I blame Cindy

In 2014 I signed up for a course on Mountain Flying taught in Colorado.  Right after signing up we decided to move to Singapore which messed up my plans.  The folks at the Colorado Pilots Association were quite nice and gave me a refund but it was something I wanted to do so once getting back I started planning to attend.  Initially I was going to go alone but the more we discussed it, the more it seemed to make sense to make a vacation out of it.  It just so happened that we had friends for CC to visit while I was in class in Boulder, CO.

Once deciding to go the planning started.  It is 1290 Nautical Miles from Jacksonville to Rocky Mountain Metro airport.  The simple way to go is to draw a straight line and then stop 2 or 3 times for gas.  That was the initial plan.  I looked carefully for airports that had good reviews, yes airports get reviews on pilot sights.  I also looked for the better gas prices.  Airplane gas is tightly controlled and consistent but varies greatly in price.

Everything was set, we planned to head out on Thursday and depending on weather either go all the way or overnight and finish on Friday.  Class was scheduled for Saturday for the classroom part and Sunday was the flying part.

The weekend before I started watching the weather and the beginning of Tropical Storm Cindy was born.  This put a wrench in the works as Cindy was going to come up through the middle of our route.  Now I am instrument rated which allows me to fly through clouds but does not get you through big nasty storms.  Monday I hatched the plan to leave Wednesday. I expected low clouds and visibility in the morning so we planned to leave later after it lifted and overnight in Tulsa.  Why Tulsa?  It was on the way and had lots of hotels around.

Wednesday morning we awoke to low ceilings and low visibility all over the South East and storms rolling in off the gulf.  Now we can fly over the clouds but in a single engine plane if you have a significant issue you may become a glider.  This is something we practice and all pilots should be able to glide to a survivable landing.  You need to be able to see the ground to do this.  For this reason, I avoid flights over very low weather to reduce risk.

Time for plan B, always have a plan B.  I decided we would head up the coast where the weather was pretty good and basically go around the bad stuff.  In a car this is not usually viable due to the increased time but at 200 mph, you have some flexibility.  Thus Wednesday around 10 AM we launched for out West by heading North.  We headed up over Savannah, Augusta and the Jasper GA North of Atlanta where we had our first fuel stop.

From here we headed to Memphis.  We landed at General Dewitt Spain Municipal Airport.  A real mouthful when making radio calls.  The airport is right on the Mississippi so you cross over into Arkansas as you make your landing pattern.  At our first stop we just used self serve fuel but when we pulled up to the pumps in Memphis, the staff came and pumped my gas, then they made sure we had cold waters and bags of candy for the road.  While planning our next segment another staffer even cleaned our windshield.  Now for me to do this I need a step stool, I am short and the plane is tall and most people need some height assistance..  The gentleman nicknamed Tiny, was able to do it without much trouble though.

Leaving Memphis we were on our way to Tulsa for the overnight.  About 30 minutes into the flight I looked at the time and the weather and said, "you know we could go all the way today".  After some quick discussion and calculation, we updated our destination to Great Bend Kansas.  Now this decision had an element of danger, not the flying.  I had not checked if rooms were available and our car was reserved for Friday.  Throwing caution to the wind we landed at Great Bend.

Kansas is know for its wind and Great Bend did not disappoint.  Kansas was having a heat wave so getting out of the plane we had a 30 knot 98 degree blast furnace.  We quickly headed inside to plan the final segment, call our hotel and call the car people.  The hotel was easy and we had a room, Avis was a nightmare and could not help me.  Undaunted we headed out for Colorado.

Leaving Memphis I thought I left all the bad weather behind but we found more over Kansas.  After a short detour we were on our way in to Colorado.We landed about 6:30 PM Mountain time.  Total time en-route was 10.5 hours.  We originally planned 1290 mile and flew a bit more than 1400.  It was a long but satisfying day.

Also for those counting We added Kansas and Colorado to the list of States, mark of #45 and #44.

Have plane will bum about

One nice thing about having a plane is that your weekend outings can cover a lot more territory.  Last night CC mentioned we should visit the West Coast, of Florida, not California.  I Initially thought of Venice, Florida not Italy but then Apalachicola came to mind.  Apalachicola is a sleepy little old Florida town in the panhandle.  Technically not West Coast but it was Gulf Coast.

Driving takes about 4.5 hours each way but the plane made the trip in 1:25.  This time is from engine start to shutdown.  Our schedule, we left the house around 10:20 and were  in the air at 11:00.  Arrived at 12:15, saw everything, ate and were back in the air at 2:15.  Landed at 3:20 and were home by 4:00.  Driving would have had us returning home at 9:20 PM.  Basically we saved 5 hours and had a heck of a lot more fun.

When we fly our favorite routing is Direct.  The introduction of GPS has made this the norm in most uncongested airspace.  Today we could have received direct but I filed to WOUND intersection then direct.  Intersections are just points in space defined by radio navigation aids.  They make it much easier to communicate navigational paths as I can just request an intersection and ATC then knows where I want to go.  In this case WOUND keeps you over land as opposed to flying out over the gulf.

As I was saying Apalachicola is a sleepy town.  Even so they have a nice airport.  I took a risk and headed out without being sure of ground transport.  As we were approaching to land the FBO (fixed based operator) inquired on the radio if we needed fuel.  We did and I also asked if there was a courtesy car available.  There was so we were set.  We landed and taxied to the parking area.  I was directed to a space right up front and before I could get out there was a car parked behind the plane idling and frosty cool inside.

So one problem when you arrive somewhere is how do you get from the airport to where you really want to go.  In Knoxville Uber came to the rescue.  Jekyll has the cool buggies but that is not the norm, OK it is like no where else.  If we stay for the night or more we often rent a car.  If you just need to a few hours many places have airport cars.  Airport cars are there own discussion but basically you buy gas for they plane and they lend you a car.  Good deal for both parties.  The only problem can be if other people came before you and there is no car to borrow.  Today we were lucky.

We headed out for lunch and drove through town and then over the bridge on highway 98 to Eastpoint.  We stopped at a local joint called Lynns Quality Oysters.  It is a seafood market and restaurant.  Nothing fancy but the above picture was from the deck where we ate so the lack of decor is offset by the views.

Apalachicola is known for oysters but since it was not an R month we went with some shrimp and Mahi Mahi dip.  The deck was great and the temperature by the water was high 70s, cold in Florida.  The one issue is that to make the tasty smoked Mahi dip, they need to smoke fish each day.  Some of the tables were directly downwind of the smoker but by seating ourselves strategically we mostly avoided the smoke.

After lunch we drove back to town.  It is really only 2 blocks long and built around the tourist trade.  We strolled a bit and took at the waterfront and old buildings.

Apalachicola is still rural, as we were strolling, logging trucks were rolling down main street.

The best thing about Apalachicola is the seafood, the gulf and the beach.  A bunch of stores selling junk, oh I mean great souvenirs is less exciting.  The nice thing about the plane is that we had an open return.  When we were through strolling, I used my phone to file our return flight plan and then we drove back to the airport.  We paid for our gas and were soon airborne and on our way home.  Now to plan an outing for Sunday....

Tennessee Fly In

Another state down.  We headed off this weekend to Knoxville Tennessee for a fly in.  A fly in is typically a bunch of people just congregating at an airport.  In this case, this was the 9th iteration of this fly in and it was organized by members of an online aircraft message board called Beechtalk.

Beechtalk is the place to go to discuss all things Beechcraft or aviation related.  As a bonus they prohibit political discussions.  If you have been following the weather this weekend you may know that it was not perfect.  Lots of concern regarding storms.

Friday came and we woke to some low clouds in Jacksonville and some storms in the Knoxville area.  No problem, I had to work the morning and by mid day things were much better at both ends.  We departed and had an easy flight with a bit of a tail wind.  Coming over the mountains we dodged a few rain showers and soon were on the ground at the Knoxville Downtown Airport.

They parked the early arrivals out back and we were the first arrival put at the end of the row up front.  Here we are all alone.

We found our way to town and enjoyed a nice walk downtown, dinner and  meeting up with some of the group.  In the morning we returned to the airport for the real festivities.  More people had arrived after us and our plane was no longer lonely.

The Saturday arrivals started rolling in.  We had come 2.5 hours, some had come 4+ from places like Cedar Rapids.  We watched planes land, talked planes, looked at planes and generally did plane related stuff.

One of the cool things about this fly in is getting to see history live.  This plane, a Twin Bonanza or T-bone,  which looks brand new is from the 50's.  The modern turbo prop king air below and it still share parts.  Sorta like the kids and Grandpa.

After much aviation stuff we all sat down to a nice BBQ lunch.  In all about 70 people came, more were expected but the weather kept some away.   After lunch we headed out and the weather was looking pretty good at first.  We did have a 27 knot headwind on initial climbout but it gradually declined as we headed South.

We were up at 9000 and mostly over nice puffy clouds and made our way over Athens GA.  At this point the weather started looking worse.  Our next waypoint to cross was Dublin GA but a thunderstorm had parked itself overhead.  The controllers were very accommodating and we began a re-route to the East.  The closer we got to Dublin the worse it looked.  The picture does not do it justice but you can see the thunderhead and between was rather dark.

We kept deviating East as the weather was clear in that direction.  It looked like once we were South of Dublin we could turn South and get through the line of building storms but as we cleared the first storm, we could not clearly see a safe path through.  I threw in the towel and asked for a turn more to the East towards Savannah.  There was a line of weather running East but stopping well short of the coast.

As we came to the coast the dark storm clouds ended and we could see a clear path to Jacksonville.    After that it was an easy run back to the airport.  In the end, a great fly in and another state off the list.

Weather to go

One of the harder aspects of flying is managing the weather.  Now you can't change the weather but you can decide whether to participate in it or watch it from the ground.  Yesterday, I had planned a flight to Atlanta.  I was watching the weather during the week and as things unfolded it became apparent that weather was going to be a problem.  One thing you learn early is that it is not all that predictable.  This day the predictions were close. I woke up and the radar looked like this.

So this was not a pretty picture but when you go 200 mph, you can often just go around stuff.  What was concerning as well was those colored dots.  Green and Blue indicate visual conditions.  Red is instrument and magenta is low instrument conditions.  Thus not only would we be looking at dodging storms but we might be solid in the weather which makes it harder to see things building around you.

As you can see as the day wore on it was not getting any better.  We cancelled the flight and enjoyed the day at home.

Today I woke up with the intention of taking CC for some Eggs Benedict down in Vero Beach.  There is a nice place on the airport.  The forecast was for good weather all day so when I woke up and the coast was all low instrument weather, I was a bit disappointed.  In this case, I had a good feeling that hitting snooze would fix the problem

Delaying an hour changed the weather picture and we were off at 10:00 instead of 9:00.  Other than a few soft clouds we had great weather heading down.

The late start put us behind the local crowd so we had to wait for a table but eventually we had a nice breakfast/lunch and headed back.  The afternoon forecast was supposed to be a few scattered clouds but we had a bit of un-forecast weather.

Heading North along the coast we started to encounter some bumpy clouds that were building into rain showers.  The controllers were very accommodating and by flying about 2 miles East of our planned course we avoided the rough stuff.  As we came up to Daytona area there was a good size storm building.

Now when I started flying we would watch the weather channel before heading to the airport and that was the last look we had at the radar before launching an hour or two later.  As the years have passed, they put radar displays at airports and then we had cell phones.  Now we get the information sent via data link.  This is pretty good but the information may be several minutes old so it is great for avoiding areas of storms and giving you a heads up as it did today.  It is not great at tactical avoidance as things can change fast.  Today it gave us the heads up and we then used our eyeballs to confirm a safe route around the cell.

We deviated East and came up the coast.  You can see the storm as we passed it.  The picture does not show it well but it looked dark and rainy under there.  With the help of air traffic control, some data and our eyes, we were able to complete the flight safely and have a nice breakfast.

Cedar Key short field approach

Woke up to a warm but great weather day.  We looked at the map and decided to take a run to the West Coast, of Florida to see if the water really was a different color.  Our destination was Cedar Key.  This is a sleepy little community just is South of the Panhandle.  It basically gets ignored until there is a Hurricane, then every new station and the weather channel descend upon it to try and get blown away.

Today we had blue skies and light surface winds.  At altitude the winds were 20-30 knots but this was not much of an issue as the decrease in speed would only add a few minutes.

Cedar Key is a short runway.  We typically fly off 4000 feet of pavement but use runways as short as 2600 feet.  Cedar Key is 2355 feet.  This is not as bad as it sounds as the approaches are clear and the ends of the runway are displaced so you have an bit of extra margin.

When using shorter fields it is best to consult the planes manual to double check performance.  The book says that we would need  700 feet to land and 800 feet to depart.   To get this performance you need to fly the book speeds exactly though.

Landing this means being at 67 knots at 50 feet and departing it means lifting off at 67 knots.  In our case I knew our numbers would be a bit higher as I targeted 75 knots at 50 feet on approach and we lifted off at 70 knots.  You can see short final above and our departure below.

The extra speed did not make a great difference.  We touched down just past the end of the runway and easily decelerated.  The book calls for using the brakes to get the stated performance as well but since we had plenty of room, I let the plane slow down without brakes.  After Cedar key we stopped by Palatka for some fuel and noticed that we had happened to hit almost every bug in Florida.  Upon returning to the hangar we spent twice as long as normal wiping down the plane.

On the last leg my trusty co-pilot handled the plane for a bit before making me get back to work.

Near not far

While the plane is an excellent travelling machine, it is also lots of fun to just go out and fly with no exotic destination.  This morning the weather was nice and I decided to take the plane out for a spin.

The routine is the same.  Before flying I go over the plane checking everything.  Once satisfied that all is in order, I pull the plane out of the hangar and load up.  Today my thought was to practice some air work and enjoy the sights.

I departed behind a Cessna and quickly overtook it.  I was flying under visual flight rules.  This means I am responsible for maintaining flight conditions to allow me to see and avoid other traffic.  In this case the plane had departed just before me and I had contact before starting my takeoff.  Due to incoming traffic, the tower provided instructions as to which was I should pass the traffic.

Once clear of the airport I decided to let the plane accelerate to fast cruise  before settling on a more economical speed.  Generally the plane is faster the higher it goes up to about 7000 feet.  Today I clocked in at 176 knots (202 mph).  This is achieved using about 20 gallons per hour.  Typically I go 145 knots around town on 10.5 gallons per hour.

On longer trips we climb higher and can achieve 170 knots on 13 gallons per hour.  This is the sweet spot.  I went ahead and practiced steep turns for a bit and they worked out nicely.  I then decided to sight see and overflew the oldest city, St. Augustine.

Then I headed North and crossed Jacksonville Naval Air Station, went by downtown and eventually by my favorite local bridge,  This aligned me with the active runway and I was soon cleared to land.  Just under an hour start to finish.

Jekyll Island Georgia, #48

Picking up the plane from California highlighted to me that I had done a lot of flying but that there were many states I had failed to visit.  I have been thinking about this and decided to start filling in the gaps.  Hopefully I can eventually land in all of the lower 48 states.  I have been looking at each of state and trying to find a place that will provide a unique experience for that state.   Georgia has actually been a hard one because we have visited many times already.  The question was where to visit for Georgia.

My first thought was KSSI, Saint Simons Island for some of the excellent BBQ.  This is a 20 minute flight and we do it reasonably often.  While this was a good choice, I felt it was not really new to us.  Yesterday I was told about changes at 09J, Jekyll Island.  It used to be a sleepy airport with no services and no facilities.  Years ago we did a fly out picnic when our daughter was around 1.  We had driven up there over a decade ago but had not landed there for quite some time.

Today we headed up with the intention of taking a stroll on the beach.  Landing at Jekyll can be challenging when there is a strong cross wind as the trees on the East side create some good low level turbulence while the runway is relatively narrow.  Our approach was stable right on the glidepath and as predicted the last 200 feet I had to work a bit but it all ended in a nice smooth touchdown.

Taxiing in we found ample parking.  All the spaces had tie down ropes which is nice.  We bring our own chocks but today the wind was 12-20 knots so having the plane tied down is comforting.  The airport has been upgraded.  They now have a shop, restrooms and a buggy rental place.  Red Bug Motors rents 2, 4 and 6 place electric buggys (www.redbugmotors.com).  They are 25 mph vehicles and loads of fun.  As a fly in pilot they provided a courtesy buggy free of charge.  Not sure who funds these courtesy buggys but it is really nice and makes you feel good about contributing to the local economy.

The island has some nicer dining options but our objective was the beach.  We took the buggy to town, literally and stopped by the DQ to pick up a lunch for the beach.  From there we headed off for a nice picnic.  The public beach is very nice but there was a big car show today so we headed for the pavilion a bit North of the main beach and found a nice picnic table.

Today was sunny and upper 60's but the 20 knot North East wind across the 57 degree water brought a chilly wind.  We had brought jackets but it was still a bit chilly.  After lunch we tried a walk on the beach but the wind was too much and gave up after 15 minutes.  We then went buggy riding around the island.

We stopped on the West side which was sheltered and walked a bit then moved on the historic area with the Jekyll Club hotel.  There were men outside dressed in all white very seriously practicing croquet.  I had thought the game was for 3 year olds but they seemed quite serious about it.

After a bit more walking we returned the buggy and fired up.  The departure was like the arrival.  Lots of low level gusty winds and turbulence.  Given the cool temperatures and light load the plane easily accelerated and quickly climbed above the turbulence induced by the geography.  On the way up we fought 20+ knot headwinds but on the way back the winds aloft had shifted and we only had about 10 knots of tailwind helping us.

This will likely be one of our shorter trips.  44 nautical miles each way.  Regardless, it was a fun flight and a nice Sunday adventure.