I am working on father of the year so I can’t miss any school events, especially a play. Back in February my daughter mentioned she would be the school play. When she was young these things were easy, drive down the street and sit a bit. Now that she's in Law school, it takes a bit more effort.
Regardless, I grabbed a hotel room in DC and penciled the event onto the calendar. The trip is only about 560nm or 3 hours in Baron time so off we went to see a play. The production was done by the Georgetown Gilbert and Sullivan Society. It is apparently the only theatre group in the country with its own law school.
This was their 50th year and they had chosen Cabaret. Samantha was playing Sally Bowles, a British flapper swept up in the 1930 Berlin party scene. Tragically the party is ending with the rise of the Nazi party, yeah it's not a fun light play.
Really wanting to be at the play puts extra pressure on the flight. This is also not the easiest time of year for the trip. We have been enjoying a steady stream of strong frontal systems pushing across the country. I couldn’t do much about the weather but I did stack the deck a bit. First I bought tickets to two nights of the show so if we were delayed, we could still see the show. We also cleared Wednesday in case we needed to get ahead of any weather. With backup plans in place I planned our flights and started watching the weather.
There was a strong front moving in but forecasts had it arriving after 2PM. The weather at home was nice but the mid part of the flight would be low IFR in the morning. Balancing these two factor, I chose to depart around 9:45. In theory this would get us in ahead of the rain and allow the fog to burn off. The flight home would be easy though or so I thought at the time.
Preflight and packing the plane were uneventful and I soon had the props spinning. 5/23 was closed and 14 was active. As I pulled out of the hangar row and turned towards the taxiway, I was greeted by a line of planes more suitable to Newark. We received our clearance and joined the conga line. At one point I counted 18 planes waiting to depart. We joined at position 12 I believe. The controllers did a nice job and even with the line and several arrivals, we were on our way in 15 minutes.
The flight up the coast was smooth and we soon started planning our arrival for a fuel stop. The weather had been 1000 overcast at 9:30 but by the time we arrived it was just scattered at 3000. That was over the field though. It was more broken to the South, so I requested the RNAV 05 and was cleared for the approach. Just after passing the FAF, I broke out and cancelled IFR.
We got a quick turn from the staff at Harnett Jetport, in Erwin NC. They are under a major rebuild so the ramp was a mess but even so they did a great job getting us turned and on our way. The second leg to DC was smooth and easy. Our clearance was waiting for us and though we had a deviation to avoid some restricted airspace, we were soon direct Manassas and cleared to land. The APP jet center helped us with our stuff. We not only had our luggage but had hauled up more stuff for my daughter.
While we avoided the weather on the trip, while grabbing a quick dinner the storms arrived. Luckily they were mostly done by the time we finished and we headed over to the play. I can say totally unbiased, Samantha was the best and she rocked the role.
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