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.
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.
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