We don’t know if the T’s and P’s are in the green, but speed is definitely alive and rising. The traffic on our blog in increasing - by the way, if you’re a new visitor check the links on top of the page to learn more - and we receive and increasing number of mails with all kind of support, offers and requests for information. Coping with all of that requires a lot of work, but hey, we won’t complain about that!

We even see groups creating at some stops, where different people or organizations offer us accommodation, fuel, or other kind of support. Connecting aviation enthusiasts from the same area via our project is a great role, and we like that.

Donations continue to come in, the list of our patrons continues to grow. We encourage you to join and make a donation now using the yellow buttons on the right hand side. We’ll announce all the benefits reserved to our patrons this week-end, and there will be surprises for all patrons.

This post is the last one written by Vincent from Germany. He will travel tomorrow from Frankfurt to Dallas Fort-Worth and then to Jacksonville, where we’ll eventually meet “for real”. If you’re a flight tracking fan, the flights are AAL 71 FRA - DFW and AAL 574 DFW - JAX. The landing in Jacksonville is planned at 10pm. We won’t stay there for long, the drive to Ocala is about two hours long, and we’ve a rally in Dunnellon next day at noon. But if you’re in Jacksonville at night and feel like meeting us, drop us a mail and we’ll manage something.

PS: we adjusted the timer in the right hand side to match our departure date on the 21st of June.

There are many differences between flying in Europe and in the USA. We have experience in both. Or to formulate that slightly differently, each of us has experience with one continent. Communication during flight preparation and in the cockpit will certainly be interesting…

Different cultures, different standards, different ways of flying… Our highly international crew will have to cope with that. Jason thinks in Gallons, inches of mercury, degrees Fahrenheit, and measures visibilities in Statute Miles. Vincent use to buy fuel in liters, set his altimeter in millibars, use degrees Celsius, and knows the required visibility in meters or kilometers. Naturally, each of us is used to different time offsets with regard to UTC time… In Europe, IFR flight plans must be submitted one to three hours before departure. Only a few percents of private pilots are instrument rated.

And these are the differences that we know about now, out of the book. Who knows how many other differences, how many cultural, human factors we’ll discover during the flight? This is also a fascinating experience, and we’ll have a lot to share an exchange. We’ll also talk about all these differences with other aviation enthusiasts we’ll meet at our stops. Vincent has lot to report about flying in Europe, be it about the use of different languages or flying around the Mediterranean Sea or over the Alps.

Flying is the same everywhere, from an aerodynamic point of view, and from the friendship and solidarity it creates. All the rest vary from place to place, and we’ll soon have more to say about it.

By the way, any rule of thumb for units conversion is welcome, leave your favorite ones in comments.

The last days have been full of new contacts. More and more aviation enthusiasts get in touch with us, buy miles, and invite us for stops. We want to meet as many of you as possible and this lead us to change our plan for the west coast. The new plan is as follow:

• 1st of July: Prescott -> Chino
• 2nd of July: Chino -> Catalina -> Whiteman
• 3rd of July: Whiteman -> Santa-Maria

We’ll meet with Nick, the president of Friends of Aviation on Catalina and fly back as a “fleet” to his homebase in Whiteman. All pilots of the area are invited to join us on the Island or at any of these four Californian airports. And if you have some spare time on the 4th of July, come meet us at Santa-Maria.

Join us and show how active and united the General Aviation community is.

We need more donations to make sure we can reach California and fly home. If you also think that turning around before reaching Catalina is no option, buy miles using the yellow buttons on the right hand side. Donations start at $3.75 and every one counts.

Our flight will start in 8 days from now, but Vincent will leave Frankfurt for Jacksonville and then Ocala on next Friday. The flight will land at 10pm in Jacksonville, and after one year spent developing this project together, we’ll finally meet “for real”.

On Saturday the 19th, we hold our first meeting in Dunnellon - all aviation fans from central Florida are invited to join us there. Join in and listen to Jason as he does a brief presentation on Pilot Error and uncovers how to lessen hazards in the cockpit. We’ll also talk a lot about our flight, and share about all possible aviation-related topics.

Sunday the 20th should be a quiet day, the last one before leaving in direction of Daytona Beach and then Destin on the 21st. Jet-lag compensation for Vincent, and last moments at home for Jason. So all in all, this week-end was the last one we spent in our homes before jumping head first in the realization of this incredible adventure.

Being away from our families for three to four weeks will certainly be tough. But this trip is the opportunity to be at the heart of the General Aviation community. We have been in contact with so many aviation fans while preparing this flight, finally meeting them will be a great reward for ourselves. This will be a great human adventure, with lots of exchanges. We’ll soon be back in our families with a lot to share.

Talking about rewards, we continue to collect some that we’ll later distribute to all our patrons. It’s still too early to release all details, but we can say a bit more. Some sponsors will treat you, patrons, with giveaway gifts, as some already did during the preparation. Other sponsors will offer discount prices to ALL our patrons. Yes, you read it correctly: there will be benefits for ALL those buying miles, not only some happy few. More on this later, but be sure that buying miles is a good idea and will be rewarded. Our budget is not fully secured yet - buy miles today to help us promote General Aviation.

“There will be a large part of improvisation in this project.” These words seem to be our leitmotiv at this moment. 9 days before starting our flight across America, from Florida to California and back, many questions remain unanswered. The mention in AOPA Online generated good reactions and lots of new contacts.

Light aviation is highly dependent on weather. Even if N512R is IFR equipped and Jason’s a CFII, there’s nothing we can do against serious adverse weather. And at this time of year, this means thunderstorms. The 10 days forecast available from weather services are certainly not certain enough to make any decision, it gives a rough idea what to expect. At this moment, the forecast for Destin, our first stop, is quite simple: sunny today and tomorrow, and then risks of thunderstorms until the 21st, the day we’re supposed to fly.

Thunderstorms do not last for whole day, for sure. But the flight from Dunnellon to Daytona Beach and then to Destin will last for a bit less than five hours. If the forecast gets confirmed, a departure in the morning seems likely. But we’re still 9 days away, and a lot can change in between.

Our flight schedule contains days with no flying planed to compensate for possible weather delays. We’ll do our best to stick to the plan but we however plan everything with flexibility. The people helping with our stops are aviation enthusiasts and understand this well, which makes the whole organization flexible. Thanks a lot to all of you, guys.

We continue to work behind the scene to settle deals with our sponsors, many being reserved to our patrons. We’ll announce all of them at the same time, shortly before starting. The last ones have been agreed upon over the last two days with the Desert Rose Bed&Breakfast in Sedona, Arizona and Aviation Jewelry Designs. But it’s too early to say more, so stay tuned until we release all details.

In the mean time, you can buy miles using the yellow buttons on the right hand side. The deals we work on will be valid for all patrons, disregarding when they bought miles and whatever the quantity…

We will land in Baton Rouge on the 22nd of June at approximately 1pm and stay there until the 23rd in the early afternoon. We will be at PAI Aero, an assisted self-service FBO located on the south ramp of the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport. We invite all aviation fans to join us there and spend some time to share our passion for aviation. But there will be much more than hangar talk:

• Introductory flights with Jason on N512R, for $50 per 30 minutes (non-pilots and pilots welcome)
• Visit of PAI Aero facilities
• FOCKE-WULF FW-190A-8 in renovation (see video below)
• Diner somewhere in Baton Rouge on the 22nd
• Discussions about all types of flying

The whole team at PAI Aero is very engaged in supporting us and we’re very excited about this stop. All aviation fans, pilots or not, are welcome to join at any time.

We’d appreciate that you contact us to let us know when you come, particularly if you want to take a flight with Jason. Facebook users can also RSVP via the event we created for this stop.

See yall in Baton Rouge!

Today was one of these days where 24 hours seems to go by in a snap. I started my day shortly before 5am UTC (that’s about 7am local time in Germany, and 1am on the US east coast) and found couple of mails - 4 of them actually - that were sent during the European night time by sponsors and partners of the project in the US. I answered some of them before going to work, and the rest of them after my work day. 15 mails today, and I did chat online with two active partners.

We get more feedback and reactions as the departure date gets closer. The last one is Indy Transponder, a blog publishing several digests of aviation news, articles and headlines each and every day. This helps us to reach a wider audience, and we warmly recommend that you check their work.

It is now 11.50pm and it is clear that I won’t reach one of my goals for today, which was to write more about our stop in Baton Rouge. This one is now organized and is really exciting. It definitely deserves more time and a good post on this blog, so it will wait until tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my last day at work before a five weeks leave that will be centered on our flight. This will mean more time to work on this project, and bring it to success. There is a lot to do and this is a really good sign. Seeing interest in our project and receiving donations is really motivating and we now enter the final sprint before the flight. Please continue to donate using the yellow buttons on the right hand side, and help us promote and develop General Aviation.

The world is small… Just after writing yesterday’s post about press releases, I sent a draft of the one I prepared for our stop in Baton Rouge to John, who is coordinating our stop there. And what did he tell me? His fiancée Katy (by the way, congrats on getting engaged) has some experience with non-profit organizations and writing press releases for major papers. And because John talked to her incessantly about our project for the past year, she knows everything about it and is willing to review our press releases. One more demonstration that General Aviation is a great community creating links, solidarity and generosity. Welcome aboard Katy, and thanks a lot for your help.

With our departure date approaching we’re also finalizing deals with our sponsors. It’s a great feeling to settle deals with sponsors, some of them following us from the very beginning of the project. Many are true aviation enthusiasts and some became real friends. It’s like collecting the fruits of one year of promotion effort… and this is all for you, generous patrons who bought or will buy miles to support our project.

We have great giveaways gifts and also negotiated discount rates by some very cool sponsors… We’ll announce all of that at once, shortly before our departure. Yes, this is teasing. Be sure that being a patron, even by buying a single mile at $3.75 will be a great opportunity. You can buy miles today - we won’t forget anybody!

Our project to fly across America is all about aviation and promoting it, but there was no flying involved so far. The flying will start soon, but before reaching this phase of the project, we have to carry a lot of various activities to make this project a success. And most of them have have absolutely nothing to do with flying:

• Search for patrons and sponsors
• Find supporters at our stops and organize rallies with them
• Grow our base of online fans
• Feed this blog
• Find media contacts

As blogging pilots, we’re used to write, communicate and use social media. But when talking to media, the same question comes again and again: “do you have a press release?” Crafting press releases is always a delicate exercise. Saying enough but not too much, keeping it short enough and understandable is an art. Finding the correct balance and create the expected reaction is not as easy as flying an ILS in medium turbulence.

Working with press releases is part of the media system just like published procedures are part of the aviation system. We wrote a first generic press release and are now working on specific ones for each stop. Click here to download our first press release (PDF). If you know reporters that could be interested in our project please forward them this press release. And if you have experience in producing press releases, your feedback is welcome.

The need for all these project activities was clear from the very beginning. We not only like that - even if we still have a lot to learn - but we also look forward to it. We’re already making plans for the after flight phase, the last landing will not be the end of the adventure…

PS: Despite all our efforts, the funding is still very tight. $1.000 more would make a major difference. If you can contribute to our project, please use the yellow “Buy miles” buttons on the right hand side to make a donation. Every donation counts. Thank you.