Author Note: Sadly I lost all of the pictures I took during this mission so the following posts will sadly not be accompanied with many pictures if any. Additionally these post were originally written several months back. I am only getting to post them now.

Woke up bright and early and prepared to do another long day of flying. To be honest I’m not much of a coffee person (never really could stand the taste … love the smell though) but this morning was definitely a coffee morning. My host kindly provided me with a cup and shortly thereafter I was feeling a whole lot better. I can see why people drink it all the time but I don’t need to get addicted to the stuff (with my sleep schedule, it might be permanent). With that done we headed back to the Lincoln airport where I quickly finished up building the days route and then headed over to the plane … only to realize that I’d left the image controller computer at the house … which was 20 minutes away … and I was already late.

After the panic subsided I tracked down John, who was working at this point, and asked him what to do. He suggested I take his car. Only problem was that it was a stick shift … and I don’t drive stick very often … and the lack of practice often shows. Add in the fact that I would have to drive on the freeway to get there and past multiple stopping points, I was understandably a little wary of that option. The next suggestion was to contact Wesley and have him get it, but we couldn’t reach John’s brother so Wes wouldn’t be able to get in. So that left only one option … drive john’s car.

Now I have some experience driving stick, I also have some experience driving John’s car. I think that might have been the only reason I attempted this madness. That and I wouldn’t have been able to leave otherwise. It went surprisingly well with the exception of a few peculiar things like starting from a a stop on hill just fine but stalling on flat ground. Despite that I managed to make it back to the house without getting into too much trouble. I then realized I forgot the apartment number. Additionally for some reason T-mobile service in Lincoln sucks so I couldn’t make a call. After some detective work I was able to track down the apartment, quickly grabbed the computer  and left in a hurry.

Since I’d used a GPS to get there I figured I’d use it to get back. I put in the Lincoln Airport and only briefly noted that it was sending me a different way than I’d come. I figured it knew what it was doing (lol) and followed it for about 7 miles before realizing I was lost and had no idea where it was taking me (the machines … they lie to us). I eventually pulled over, looked up the address for the FBO and put that into my GPS instead. Back at the airport and now incredibly late, I had to purchase the incredibly expensive fuel in Lincoln and then made my way to Nebraska.

Once airborne I noticed something new to me … a 1500 foot radio tower. Next on the list of towers to see is the KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota which is the tallest radio mast still standing at (2,063 feet) only surpassed by the now collapsed Warsaw radio mast (2,120 feet).

The weirdest class C arrangement i’ve seen

As I got further to the west, the terrain started slowly getting higher. No mountains sadly, but it was as if I was descending very slowly. About 25 miles away from my destination I tried to focus the camera … and the whole control linkage jammed. It was one of those “wait …. wut?” moments as I proceeded to silently rage at my misfortune. After battling with the mechanism for a few minutes I gave up and landed and the Lexington, NE. After unjamming the system I took off again only to realize the focus was now completely messed up. The infrared camera doesn’t work with visual light so I sadly can’t check the focus on the ground. I later discovered that the entire cable setup shifted and I ultimately had to land to fix it again. Thanks to the help of the local mechanics I was able to get the whole thing fixed and headed out to the North Platte, NE area. Getting closer I started seeing hills pop out of the ground … some as high as 3,000 plus feet (I came to see mountains and still didn’t see any taller than the ones at back in Trinidad … but alas, it wasn’t flat.)

On the way over I noticed that the infrared camera had some artifacts in the frame. After a while I just gave up and continued taking the pictures anyway. By the end of the run it wasn’t quite as bad so I headed off to the North Platte airport (KLBF) to send some samples to my boss. The North Platte airport is located at 2777 feet above sea level, making it the highest terra firma that I have ever set foot on (to my knowledge at least). The density altitude was 5,800 feet … a fact that was made known by the aircraft performance on landing. Additionally I was one of only three pistons on the ramp … all the other planes were jets of some kind. Finishing up there I headed back over to Lexington for fuel and then grabbed the last of the photo sites east of Omaha before heading back to Lincoln. And the evening and the morning were the second day …

The weirdest class C arrangement i’ve seen