Back to Aviation Flying across the US Day 2 - From Ryan Airport (RYN), Arizona to Texarkana (TXK), Texas/Arkansas We started at the crack of dawn Sunday morning from Tucson. I wanted to take advantage of the low temperature in the morning so we could get the maximum climb performance over the mountains and also lower the risk of turbulence due to wind and thermals. We had planned the morning leg to go from Tucson to El Paso to Carlsbad at 8500 feet. Due to the temperature and pressure, 8500 feet really equaled around 10000 feet, and I wasn’t sure if we would be able to climb much more in the little Warrior. However, it turned out that we could pass the mountains at 8500 feet by flying a bit south of the intended route and so we did. The airport guy at Carlsbad Int’l Airport, Fernando, was very helpful. We got the courtesy car and drove to downtown Carlsbad for lunch. For those of you who haven’t been to Carlsbad: It’s very, very tiny. We had a hard time deciding between the 4 places that were open for lunch. Anyway, after a rough decision making process we finally got our lunch, drove back to the airport and took off for eastern Texas. From maps and stuff I knew that Texas was big, but I had not expected it to be that humongous and virtually empty. It’s true. Apart from oilfields there is absolutely nothing in the western part of Texas. Once we got close to Dallas/Fort-Worth we finally started to see houses, cars and real people. After a short fuel stop we continued to Texarkana to get dinner and rest and to get 4 quarts of oil for N29218. I’ve never been to Texarkana before, I never even heard about it before, but apparently I should have. Guess it’s famous for some movie or something and for having two mayors. They also like postcards showing a man and a mule with the text “Man standing in Texas with his ass in Arkansas”. Very funny I guess. Mountains east of Tucson, Arizona El Paso, Texas. Mountain ridge south of Carlsbad, we couldn't climb over, so we flew around instead. Here we are at 8500 feet First fuelstop in Carlsbad, there was plenty of room at the old airforce base Carlsbad is a very impressive airport Downtown Carlsbad is likewise very impressive Me posing for a picture Matt posing for a picture Texas is absolutely HUGE. It took us some 4-5 hours to cross it. Most of the state is empty except for oilfields So this is what N29218 looks like inside In the eastern part of Texas we saw real house and real people Late afternoon picture of eastern Texas Day 1   Day 2   Day 3