My flight South and Back

Journal AB3A's Journal: My flight South and Back 2

Journal by AB3A on Thursday February 16, 2006 @04:24PM

I decided to attend Distributech in Tampa this year. Rather than go commercial, I figured it was a good stretch for my newly renewed instrument flight skills. So I piloted my way down there.

First, I got a late start. Airplane needed refueling, and preheating. BRRRRRRR. I get off the ground and, wow, it's a blustery Pooh Day in the air. For a while things got so bad that I had to request a block altitude clearance because I couldn't hold my altitude within the required +/- 300 feet without running the airspeed in to the Yellow arc of the air speed indicator. The updrafts and downdrafts were pretty impressive.

Finally, I staggered up to 8000' and things smoothed out considerably once I got south of Richmond VA. Life was good. I landed at Smithfield County (JAX) right under the Seymore Johnson Military Operations Area. The folks there were very nice, accomodating, and helpful. I checked the weather, and filed for Brunswick GA. There was light rain on the radar from Florence NC to just south of Charleston SC. I flew in the middle of it and it felt just like being in the proverbial ping-pong ball. Later that evening I popped out in between layers of clouds and continued on course toward SSI.

I got to SSI just a few minutes before closing. I had just enough time to refuel, file a new flight plan and go. I'd been flying in stiff headwinds the whole day. The trip which should have taken me only 7 hours of flight time from Maryland was in it's sixth hour and I was still nowhere near Tampa.

The weather was clear, but the hour was getting later and later. I finally landed at Peter O Knight airport in Tampa after nearly 9.5 hours of flight time. I had only meant to make one stop on my initial plans, but instead I found that I needed to make two. Some stuff is just too sad for words.

The Conference was informative. They liked the paper I gave. I tried to get away on Thursday just before lunch. But my luck fell on the floor and shattered once again. The Valet had misplaced our car, keys, and our ticket. An hour and a half later, we finally had our car. Some service. After a late lunch, we packed the airplane and made our way toward Florence SC.

But we ran in to still more headwinds. Four hours in to my flight I looked at the time and the fuel gauges and decided that while Flornce was still only 60 nm away, I just didn't feel like landing on fumes in the dark of night. So I turned toward Charleston SC.

Word to the wise: If you're ever offered a stay at the Raddison in Charleston, just say no. Pay the extra and go somewhere else. The place smelled like cleaning solvents, the car perfume stink trees, and something gross that I just couldn't identify. The restaurant was so disorganized that we were in hysterics with all the excuses and silliness.

Finally, the next morning, I get in to the airplane, take off and promptly the audio system craps out. I can't hear anything through my headphones other than the intercom. It's the same damned problem we thought we'd fixed last month. I transmitted in the blind, knowing that the transmitters probably still worked, and advised the tower that we were operating without a working receiver.

Just then the radios came back to life and we heard the tower suggest that we could return to Charleston to fix the radios there. I did just that. Two hours and $151 dollars later, we had almost nothing to show for our effort. The radios wouldn't break.

So I took off, in the afternoon and hoped that finally we'd see some tail winds. We did. Everyone in the Air Traffic Control Center was extremely helpful except for the folks in Patuxent Naval Air Station's airspace. Patuxent sent me way out to the eastern shore of Maryland toward GRACO intersection before handing me back to Potomac Approach so I could cross the Chesapeake again back towards Fort Meade. A wasn't amused. As far as I could see, my filed flight plan from COLIN to GEEMO should have been perfectly acceptable to them.

In all, my trip took many more hours than I thought it would. If I do this again, I think I'll fly a faster airplane.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.