Pre Evacuation

I am sure many of you have been watching Dorian for quite some time. I remember when it was just a X on the NHC map and look how grown up it is now. Well Hurricane or not we had plans.

We had a wedding to attend in Columbia, SC on Sunday night. All week I watched the storm, wondering if we needed to evacuate the South Florida family members and whether we would be safe.

By Friday night it looked like Miami was going to survive and that we had some time to wait for the storm. As a precaution we packed an extra bag with several days of clothe in case we could not return as planned.

On Saturday we headed North into building storms. Initially it looked wile we would need to head far West to avoid the rain but a sizable hole opened and after a small detour around Brunswick, we headed up to Columbia.

Weather in SC was warm in the afternoons but nice in the morning.  Saturday we spent time wandering downtown and visiting USC.   There was also a street fair which was a weekly event with lots of food and fun.

I like the school bus converted to a BBQ.  Why didn't I ride this bus?

Saturday night we had a Rehearsal dinner and spent time hanging out with people.  We were very well fed, great food at every turn.  I personally parked in front of the candy bowls.

The wedding was beautiful and successful in that they are now married.  We then headed off for a party.  More food and friends.  Lots of fun, and we even dressed up.

Optimistically on Sunday afternoon I had filed our return for Monday. Forecast was for morning fog in The Carolinas and afternoon storms at home. The best shot looked to be for a mid day trip.  The news started to sound grim and after the wedding it looked pretty bad.

It was announced that I-26 would become 1 way away from Charleston starting noon Monday.  A decision had to be made, go home or hunker down.  We were pretty sure it would not be a big event in Jacksonville but then I had that nagging voice, did we really want to sit through another hurricane when a safe spot was an hour away...

We had to make a decision and and decide, we did.  Jacksonville would wait, Monday would be a new adventure.

Taking it to the MAX

I was going into withdrawal.  It had been 20 days since I last flew.  Luckily the prop came back and the shop bolted it on.  The Primary flight display showed up as well and it had been taken to the MAX.  I had an Aspen PFD 1000.  It was designed over a decade ago.  The screen was 16 color, the computer was a decade old.  It was awesome but then they announced the Aspen MAX.  The MAX took your current unit, threw out most of it and, replaced the electronics gave you a bunch of new features.

You kept the frame and knobs but all the electronics and screen were upgraded.  It now has 16 million colors.  That is 15,999,984 more.  Not sure I can see all those shades though.  It also runs about 5 times as fast.  New features include voice call out, improved vertical navigation and additional backup, the unit will function even if your pitot or static system fails.

Well Thursday they put it in but upon testing the autopilot interface failed.  They checked the install document and a footnote told them my config needed a software upgrade.  That was done this morning.  So the weather looked terrible today but I kept the faith.  After work it was out to the airport and by 6 PM it had mostly cleared. 

Off I went, the colors are nice and everything is a bit faster.  I still need them to tweak the setup.  I think it is about 1.5 degrees off perfect and the altitude call outs could be a touch louder.  This is not unusual.  I will do some more testing this weekend so I can tell them how to dial it in.  There are user menus but this is in the installer menu.  Once I have the correction should only take a minute to fix.

Upgrades and Repairs

Won't be doing any flying this weekend.  Two reasons, first the propeller is in a different city and my PFD (Primary flight display) is in another state.  A few months back the PFD company announced a new version of the display.  Current owners could upgrade at a good price and extend the warranty 2 years.  I signed up and then patiently waited for my turn. 

My number came up so off it went.  You can see the hole above.  The nice thing about the newer avionics is that they pop in and out easily.  The unit has a ground wire, two pitot Static quick disconnects and big D connector.  This means that it comes out or back in in about 5 minutes.

Now technically I can fly with it broken.  I would have to placard it and I am then limited to day VFR.  I could fly with it out by making a logbook entry, updating the weight and balance and again limiting to day VFR but you would need to carefully secure all the loose lines.  When I say you, I mean a mechanic, this is not a do it yourself thing.

Even so I won't be doing any flying.  Right about the time my number came up, I saw some grease on a prop blade.  Investigating, I found one blade was seeping grease from the root seal.  This is not uncommon as props age but since mine was serviced recently I was less happy.  As a precaution, I took this opportunity to send the prop in for a reseal.  They will take it all apart, check all the parts, repaint the blades and re-assemble it with new seals. 

So for now I am grounded as there is no way around having the prop off.  If all goes well, both parts will come back about the same time and I will be back in business.

Quick Trip

It started because I looked at my Marriott account and saw I had a free night expiring.  I decided we would do a quick trip South to see Dad and Rachel.  Only problem is that its summer in Florida.  That means lots of Thunderstorms.

We had been doing pretty well, I met up with an old Friend down South for Dinner a week ago in the evening but most days have gone from sunny to stormy.

The forecast going into the weekend was not good with rain early both days, especially today.  We launched Friday AM and had a nice run until the Southern end of lake Okeechobee.  There was a pretty good storm parked there.  The controllers were good and gave me a good deviation around it.  It looked particularly dark and angry and as we came around the back we saw a pretty large fire.  Not sure if it was coincidence or the rising air from the fire got the storm going.

The rest of the flight went smoothly but there was a good bit of rain to dodge.  The controller also sequenced us behind much slower traffic.  We were moving about 140 knots and they were doing 60-80.  This means we were catching up a mile a minute or better.    When you are only 2 miles in trail, this gets your attention.

Luckily we can slow too and once the gear and flaps are out can easily fly 80 knots.  We did and we were soon parked and tied down.

We started our Miami adventure getting Cuban food at Havana Harry's, then I finally got to see Rachel's pad, the girls shopped, we strolled Coconut Grove, had dinner on the bay at Montey's and finally grabbed Ice Cream at Chill-N Nitrogen Ice Cream.  They use liquid N2 to freeze your specified cream and mix ins on demand.  The picture above is the Grove Playhouse.  I used to see Rocky Horror here at midnight.  It is a landmark now but seems much less exciting than xx years ago (xx is not a typo, redaction)

This morning we awoke to showers moving in from the Atlantic.   Also the forecast was for Florida to have storms across the state by early afternoon.  It did not disappoint by the way.  Rachel was our Uber back to the airport so we called her a bit early and were on our way.  The early storms had blown out and there was a clear spot to depart but still rain to dodge.

Leaving Miami they always send you West to climb above the Fort Lauderdale arrivals before sending you North.  Usually I grumble about this as it is out of the way.  Today I was happy as it kept us West of the action.

Once 50 miles North we were in clear skies and cruising towards home.  The radar started to paint a line of storms North of town but we were faster and arrived in plenty of time.  As we continued North, the middle of the state started to show some action behind us.

As I write this St. Augustine to Melbourne is pretty much impassible.  So our planning worked out well.

Stealth Fighter

I was heading out Saturday for some IFR practice.  I had a trusty safety pilot and we were soon on final for Cecil runway 36R.  The ILS needles were centered and I heard approach tell me that I would have 2 fighters pass 1000 feet overhead for the landing break.

Fighters typically fly over the field and the commence a turning descent to slow and align for landing.  It also lets them move from close formation to a staggered landing formation by having the second plane turn later than the first.

This was not terribly unusual being in a military town but today we had 2 F35 stealth fighters.  The planes zipped over and commenced their turns.  They were assigned the parallel runway which is only 700 feet offset from my runway.

The first plane was ahead of us but the second ended up aligned with us.  My safety pilot was slow to grab a picture but at one point I had the F35 directly next to me and only 700 feet away.  Since I was not intending to land and he was slowing to land our relative speed was quite low and he only passed me doing 50 knots or so more.  It was quite cool.

Arachnids and Beechtalk BBQ

Early readers may remember (unlikely) that we went to a BBQ fly in located in Tennessee.  While the Tennessee fly in is the big Beechtalk Fly in, somebody on the group called for BBQ today at Saint Simons.  Never one to turn down BBQ, we headed North to get some food.

Weather was good but not VFR.  The field was overcast 1600 feet (picture above is after lunch when it cleared).  Also we had lots of planes arriving about the same time so timing was critical.  The controller initially wanted to space me out by sending me out over the ocean.  I was not down with this plan.  I told here I would like to stay within gliding distance of land.  She obliged by sending me to the initial fix with instructions to hold. 

As number 3, I was watching the guy on final and the guy on deck guy in the hold on the ADSB traffic.  By the time we were arriving over the hold fix, number 1 was clear and number 2 was on final.  I confirmed the plan with the controller, slow down and build some space and I might avoid staying in the hold.  It all worked out, I turned outbound, and just as I was about to turn inbound the guy ahead cleared, I was cleared in and completed my turn, joined final and slid through the clouds.  We broke out at 1600 feet with good visibility but had to wait until we descended 500 feet before cancelling IFR to be legal VFR.

This cleared the way for the next guy to start.  I heard from later guys that they were eventually stacked 4 deep but everyone arrived safely.  Once on the ground we took a group picture and then headed over to Southern Soul for BBQ.  We occupied the 3 big tables out front.  I think we had close to 30 people.  After lunch we chatted for a bit and then headed home to avoid the approaching weather.

We had one of the shorter distances to get to this BBQ.  That does not mean it was any less difficult.  Arriving at the hangar this morning A colossal spider tried to challenge me for ownership of the airplane.  After some negotiation, using a broom, he was in the grass and I was back under the plane checking things out.  Hope he learned his lesson. No really, he is big...

Brunch Squared

This was the weekend for Brunch.  Last week I was flying for the CG Aux so this weekend decided to make it all fun flying.  We started out heading to Miami for Brunch with Dad.

I tend to file IFR for these trips even when the weather is supposed to be good.  It can take a few extra minutes but is really helpful when working in congested airspace, especially with some lower than expected clouds.

Heading into North Perry (Hollywood) we had a layer right at 2000.  IFR kept us legal and safe.  Soon enough we were on the ground and enjoying brunch.  Today we went North to Columbia, SC.   Forecast was for nice weather but the radar was painting some rain.

While the screen looked ominous, our eyes told a different story.  We did have a few drops for about 10 seconds but otherwise mostly sun and blue sky.  In Columbia our friends were very nice and picked us up.

 
I was happy to see the brunch place had an A rating from the health department.  After a filling brunch we took a quick stroll.  Regarding brunch, CC was the winner with the Banana bread french toast.

Here is the crew in front of the old train station.  It is now a seafood restaurant as the tracks are long gone.  I questioned the concept of Seafood over 100 miles from the coast but what do I know?

Downtown Columbia has a rustic feel and they have made the businesses conform to the old architecture.  After our walk, it was back to the airport for a quick flight home.  In all we flew 7 hours over the 2 days and avoided 20 hours of driving.

Staggerwing and Radial Reunion 2019

This weekend is the third annual Staggerwing and Radial Reunion.  It is more of a concept than an event but it has lots of food.  It is an event centered around the Beech Staggerwing and other planes that still use radial engines but they are fully inclusive.  That means my horizontally opposed engine was welcome too.

We missed the dinner last nigh but were off late morning to a fly out at Jekyll Island.  Longtime readers will remember this is the home of the cool red electric golf carts.  The organizers had arranged for Red Bug Pizza to open so the group could do a lunch.  Then we could fly back to home for a Dinner. See the common themes here, planes and food or possibly food and planes.  The pizza was quite good and the service was fast and friendly.  This is often hard with so many people arriving together but they pulled it off.

We arrived 15 minutes after the scheduled meet up time so we were 45 minutes early.    This was fun as we enjoyed the great late morning weather on Jekyll and took a walk.  By the time we returned the group was assembled.  The airport provided vans to take us to pizza and even brought us back.  As the afternoon wore on we watched the storms approaching from the West.   

The clear skies started to become overcast so we decided it was time to head home.  Tonight is a BBQ to close out the festivities.  Many of the pilots will continue South to Sun and Fun which is a big annual airshow.  For me, work is calling.  I have had a blast the last two weekend with the extra days off getting in some great flying but now back to reality.

Young Eagles

Sofar this has been a pretty good month for flying.  While I have not had time to take any long trips, CC and I have gotten around and I have put in some good training time.  The month started with the plane in annual inspection so it was a short flying month but I have made the most of it.

Friday and Saturday I headed to Suwanee Florida to give Young Eagle rides.  Young Eagles is a program through the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) to introduce youth to aviation.  Pilots offer free airplane rides and there is age appropriate educational information provided as well.  For some it may just be a fun ride but for others it may be the start of a career or hobby.

When I saw the flyer for Wings Over Suwanee which was the Fly In, it rang a bell but I didn't remember why.  Today while walking around the festival part between flights I remembered.  In August 2007, Samantha, a friend and I had flown in for a EAA fly in and BBQ.  My friend had snapped the picture of the two of us taking pictures. 

We ended up having great weather for the program.  Warm but not hot and mostly clear skies.  Heading back Friday the clouds had formed at my preferred altitude but ATC hooked me up and let me air file.  I spent the 20 minutes of cruise popping in and out of the clouds.  Today I filed on the ground and we spent a total of 3 seconds in a cloud.

Friday morning before the festivities began there were two guys out flying powered parachutes.  Unfortunately they had chosen right by the Young Eagles area to launch and recover.  as they practiced they came a bit close for comfort for me but luckily they were done and gone before we started flying the kids.  I ended up adding 12 Young Eagles to my total.  This is also the start of the Radial Reunion weekend so we have more activities lined up for Sunday.

Selma to Montgomery

March 7, 1965 a group of people peacefully walked across a bridge and were met by clubs and gas. Their refusal to succumb to the the evil they met managed to profoundly change our country.  While that day the marchers were forced back, on March 21 they began again from Selma Alabama and reached Montgomery on March 25th.  This was a pivotal moment in the struggle for civil rights.

I have been wanting to visit Selma and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice but the weather had not been cooperating.  Yesterday when I noticed that we would have blue skies, I arranged a rental car and filed some flight plans.  Logistically we flipped the order a bit.  Arriving in Montgomery, we drove to the memorial first.  

The memorial is "dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence"

The memorial is quite powerful.  While it touches on many aspects of the African American experience, it focuses heavily on the acts of domestic terrorism against African Americans.

The states and counties where people were murdered (lynched) are represented by large metal boxes.  The people's names and the dates of the murders cut in the steel.

Interspersed among the memorials are several powerful sculptures that capture the horror of the atrocities experienced by these people.

The memorial garden continues cataloging the acts of violence with rows of memorials arranged by state and county (Parish).  I think it drives home the point that these activities were neither rare nor isolated to certain locations.

One particular sculpture captured the contribution of the men and women who literally walked for freedom.  It commemorated the bus strike that began in 1955 and lasted just over a year.  Those early footsteps paved the way for future progress.

After the memorial we drove to Selma to walk on the bridge.  I have seen it in countless pictures.  There is a sense of history standing there looking down the highway.  Today was a beautiful sunny day.   I can't imagine what it was like to crest the rise and see a mob of people with clubs, some mounted on horseback about to attack.

After soaking in the history we drove through Selma and stopped for a bite at the "Coffee Shoppe" in Selma.  CC had found it and little did we know we would get a bonus history lesson.  We arrived and ordered lunch.  Most of the tables had been reserved for a tour group of Harvard Alumnus so we ate at the side bar.

We were quietly eating when they arrived.  The Shoppe's owner, Jackie Smith,  came out and spoke for a bit.  She had grown up in Selma, been the first to graduate college in her family at 42 and after retiring from city government had opened the restaurant.  She was quite hopeful.  She noted that the place was originally a diner where African Americans could not enter.  They could only buy food through a back window.  Now she was the owner.

It has become locally famous and now people of note drop by for her food and a photo op or two.  Among the names mentioned were David Letterman and a few weeks ago, Elizabeth Warren.

The drive back was down the same highway where the marchers traveled 64 years ago.  There are markers showing the camping sites along the routes as the people journeyed 54 miles to demand that they be treated as human beings.

The National Park service has an Interpretive center just short of campsite 2.  We stopped by and watched an excellent movie about the march and looked at many artifacts from the period.  Then it was down the highway to return home.

The flight home was uneventful.  The plane was happy to wait for us at Montgomery airport.  We had taxied in past all 4 gates.  While I did see a flight arriving after we came, I never did see a plane at a gate.