Day 8 - Superior WI to Massena NY

I had left 'GOOFY' in pieces the night before as I had arrived at EAA Chpater 272's new hanger at SUW earlier than expected which allowed me to drain the oil while it was still hot.

This morning it was just a matter of safety wiring the filter and oil drain, filling with oil and replacing the cowl. Well, it's amazing how long all this takes and I did not depart for my next fuel stop at Iron Mountain (IMT) until 12.30 pm.

Chapter 272's hanger had recently been completed and it was nice to work on my airplane in the shade as, like many places, Superior was suffering from a major heatwave. The effort this chapter puts into things is something else - they hosted the recent B17 tour, look after KidVenture at Oshkosh, fly numerous Young Eagles and do much more. . .

Today was to be a long day as not only was I late in setting off, but had to contend with a time zone change against me. The flight itself was planned at 7.5 hrs, plus a fuel stop, which with a 12.30 CDT departure meant a 21.30 EDT arrival - later than originally advised to the waiting EAA Chapter 500 member Earl, otherwise known as Ercoupeman as he flies an Ercoupe.

The fuel stop at Iron Mountain was not encouraging as I flew into light rain on the approach, and landed with storm clouds brewing to the south. I had been warned about a line a storms over Michigan but as my route took me over Canada I was not over concerned. However, it seems like a stray cell had lingered over northern Wisconsin and this meant a slight diversion further north, even though I had filed IFR for the IMT to MSS portion of the flight.

Again, the NavAir wx system was invaluable allowing me to minimise the diversion. Flying in cloud at the edge of a storm is not my favourite passtime so I elected to descend to beneath the cloud base which was relatively high at around 6000 ft msl.

By the time I was near to crossing the Canadian border at Saulte Ste Marie the storm had drifted more to the south east and I was able to climb back to my planned IFR cruise altitude of 9000 ft. At this flight level there was a significant tailwind which boosted the ground speed and meant that I had Ottawa in sight an hour ahead of schedule.

With radio station names like London and Peterborough, I really felt at home in Canadian airspace particularly as, like the UK, they only use letters for their aircraft registrations - hence in the UK I could actually have G-OOFY as the registration for 'GOOFY'. The only problem was that from time to time the controllers would talk to other aircraft in 'french canadian', a dialect which is quite different to my textbook french.

Turning south east over Ottawa, ATC warned me of balloons ahead, and sure enough a handfull of hot air balloons had ventured skyward to the east of Ottawa - a sign that the winds at the surface must be calming down.

From my altitude over Ottawa the St Lawrence seaway was clearly visible just to the north of my overnight destination, Massena, itself in the very north west corner of New York state. With the decent tailwind I had brought myself back on the planned schedule for arrival into Massena just as the sun was setting.