On the way to the south
east from Longmont I made
sure to stay below 8000
feet, as a matter of fact
7500 feet, as suggested
by ATC to stay clear of
Denver's class B airspace
to the North. Once clear of
the Denver airspace I went
to my heading of 130°.
After about 50 miles at my
cruising altitude of 7500
feet we ran into a cloud
layer at about 8000 feet so
I decided to climb to VFR
on top. And as everybody
probably knows flying on
top makes for a beautiful ride. By the time we got into Kansas the cloud layer disappeared. We had
a beautiful tailwind and my GPS indicated a ground speed of about 180 miles an hour which got us
into Woodward about a half an hour ahead of scheduled arrival. Checking the Woodward Unicom for
airport information we were told that the winds were gusting from 20 to 40 mph but not straight down
the runway, and you guessed it, as a vicious crosswind for the active runway. In any case, I got the
bird down in one piece. The fuel attendant mentioned that they had such winds every day for more
than a week.
The fuel service in Woodward was excellent and at $3.92 for aviation gas a real bargain. Both entities,
the human passengers as well as our two canine passengers were in need of a rest stop and a cup of
coffee. Once all that was accomplished, everybody got loaded back into the old 182 and we were off
on a heading to Bowie Texas. This time the wind gods were not as favorable to us because for a while
we encountered a 40 to 50 mile an hour headwind, but a couple of hours later we landed at the Bowie
municipal Airport. Now
let me tell you the Bowie
municipal Airport is a
beautiful back country
airport. Apparently it
got recently a very nice
overhaul, including the
new blacktop runway and
a beautiful blacktop tie
down area. They never
charge for tie down no
matter how long you stay
there. They dispense selfservice aviation gas and jet
fuel and they also have a
courtesy car that you can
use to go into town to get a
meal, just put a little gas in
it when you return the car.
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