Mike Marra's Keystone Flight KATRINA RELIEF MISSION; Feb 2008

Keystone Flight is just back from our KATRINA RELIEF FLIGHT big success! 1,700 NM round-trip cross country from Carlisle, PA to Gulfport, MS in a three-ship formation to build homes for families.

A few things we learned worth passing along to you?.

About flying a very long day-VFR X-C in Feb:

-There is no substitute for good advanced planning we all helped and it paid off time and time again.
-You have to have a lot of patience and a little luck Mother Nature is unforgiving, so you give her a healthy amount of respect turbulence, high head winds, icing, fog, frost, rain and the whole winter mix can make life interesting in a Cessna 150 if you let it.
-Having a formation adds a tremendous measure of safety and situational awareness to the flight four heads are better than one.

About small airports across the USA:

-General aviation is alive and well thanks to small FBO managers everywhere we went, planned and un-planned, we were met by very friendly, very generous, and very understanding aviation-minded people who made our stops enjoyable adventures.
-The more animals at the airports, the friendlier and better they turned out to be good dogs and cats and other creatures added a lot of color to small fields.
-Courtesy cars at FBO's are still out there we got one every single place we went to with only one exception, and that one was offered, but it was inop. We filled up a lot of tanks, but it was well worth it.

About dealing with FSS and flying weather web sites:

-Sadly, FSS never recommended VFR in 5 days of flying. We flew over 22 hours of day VFR they eventually lost almost all credibility with us, as it seemed like they simply did not want to be responsible for recommending us to fly VFR. They were absolutely wrong on most occasions. We started getting our own weather on web sites and doing a better job maintaining VFR through our own planning.
-The briefers on the phone were often uninformed and very inexperienced one did not know what a MOA was when asked if MOA's along our route were hot or not.
-Happily, all FSS personnel we spoke to on the radio in-flight were extremely professional, helpful and accurate it was a 'night and day' experience with us and FSS on the ground and in the air. I realize this was just over this week and others reading this may have vastly different experiences better, I would hope.

About doing volunteer mission work:

-There is still something to be said for doing something much larger than yourself while our efforts were minute in the big scheme of things; they were huge to the families who now have a real home after almost three years of living in squalor.
-You don't have to have a lot of talent, ability or skills to make a difference we had little construction experience, yet were able to help build some solid places to live.
-You meet magnificent folks doing this type of thing they don't sweat the small stuff and have a tremendous perspective on life they don't care what color you are or where you come from, as long as you are there to contribute. I thank God for bringing us together and for providing this opportunity to give back a little we are indeed very fortunate in many ways.

About flying the C-150 on very long cross-country flights:

-As you all know, it will do three hours on full tanks and not much more it's not the ultimate X-C machine, but it will get you there.
-Having two radios was a real lifesaver on many occasions.
-GPS made rapid re-planning in flight a possibility, especially when facing weather.

About attempting a Big Adventure with good friends:

-This was a trip of a lifetime, and I would like to thank Wayne, Sandy, and Fred for making it something special.
-Flying and working with your friends is as good as it gets we spent 24 hours a day together for 11 days and were still laughing up until the minute we parted company!
-We'd all do it again in a heartbeat!

Thanks for all your moral support!
Warm Regards from Carlisle, PA, Mike Marra