I flew from Columbus, Ohio to Ely, Minnesota
I flew to Ely, Minnesota in August with my friend Jared.
Hope the images work, I'll rehost if they don't.
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Me left, Jared right.
He takes a regular trip with his family into the Boundary Waters (BWCA) and my in-laws have a cabin on a BWCA lake. In order to avoid driving and to get some flying hours in, we took this tiny plane from Columbus, OH to Ely, MN.
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Red line is actual GPS route. Blue line is simply airport-to-airport route.
We were trying to avoid flying over large bodies of water because when you’re in a single engine airplane, you don’t have a lot of options besides swimming if your engine goes out (ours didn’t).
We meant to get fuel after Chicago but the day we were flying we had 30 (thirty!!!!) knot headwinds even low to the ground. It was stupidly impressive bad luck. So we had to stop in Gary, IN to grab some gas before heading up again.
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Gary, IN
After grabbing gas, we were off. We saw the Blue Angels parked on the north ramp of the airport as we were taking off but it was too late to grab a picture. Turned out they had a show over the Navy Pier in Chicago a little later in the morning.
We know because we flew through the TFR (before it activated).
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Chicago, IL
We thought we only had about 15 minutes to get through the TFR which we thought we could barely make, but also thought if we’re going to get intercepted, would be pretty cool to get intercepted by the Blue Angels, then realized the time change to Central and that we had an extra hour still before the TFR went active. The Blue Angels did not intercept us.
Next we flew up towards Duluth. Still staying low because of the ridiculous headwinds, but that meant things were also super bumpy.
Jared puked for the first time ever in a small airplane. I always have a puke bag in the plane for emergencies but never expected to use it with two pilots on board.
So Jared pukes. The turbulence and motion wasn’t getting to me until then, but that puke-bile smell? Oh yeah. I could feel it.
The problem was that I only had one puke bag in the cockpit. If I had to hurl, it was going to be in the same bag Jared used earlier. Gross.
Furthermore, Jared told me point blank that if I hurled, he was going to need the bag back to go again.
Faced with the prospect of sharing a puke-bag and passing it back and forth, we decided to land and take a 45 minute break.
We felt better after taking off (and getting the back-up puke bag from the baggage compartment).
Anyway, here’s Duluth:
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After turning the corner at Duluth, we went along Minnesota’s North Shore to drop Jared off in Grand Marais.
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Two-Harbors on the North Shore of Minnesota
Then finally, with the plane to myself, I flew over the Boundary Waters due west to land in Ely, MN.
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Somewhere in the BWCA between Grand Marais and Ely. Endless untouched nature.
Was a fun trip. 9.3 hours in the plane due to the ridiculous headwinds. I was super happy to get a burger on the ground.
Very cool! Thanks for sharing! I'm glad you made it through without vomiting.
I miss Duluth so much, even though I'm only a couple hundred miles away. Duluth is one of my favorite places!
Dude, that's awesome! One of the unfortunate parts of flying in a large commercial plane is you often fly too high to see very much, but in a small plane like this you can see everything. Very neat :D
The other unfortunate part is that YOU'RE NOT FLYING THE PLANE!!!
That's the best part about general aviation.... you get to fly a lawnmower with wings that somehow can take you places. It's so fucking cool.
Got another trip up to northern Minnesota later this month, can't wait to take pictures.
Awesome photos and what a great story! How much of an inconvenience is it to periodically land like that? Does it significantly affect the time and budget of the trip to take an extra stop like the one in Duluth?
No inconvenience at all. In most of the USA (except out west) there are airports everywhere. Ohio has 300+ airports alone. Minnesota close to that number.
If you need to take a quick break, just head to nearest runway and grab lunch and gas.
The concept of a back up puke bag made my day!
What kind of plane? Photos? (You might want to scrub the tail number...) How many gallons of fuel did your trip take?
The plane is a light sport airplane (2 seater, light weight). It's called a "Flight Design CTLS"
They look like this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=flight+design+ctls&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjrn-zk6MfbAhUE5YMKHRfRAIUQ_AUICigB&biw=1920&bih=949
They burn about 5 gallons of fuel per hour which is extremely economical in the aircraft world.
Tanks hold max of 32 usable gallons of fuel which gives you about a 5.5 hour range with a 30 minute reserve. I generally refuel at about 4 hours.
The plane will fly approximately 100kts / hr which is about 115mph. Not super fast at all, but since you don't have to follow the roads, you go about 3x as fast as a car to most destinations.
However, wind can be with you or against you. Think of it like the moving walkways in an airport. If you run at 8mph through an airport and happen to get on a moving walkway going in your direction, your effective speed might be 13mph. But if you get one one going the other way, you might have an effective speed of 3-4mph. And if you get on a really wide one that goes sideways for some reason you might have an effective speed of 5-7mph.
Wind acts the same way, so our 30kt headwind was a huge pain in the ass. You don't normally get 30kt winds until you are up at 10,000ft or so... to get them at 3500 ft was very unusual. (It was the remainder of a hurricane that went up the center of the country after hitting the gulf coast).
Every once in a while you can catch a super nice tailwind instead of a head wind, and that is the coolest thing in the world.
Climbing high to 12,000 ft and catching 40kts of ass-kissing tail wind that effectively adds about 40% to your speed is a rush.
I can't see your photo links - I get the message "Blocked by Pi-hole."