line guy, and myself all pushed and it was apparent she wasn’t going move. Ah Crap… now what? Well, I went down and opened up the wheel pants access door and, by some miracle, the inflation valve is right there! So we grabbed a tank of air and filled the tire up! It held long enough for us go get her back in the hanger.

I closed up, let the club maintenance guy know and we headed home after a long awesome day.

Mike and Eesa in the cave