As they say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step (or one flight in this case). After many weeks of preparations, this day has finally come. I was not optimistic I would be able to start my great adventure today, since it has been snowing in the Salt Lake City area for the past three days. Then today, I woke up to a partially cloudy skies and no snow! That was really lucky, as the weather forecast for the next 7 days is snow, snow and more snow. So today, November 02, 2003 at 9:15 local time, I took off from the Salt Lake City International airport, heading 182, towards the Cedar City, Utah. I've decided to fly to Tucson via the Cedar City for two reasons. One was to avoid the highest mountain peaks, so that I do not have to fly through the lower part of the stratosphere, and two, more importantly, route via Cedar City will take me over the nicest part of the Grand Canyon. The first part of the flight was mostly through the fog and clouds, so I do not have screen shots of the Salt Lake valley, or Utah Lake. I started this trip flying at 12,000 ft, and after about 70 miles I went down to 10,000. Weather cooperated during the flight over the Grand Canyon so I was able to make few very nice screen shots from 11,000 ft (see below). After Grand Canyon, there were few more high peaks, so I stayed at 11,000 for a little while longer, and then, once I was past Phoenix, I went down to 7,000 ft to save (virtual) fuel and to gain speed. According the plane manual, Cessna 182s achieves the best fuel efficiency between 6,000 and 8,000 ft. After a very good ILS approach I landed on runway 11L and taxied to my gate. Overall, it was very successful first flight, despite not so great landing. I have to pay more attention to rudder in the future I guess. I forgot to take the image of the flight log after the flight, so I only have the log with the estimated time and fuel burn, not the actual ones. It should be pretty close though.

Waiting in line for takeoff at KSLC Flying over the Grand Canyon Final approach to Tucson Parked at Tucson International airport

List of countries: USA

Flight log: