This was a great adventure and it was fun to share it with friends, family, and perhaps a few strangers on the web. Now that the flight is over, I’m working on a new site and some new adventures.

Check out the new site at 3PointLanding.com.

Well, I’m officially back now. I’m actually typing this up from the office. On Saturday we all met back up at Air Park for their weekly EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) grill out. Then we did a little flying and filming with the N95. See the video below. This is us flying over the Sonoma wine country. I’m in the J3 with my girlfriend Jenny. Her brother is doing the filming from another Cub flying along side.

The video below is a long awaited celebratory drink of some really nice port wine that I picked up in Portugal just before making the long journey West. It was a good feeling to have finally made it.

Lastly, I want to say a quick thanks to the following people.

Jay, for helping me get the plane ready to go. My good friend Jeff Smith (AKA Smitty) for helping with the financial side of the production. Tom Garland for driving ground crew. Tom Howard for making the long flight as co-pilot. Jenny for putting up with me :). Kamar, who agreed to support the trip. Nokia, for the use of the N95’s. And all of the folks that offered their hangers to us when we put down for the night.

I’m preparing one last post for the blog and then I’ll officially end AdventureCub.com. But keep checking out my other blog MyPhoneRocks.com, I’m working on another trip for next year that will hopefully be bigger, better and longer

First day and boy was I jittery. But, everything went smoothly. Below is a quick video just before take off.

Before I go too far I need to say thanks to two people.

Dave at AirportPilotShop.com for getting me my headset. He shipped it to me overnight and it showed up this morning. I’ll be sure to let everyone know how the new Zulu headset is working. It was great on the first leg, but we’ll see after I wear it for 10 hours straight. Thanks Dave leaving me a message earlier and letting me know you had one and then for sending it down to me in Texas. I’ll give you a call when I pick up a new headset for Jenny.

Gene Soucy, from Gene Soucy Airshows. He’s providing a hanger for the plane tonight at Aero Country in McKinney. Gene just opened a nice little self serve fuel station there that we’ll be using tomorrow before heading out. So thanks for the enclosed hanger for the night.

Here’s a link to my map on Flickr where you can see my progress and some images I took. Some of them I uploaded while I was flying. More to come.

AdventureCub.com Route Map

And below is a short video after landing where I admit publicly to the worst landing I’ve ever made. LOL

Tonight we’re picking up my co-pilot at Love Field and planning tomorrows leg. Looks like a cold front is moving in so we’ll see how far we can make it before hitting high winds or storms. We’re planning to leave out at 7:30 AM.

And with that, I’m off.

Today is the first leg of the trip. It’s going to be a short one. I’m only going from Paris to McKinney which is on the NE side of Dallas. We’re really just going to be getting there to get all staged up.

Tom Garland, who’s going to be providing ground support is driving to Paris to pick up all of the luggage. The co-pilot, Tom Howard, is flying into Dallas Love field tonight. Later this evening we will all meet up at McKinney where we will stay for the night, do some final planning, and then head out on Sunday morning.

This morning I’m going to be wrapping up some final things on the plane and making a few more test flights and landings.

Speaking of landings. With the new gear and tail wheel I’m having a hard time judging the distance. I made about 10 landings yesterday and none of them were any good. I would just float and float over the runway and finally when the plane would stall I would be just a little to low and take about three bounces down the runway before slowing down and getting the tail wheel down. Hopefully by the time I get to California I’ll have it dialed in.

I spent the whole day working on the plane and test flying. Most importantly we put on a new tail wheel. But right now it’s extremely late and I’m extremely tired so you can check out the video below.

Technically, I’m not taking off until Saturday or Sunday. I might as well consider the journey underway though since I’ve started home traveling from east to west and the only thing I’m focused on at this point is the flight.

To mark the beginning of the journey I purchased a very nice bottle of 20-year-old port wine at the Lisbon Airport. I’m going to carry it with me and at the end of the journey I’ll un cork it with some friends and we’ll drink a toast to everyone that helped me turn my crazy plan into a reality. Afterwards, I’ll keep the bottle as a reminder of the trip and the friends and family that helped make it possible.

Lastly, I would like to thank my x-wife who made my wonderful girlfriend possible. She is wonderful and understanding of the crazy things I like to do.

Today I boarded the plane for Lisbon. I’m actually writing this post from the Frankfurt airport at gate A20 after 4 cups of coffee, and I’m still not all that awake. Getting on the flight today I was a little worried about the airline security guys because I’m packed my Garmin 396 flight GPS and a handheld nav com in my carry on bag. I don’t want to risk them getting lost or broken. But, as it turned out, it’s no big deal to carry that stuff on. Although, they did run my bag through the X-Ray machine 3 times, swab it down and test it for explosives, and pull everything out to look at it. But, after all of that, they let me on.

Then I got to the Frankfurt airport and had to leave the security area to go to another gate. I was thinking, great, now I get to go through this all over again when they see what’s in the bag and I have no idea what the EU rules are going to be for carrying this stuff on. Oddly, they sent the bag straight through with no questions.

So, for future reference, I guess it’s no big deal. I suppose that will change if anyone ever turns one on and keys up the mic. However, I don’t think I’ve ever met a fellow pilot that would be dumb enough to do something like that. (knock on wood)

I have a new flight date.

We will be departing on October 14th and we will get to San Francisco by Sunday Oct 21st. I hope. Because on the 22nd I have to participate in an industry show where I have to sit on a panel to talk about mobile games, because that’s the business I’m in. However, I’m talking to someone who can sit in for me in case I need an alternate.

Also, “we” may end up being just me. My co-pilot is having a hard time getting the time off. I have to say, I’m a bit nervous about doing this by myself. I’m sure everything will be fine and I’ll feel better once I get moving. In the mean time, it does make me a bit nervous. Especially considering that the idea started off with a pilot, co-pilot, and ground crew. And now, it may just be me, my N95 and a tent.

We are supposed to be heading off next week but we are running into some possible scheduling conflicts that might push the trip back by a couple of weeks.

My Co-Pilot is trying to adjust his work schedule and I have to be out of the country on a business trip for during the first week of October. So, this is getting pretty tight.

If we move the trip back, we’ll be heading out during the week of October 8th or the 15th. Once I know for sure I’ll post the dates up here.

It’s a good thing that Jay is in Paris flying and working some last minute bugs out of the plane before the trip. We recently discovered that there was a small problem with the prop. It seems that one of pins holding the cowling (engine cover) had slipped and was causing a rub on the inside of the propeller. Jay removed the prop yesterday and sent it to be overhauled.

It’s a good thing we caught it now. I don’t think it would have been a real problem but it’s better to error on the side of caution. Also, it will most likely cost less to have it fixed there rather than wait and have it fixed once it’s in California.