We're Ryan and Katherine, and we toured the Northeast in 2022 with our dog Magic 🐶.
In June and July of 2022, Katherine and I (and our dog Magic) took our 1984 Mooney M20J on a flying 'road trip' from Orlando, FL up the east coast to Quebec City and back again, 3306nm of flying, and making lots of stops in the Northeast on the way to and from! We had a great time and saw lots of cool cities. We especially enjoyed the Hudson River SFRA flight in NYC. Lots of photos and details about the flights linked below.
Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.
Camping near Acadia National Park.
Heading into Canada. Exploring Old Quebec.
Heading back into the USA. Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee.
We are Ryan, Katherine, and Magic!
I bought my Mooney in January 2021 with the intention of making serious cross-country adventure flights. Last year, my wife and I made a similar (much longer!) flight with our dog (Magic, a Cavalier King Charles) all across the western US. That was our first exposure to serious cross-country GA flying and we both found that we absolutely loved it and planned to do more. Our general goal is to visit all of the lower 48 states with the airplane, and maybe even Alaska.
Fortunately, both Katherine and I work remotely as Engineering Managers, which makes the whole 'flying nomad' thing possible for us. (Both in terms of flexibility and the significant costs of endeavours like this) Other than these cross-country flights, most of my flying is instructional, I'm a part-time independent CFII in Orlando and I instruct a few days a week my own enjoyment and love of teaching. I'm very nearly at 1000 hours TT by now, just over 400 hours of which is XC time.
For this trip, we set out from Orlando, FL on June 30th with the goal of visiting Quebec City and touring the Northeast. We had a general idea that the trip would take around 3 weeks to complete, plus or minus. As with my other trip, I had only vaguely planned the first few stops, and planned to be as flexible as possible, staying with family where possible, and booking hotels last minute, etc. Ultimately this trip took just over 3 weeks, and we were able to stay mostly 'on schedule'. Fortunately, I never had to divert from the airport I planned to reach when I took off. I did trim a few possible stops from the trip (Niagara Falls, Toronto area) due to schedule concerns and needing to be back in Orlando by late July.
Before departure, we knew that we wanted to go to Quebec City, visit family in Philadelphia and Southern NH, do the Hudson SFRA, and go camping in Maine near Acadia National Park. (We brought along lightweight camping supplies this time!) Anything else we could squeeze in was a bonus, with an eye towards checking off some more states.
Most of the flights were IFR on this trip because the Northeast is obviously a super busy place and it was generally nice summer weather. Unlike our last trip where it was mostly VFR due to insane mountainous area MEAs, with no significant terrain to worry about, IFR just made this trip much easier. Since my autopilot is currently inop (grumbles angrily about Aspen quality control), this would all be handflying.
This is N374SM, our 1984 Mooney M20J.
Dodging the usual thunderstorms on the way to our first fuel stop.
Exploring Baltimore and Ft. McHenry.
Making the quick hop up to Teterboro/NYC, touring Manhattan and enjoying some Broadway shows.
Flying the Hudson River SFRA before heading over to Newport on the 4th of July.
Grabbing some delicious pizza in Little Italy at Frank Pepe's.
Flying through some rainy weather to Massachusetts and visiting family in Windham, NH for the week.
A very short hop for lunch near beautiful Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.
Heading up to Maine and setting up camp near Acadia National Park. Exploring Bar Harbor and the park.
Into Canada, and exploring Old Quebec and the falls.
Picking through some ugly weather and returning to the USA. Exploring Burlington, VT.
Stopping for fuel in Upstate NY and having a little picnic by the airplane for dinner.
Heading down to Philly to visit Katherine's mom and spend the week.
Over the mountains and through some IFR weather to spend a couple days near Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, TN.
Magic and I make our first trip together without Katherine, heading home to Orlando.
Overall this was another amazing flying adventure. We will absolutely do another one of these as soon as we can! We've now been to 31 states and 2 Canadian provinces in the airplane and I think we will definitely hit all 48 soon :) Before the last trip, I could hardly imagine flying more than 1 fuel stop away from home and now it feels almost routine. You fall into a rhythm very much like a road trip, but the scenery is much better! GA flying is a great way to see the country!
