All that bad weather was supposed to have moved through by end of Sunday leaving an easy VFR flight home. Well, Sunday night the forecast was for widespread low IFR most of the morning. I was not happy about this but it would all burn off eventually and unlike Friday we had all day and even the night to get home. When I awoke around 7:30, the KHEF was 200 overcast. Not a great start but better than nearby Dulles at 100 indefinate.
The entire region was low but, I was not worried as the sun was rising and would heat the air and make things better. Samantha picked us up right on time at 9:30 and we were off to Manassas. I checked the weather as we travelled and we were up to 500 with 6 miles visibility. Charlottesville which is about 50 miles away was VFR. We had what we needed for departure so we had a decision to go but I knew things would get better.
We arrived at the airport and did a leisurly preflight, I saw an incoming crew and they told me the tops were a bit over 2000 and bases 700. This matched the latest weather so we fired up, copied our clearance and headed for the runway. They are doing a bunch of construction and the runway end was cut off. This meant a back taxi to get full length. We had one other IFR ahead of us so by the time he back taxied and departed, we had to sit about 5 minutes while he got out of the way.
Tower cleared us to back taxi and go and that's what we did. We flew the standard departure with climb via except to stop at 2000. It's an easy departure, straight to 800, climbing right turn to 2000, then proceed over the fix, the VOR and then another VOR. Like advertised, tops were around 2500, I hand flew it until we started our climb above the clouds. Like previous trips, after the first fix, we got a vector and some step climbs and were soon at 10,000 or to be precise one zero thousand.
I chose 10,000 for the better tailwind but it was slightly better at 8000. We stayed there becasue it kept us over all the clouds, we were making close to 200 knots and it was smooth. We had plenty of gas to get home but I wanted to try a new fuel stop. MidCoast Regional just South of Savannah is a joint use field. They were advertising cheap gas and it had great reviews. I wanted to check it out.
Approaching Savannah are I expected to start down about 70 miles out. The reality was they kept me high until around 40 miles. This meant a steeper than normal descent which the Baron excels at. We came down around 950 fpm which is more than I like especially with passengers. CC being seasoned was good with the slam dunk and we were soon touching down and rolling up to self serve.
The reviews were right on. The equipment was good and the facilities fresh and clean. I saw that after hours you can enter with a code which is always good to know. Out bound we were stuck behind a student that was taxiing much slower than a person can walk. Everyone has to learn and after a short delay we were cleared to back taxi and depart. This runway does not have a taxiway to the end so you take half or back taxi.
I again enjoyed hand flying the departure through clouds from 2000 to almost 6000. We cruised along mostly just above the clouds, but dipped into a few. Again we had a steep arrival but we were number one and landed smoothly on runway 5. Maybe I am getting better?
So after all the preperation and contingency plans, I openned the hangar, got in the car, and the battery was dead. Not totally dead, just mostly dead. I pushed the car out while CC steered so I could get the plane back in. The FBO manager came by, found some jumper cables and the car started right up with the extra juice. Another successful trip in the books and I even got the battery replaced a short while later.
As always a good read. Thanks David
ReplyDelete