Have plane will bum about

One nice thing about having a plane is that your weekend outings can cover a lot more territory.  Last night CC mentioned we should visit the West Coast, of Florida, not California.  I Initially thought of Venice, Florida not Italy but then Apalachicola came to mind.  Apalachicola is a sleepy little old Florida town in the panhandle.  Technically not West Coast but it was Gulf Coast.

Driving takes about 4.5 hours each way but the plane made the trip in 1:25.  This time is from engine start to shutdown.  Our schedule, we left the house around 10:20 and were  in the air at 11:00.  Arrived at 12:15, saw everything, ate and were back in the air at 2:15.  Landed at 3:20 and were home by 4:00.  Driving would have had us returning home at 9:20 PM.  Basically we saved 5 hours and had a heck of a lot more fun.

When we fly our favorite routing is Direct.  The introduction of GPS has made this the norm in most uncongested airspace.  Today we could have received direct but I filed to WOUND intersection then direct.  Intersections are just points in space defined by radio navigation aids.  They make it much easier to communicate navigational paths as I can just request an intersection and ATC then knows where I want to go.  In this case WOUND keeps you over land as opposed to flying out over the gulf.

As I was saying Apalachicola is a sleepy town.  Even so they have a nice airport.  I took a risk and headed out without being sure of ground transport.  As we were approaching to land the FBO (fixed based operator) inquired on the radio if we needed fuel.  We did and I also asked if there was a courtesy car available.  There was so we were set.  We landed and taxied to the parking area.  I was directed to a space right up front and before I could get out there was a car parked behind the plane idling and frosty cool inside.

So one problem when you arrive somewhere is how do you get from the airport to where you really want to go.  In Knoxville Uber came to the rescue.  Jekyll has the cool buggies but that is not the norm, OK it is like no where else.  If we stay for the night or more we often rent a car.  If you just need to a few hours many places have airport cars.  Airport cars are there own discussion but basically you buy gas for they plane and they lend you a car.  Good deal for both parties.  The only problem can be if other people came before you and there is no car to borrow.  Today we were lucky.

We headed out for lunch and drove through town and then over the bridge on highway 98 to Eastpoint.  We stopped at a local joint called Lynns Quality Oysters.  It is a seafood market and restaurant.  Nothing fancy but the above picture was from the deck where we ate so the lack of decor is offset by the views.

Apalachicola is known for oysters but since it was not an R month we went with some shrimp and Mahi Mahi dip.  The deck was great and the temperature by the water was high 70s, cold in Florida.  The one issue is that to make the tasty smoked Mahi dip, they need to smoke fish each day.  Some of the tables were directly downwind of the smoker but by seating ourselves strategically we mostly avoided the smoke.

After lunch we drove back to town.  It is really only 2 blocks long and built around the tourist trade.  We strolled a bit and took at the waterfront and old buildings.

Apalachicola is still rural, as we were strolling, logging trucks were rolling down main street.

The best thing about Apalachicola is the seafood, the gulf and the beach.  A bunch of stores selling junk, oh I mean great souvenirs is less exciting.  The nice thing about the plane is that we had an open return.  When we were through strolling, I used my phone to file our return flight plan and then we drove back to the airport.  We paid for our gas and were soon airborne and on our way home.  Now to plan an outing for Sunday....

Tennessee Fly In

Another state down.  We headed off this weekend to Knoxville Tennessee for a fly in.  A fly in is typically a bunch of people just congregating at an airport.  In this case, this was the 9th iteration of this fly in and it was organized by members of an online aircraft message board called Beechtalk.

Beechtalk is the place to go to discuss all things Beechcraft or aviation related.  As a bonus they prohibit political discussions.  If you have been following the weather this weekend you may know that it was not perfect.  Lots of concern regarding storms.

Friday came and we woke to some low clouds in Jacksonville and some storms in the Knoxville area.  No problem, I had to work the morning and by mid day things were much better at both ends.  We departed and had an easy flight with a bit of a tail wind.  Coming over the mountains we dodged a few rain showers and soon were on the ground at the Knoxville Downtown Airport.

They parked the early arrivals out back and we were the first arrival put at the end of the row up front.  Here we are all alone.

We found our way to town and enjoyed a nice walk downtown, dinner and  meeting up with some of the group.  In the morning we returned to the airport for the real festivities.  More people had arrived after us and our plane was no longer lonely.

The Saturday arrivals started rolling in.  We had come 2.5 hours, some had come 4+ from places like Cedar Rapids.  We watched planes land, talked planes, looked at planes and generally did plane related stuff.

One of the cool things about this fly in is getting to see history live.  This plane, a Twin Bonanza or T-bone,  which looks brand new is from the 50's.  The modern turbo prop king air below and it still share parts.  Sorta like the kids and Grandpa.

After much aviation stuff we all sat down to a nice BBQ lunch.  In all about 70 people came, more were expected but the weather kept some away.   After lunch we headed out and the weather was looking pretty good at first.  We did have a 27 knot headwind on initial climbout but it gradually declined as we headed South.

We were up at 9000 and mostly over nice puffy clouds and made our way over Athens GA.  At this point the weather started looking worse.  Our next waypoint to cross was Dublin GA but a thunderstorm had parked itself overhead.  The controllers were very accommodating and we began a re-route to the East.  The closer we got to Dublin the worse it looked.  The picture does not do it justice but you can see the thunderhead and between was rather dark.

We kept deviating East as the weather was clear in that direction.  It looked like once we were South of Dublin we could turn South and get through the line of building storms but as we cleared the first storm, we could not clearly see a safe path through.  I threw in the towel and asked for a turn more to the East towards Savannah.  There was a line of weather running East but stopping well short of the coast.

As we came to the coast the dark storm clouds ended and we could see a clear path to Jacksonville.    After that it was an easy run back to the airport.  In the end, a great fly in and another state off the list.

Weather to go

One of the harder aspects of flying is managing the weather.  Now you can't change the weather but you can decide whether to participate in it or watch it from the ground.  Yesterday, I had planned a flight to Atlanta.  I was watching the weather during the week and as things unfolded it became apparent that weather was going to be a problem.  One thing you learn early is that it is not all that predictable.  This day the predictions were close. I woke up and the radar looked like this.

So this was not a pretty picture but when you go 200 mph, you can often just go around stuff.  What was concerning as well was those colored dots.  Green and Blue indicate visual conditions.  Red is instrument and magenta is low instrument conditions.  Thus not only would we be looking at dodging storms but we might be solid in the weather which makes it harder to see things building around you.

As you can see as the day wore on it was not getting any better.  We cancelled the flight and enjoyed the day at home.

Today I woke up with the intention of taking CC for some Eggs Benedict down in Vero Beach.  There is a nice place on the airport.  The forecast was for good weather all day so when I woke up and the coast was all low instrument weather, I was a bit disappointed.  In this case, I had a good feeling that hitting snooze would fix the problem

Delaying an hour changed the weather picture and we were off at 10:00 instead of 9:00.  Other than a few soft clouds we had great weather heading down.

The late start put us behind the local crowd so we had to wait for a table but eventually we had a nice breakfast/lunch and headed back.  The afternoon forecast was supposed to be a few scattered clouds but we had a bit of un-forecast weather.

Heading North along the coast we started to encounter some bumpy clouds that were building into rain showers.  The controllers were very accommodating and by flying about 2 miles East of our planned course we avoided the rough stuff.  As we came up to Daytona area there was a good size storm building.

Now when I started flying we would watch the weather channel before heading to the airport and that was the last look we had at the radar before launching an hour or two later.  As the years have passed, they put radar displays at airports and then we had cell phones.  Now we get the information sent via data link.  This is pretty good but the information may be several minutes old so it is great for avoiding areas of storms and giving you a heads up as it did today.  It is not great at tactical avoidance as things can change fast.  Today it gave us the heads up and we then used our eyeballs to confirm a safe route around the cell.

We deviated East and came up the coast.  You can see the storm as we passed it.  The picture does not show it well but it looked dark and rainy under there.  With the help of air traffic control, some data and our eyes, we were able to complete the flight safely and have a nice breakfast.