Mike Bullock's RV-7: Trip to Rangeley, Maine (8B0)

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2236 Hours

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1636 Hours

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[July 7, 2013]

My friend Captain John has a bungalow up at Rangeley Lake in Maine. He invited a bunch of RV'ers up for a weekend of relaxation and flying. I took off about 1100 on Friday. Weather was perfect with nice puffy clouds at about 4,000'.

at 5,500', there was a nice tailwind of 21 kts.

Speed over the ground is 175kts. Not too shabby!

Approaching the Hudson River.

Overflying Poughkeepsie, NY. I drove up here a number of years ago. I think it was 4-5 hours in the car each way. With the tailwind I had, I made it here in about an hour.

Right after Poughkeepsie, the clouds started to rise, but there were very scattered with plenty of holes. I knew through WeatherMeister that the tailwinds would be better at higher altitudes.

I popped up to 9,500' and was greeted with a 29kts tailwind.

195 kts over the ground!

The clouds kept on rising, so I decided to duck under right before Laconia, NH. This is Lake Winnipesaukee just north of Laconia. Plenty of boats out on the water enjoying a great day.

The scenery in NH/ME is just awesome. Nice blue skies and very green scenery.

I landed at Bethel (0B1) for some cheap fuel.

The airport was absolutely dead. The FBO was unlocked with a clean bathroom, place to eat and a fridge stocked with some drinks and snacks, purchasable on the honor system.

$5.15/gallon is the cheapest I've seen gas in the northeast. I was very surprised not to see anyone else here with prices like this.

Flying up to Rangeley from Bethel. There's a windfarm off of my wing.

Landed at Rangeley and found a familiar RV-6A.

I'm the third on here today, with 1-2 more expected.

I found out quickly on the ground at Rangeley that AT&T doesn't have squat for service out here. John gave rough directions to his house, which is about a mile from the airport. I started to walk towards his house, and was quickly offered a ride by a couple scoping out the airport for their son to arrive the following day. I made it to John's house to his surprise on how I got there.

Turbo got a kick out of the "Izzler" 50 HP Evinrude Outboard.

John's place is near a bar/bowling alley. We soaked up a few suds here.

All of us took over a pool table and the shuffle board table and had a great time.

The following day we splashed the boat and did a tour around Rangeley Lake. It was fairly windy out. While we were out in the boat we saw Noah arrive as well as Vlad, who both did passes over the lake.

The lake was quite active with aviation activity besides the RV's buzzing over. There's a fairly active seaplane base here which offered rides.

They also had a helicopter for rides.

We were lucky enough to see the seaplane take off.

After a swim in the lake, we hung around the boat ramp for about an hour. Our main form of entertainment was watching the clueless out of towners trying to launch their boats. We assisted when necessary. After that, we all took off for the airport to fly around together. Here's Vlad and "Top Gun" getting a ride.

Andy's RV-7 had a slick RAM mount for his iPad mini. It attaches to the existing screw holes for the canopy. Any says it works great and is out of the way.

Andy had a nice clean panel layout and a beautiful RV.

We did a loose 5-ship formation over town as well as some other airports and lakes. Turbo and John led the team and all of us had a blast. We ended up back at Bethel for everyone else to gas up on the cheap. Turbo hopped up to the top of the tanks to get a group shot of everyone.

Vlad's RV-9A. This could be the most flown RV on an hours/year basis that's out there. He's a flying machine.

Once we got back we headed to Bald Mountain Camps Resorts for some prime rib dinner. The place is very scenic overlooking the Mooselookmeguntic Lake. The owner is a seaplane pilot, and in the winter-time plows the lake and allows airplanes to land here. Vlad and most of the guys have landed here on the ice. It's on my list for this winter!

The crew relaxing and getting ready for dinner. The meal here was great. I highly recommend it.

A cub seaplane.

Sunset was just perfect.

After 2 days of fun, it was time to head back home. I wanted to get an early start since I didn't know what sort of storms could be kicking up. There was already some storms rolling across central NY. I knew if I took off now, I could make it around them before they got worse. I don't recall why John started climbing up the weather tower - it was either to try to get better cell phone reception or take a picture.

It was on the hazy side going home.

I believe this is Sunday River ski area ahead. It was just north of Bethel. There were ski slopes all over the place.

This was an interesting mountain - completely rock on the very top.

Here's the weather I scooted around. I had perfect timing - I only needed to deviate off of my course by 10 or so miles.

Bradley International Airport in the distance off of my wing.

I knew West Point was near Poughkeepsie - and sure enough I found it easily on Foreflight. I headed down the Hudson River to find it.

There was a lot of sightseeing traffic on the Hudson.

About to pass over the Bear Mountain Bridge.

On the east shore of the Hudson River I passed near what I thought was a nuclear power plant. Sure enough, it's the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, NY.

I turned east to head back to KDMW.

This beach stood out like a sore thumb. This is Lake Welch in NY. There was a a good amount of people out on the beach today, and rightfully so - it was quite warm out.

It was too hot to stay low, so I climbed back up to 4,500'.

I could tell I was getting close to home as the visibility started to drop with all of the haze.

Over Smoketown, PA, I had a nice surprise. What looked like an RV approached me from my right, passed behind me and flew next to me for a few minutes. At first I thought it was a RV-6 or 7, but when I posted a close-up picture on the forums, I was corrected and it was in fact a Harmon Rocket. I should of known with it's long cowl.

This was a fantastic trip. 2.5 hours up, 3.1 hours back and about 1.5 in the air around Rangeley with the other RV's. If I drove, it would of been an 11 hour trip. What an amazing machine, and great group of people who build and/or fly them!

Here's the pic Turbo took of the group. An interesting side-note to this picture is I am wearing the Mattituck Engine Workshop t-shirt I got when I went to their engine build seminar back in December of 2006. Turns out 4 of us from the group were in attendance at that workshop! Vlad and Captain John were in attendance, and I think Noah was as well....or maybe it was Andy. None of us knew each other back then, and now we're best of friends tearing up the skies in our RV's!