More taxiing than flying

 

We took a quick flight today down to Saint Augustine to see the Wings and Wheels event.  It was great weather, hot but not oppressive, puffy clouds and good visibility.  We were not the only ones heading out and at both ends there was a line to depart.   Starting up, we had a quick taxi to runway 14 and with the 90 degree temps, the oil and engines were ready for runup almost immediattly.

We were only number two to depart but a plane made a mistake on the runway.  Then a flight of 4 army choppers had to arrive and then a bunch of arriving traffic.  Thankfully we have great AC so we sat back and watched the show.  After the short delay we were off to Saint Augustine, a 12 minute flight.  We were cleared to land and made an early turn off.  I assumed we would taxi down runway 2 but ground was not sure if it was clear so we went all the way to 6 and around.

We parked at Atlantic and shut down to go the the Wings and Wheel show.  The Coast Guard had flown in a chopper from Savannah and I stopped by to see a pilot I know.  We wandered through the show.  They had some cool planes and I saw a bunch of people I know.  At the end we looked at the cars but after a few I was thinking just another muscle car, just another care with hydraulics.  Yup, I'm not a car guy...

We said goodbye to people and headed back to the plane.  I was happy that even in the heat, starting was easy.  We had a quick taxi out to 13 and we luckily joined number 2 for departure.  There was a gaggle of planes hanging out too but I was done with my departure checks so I got in line.

I thought we would be on our way quickly, not much inbound traffic and it was well spaced.  I was wrong...  The controller was taking inbounds but not launching anyone.  To make matters worse the Cirrus that was number one had not pulled up to the line so he was making a mess of the planes behind.  Eventually after a few arrivals he let the Cirrus out.

I was thinking I would get out too but nope.  Then we just sat as people arrived with huge gaps between them and no departures.  After a long time we were released.  We left behind a mess of planes all vying for the next deparure slot.  Again 12 minutes to get home and arriving we got straight in to 32 which was a slight crosswind but a quick taxi to the hangar.

This year our average flight has been 1.5 hours in the air.  We have averaged 8 minutes of ground time for every hour flown.  Today we flew 24 minutes and had 36 minutes of ground time.  I think this is a record and would equate to 90 minutes of ground time per hour flown