I'm never driving to Roanoke again....

This is ironic timing...

I just had to cancel my reservation for the club's 180HP 172. Was
planning to fly this past Sunday evening from Morristown, NJ to
Roanoke, and then from there to Gainesville, GA. Well, weather wasn't
the best, but for the first leg of the trip everything looked VFR. The
second half would have put us in Gainesville sometime around 1:30am
with very low IFR - iffy if we'd even get in with just the localizer
approach, so I planned on PDK as the alternate (only airport nearby
allowed to file as an alternate, and with an ILS approach).

Turns out all this planning was for naught, as the primer pump on the
plane broke on the guy who had the plane before me (who, irony #2, is
also one of the club's maintenance officers). He and the other officer
couldn't get the part fixed, so the plane was grounded. That, plus the
bad weather forecasts for Monday and Tuesday up in the NE this week
convinced me to just hit the road... left home at 6:40pm, arrived
somewhere in the boonies of NC (Statesville?) around 4:30am. Hotel, 5
hours of sleep, shower, and my wife and I hit the road for day 2,
finally arriving in Gainesville, GA, around 3:30pm today. 21 hours on
the road, versus around 7 in the air. Yup, General Aviation is great
when it works, but sometimes you just can't get there.

--
Guy

"Guy Elden Jr" wrote

arrived
somewhere in the boonies of NC (Statesville?)

Yep, that is the boonies, and it is a little over a half hour from where I
live.

Could you not have flown partway, and driven (rental car) the rest, or is
their no other plane?
--
Jim in NC

Well, Sunday the weather between NJ and VA was good, but was forecast
to get worse on Monday and Tuesday (which it did). After driving
through some fairly heavy rain on Monday in NE Georgia, I'm actually
glad we didn't try to go.

The club has 3 planes, but only 2 are really meant for x-country, and
unfortunately the other one was booked at various times throughout the
week.

--
Guy