Annual is almost upon me. This means no flying for a bit or at least not in my plane. I have been getting around with 26.2 hours logged in 1.5 months. As today the weather is going stinky bad, I took the opportunity for one last flight before I take the plane to the shop. I did a night flight on superbowl Sunday and I decided to take another on Valentines Day.
We will soon change time and that means staying up late to fly in the dark. I flew Tuesday and Friday in the sunshine and enjoyed the clear smooth skies but now was my chance to work on night skills. I am all current on my take off and landing requirement so I spun up 30 minutes after sunset. Driving to the airport the skies were looking really pretty with those evening colors.
By the time I was ready to start the airport beacon was really prominant. The Beacon at home has been a long time running joke. Since I can remember it was the least bright light in the area. I always found the airport based on other lighting before ever seeing the beacon. You could find it when you were inside of 2 miles if you knew where to look but often it was never seen.
A few months back they finally did some repairs and the beacon became usable and then it broke again. Luckily it broke so badly they decided to replace it with an LED Beacon. The new Beacon rocks. Last week we saw it over 25 miles away. Last night it was easy to pick up even when hidden in the sea of lights.
The flight itself was fun, I went North to Brunswick. Jacksonville was nice enough to put me into the system so I got flight following for the entire flight. It was nice as I had lots of traffic. Turning around at SSI I had a jet depart bewlow me. I widened out to give him room and got to see him zoom climb once he got his clearance. One minute he was ahead and 1000' below and the next he was disappearing above me.
I was also state hopping. Because of the funny borders I flew Florida-Georgia-Florida-Geogia-Florida. Luckily you don't feel the border crossings at 3,000'.
I flew West of JAX and had some airliners come around me. I had kept my distance from JAX to avoid disrupting Ops and I was not in the way but it was cool to see the big planes slide by about 5 miles away. I crossed over Cecil and Navy Jacksonville before heading in. This let me make a nice descending turn to final for 32. I stayed well away from the antennas and lined up for a smooth touchdown.
I am really liking the new hangars. At night our ramp is well lit for to facilitate getting in and out but not to bright on the eyes. My hangar lights dim for night ops but once the plane is back in are bright enough to work easily.
