Special Flight Rules

I don't usually fly cargo but this trip was an exception.  My daughter moved but did not have enough room to take all her possessions in her car so we were going to visit her and bring along 185 pounds of stuff.  Originally it was 260 pounds but I helped re Tetris her car and squeezed in 75 pounds which lightened my load.

We were heading to Washington DC which meant we would be entering the DC Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA).  We have been in a SFRA before.  The Grand Canyon for example but the DC one is a bit more intense, if you make a mistake over the canyon, there are consequences but no one tries to shoot you down.

There are 3 zones around DC.  It starts 60 miles out where you must take awareness training to enter that airspace when VFR.  I took this training years ago and it is only required once but I did re do the training in preparation for this flight, just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything from 9 years ago.

30 miles out is the outer ring which has a series of rules to make sure everyone is being controlled and you must comply with a host of special procedures.  The inner zone requires special permission to enter and there are only 4 airports that are not military.  One is Reagan National and which does not accept most General Aviation traffic at present though there is a program which is allowing more recently.

The 3 others are marginally closer but all shorter runways, between 2600 and 3000 feet which is tight for our departure.  Not wanting to go through a lot of hoops, I settled on KHEF, Manassas, in Virginia.  It was about a 50 minute drive into town (with no traffic) but it was the best compromise.  I also filed IFR, which means the SFRA is mostly transparent to us with a few minor exceptions. 

Wednesday and Wednesday night the East coast was a mess of storms.  DC was on the national news featuring flash flooding.  When I awoke there was still some lingering rain and our destination was low IFR. It looked crummy but the forecast said it would all clear in time. 

We departed into clear but hazy skies.  Our plan was to top off at KRWI as it had a great prices on gas.  About half way through South Carolina it started to clear and we easily picked up the airport 20+ miles out. After topping off we were on our way.  Washington center had our clearance and other than a busy frequency, all was well. 

Approaching DC I was expecting a re route as our path took us through restricted airspace.  I was not disappointed, we were given direct BRV and thence fly heading 010.  Inbound we flew through some smooth clouds and soon were under the clouds. 

We headed up the Potomac and picked up both KHEF and Dulles. The controller gave us direct HEF and the visual and we were soon rolling out and heading to the FBO.  I had called ahead to let them know I needed to have the car out to the plane.  They parked us up front and my daughter pulled planeside.  We soon emptied the plane and crammed into her car with all her stuff.

The afternoon was spent wandering the city.  Highlights included visiting the Georgetown law school, looking at the Capitol, strolling through the national botanic garden, dropping into the National Museum of the American Indian, perusing the national portrait gallery, shopping a farmers market and moseying through Chinatown.

We capped the day off helping my daughter pick up some IKEA furniture and grabbed some dinner.  We needed some rest as we had an ambitious day of sightseeing ahead of us Friday.