Local foliage flight with my daughter
October 17th, 2008. Filed under: Local Flights.It was a nice autumn day. Sun was bright and hot on your skin. The winds were cool and blowing atypically from the northeast. Speed was 7 kts gusting to 16. No tango airmets, and after seeing two wonderful days pass by, I decided to go have some fun.
My daughter felt pretty short changed last flight. I needed to transport one of the club planes to Sky Acres where our mechanic (the only A&P in the area that we know of who does owner-assisted annuals) was. It’s a short 15 minute hop, much shorter than she expected. Ever since then, she’s been buggin’ me to take her up. So after she got home from school today, I surprised her with a “let’s go flying.”
We preflighted the plane, called ground and taxied to runway 6. Takeoff was approved with left turnout to the west as requested. After recently completing a map of all the airports I’ve flown to, one thing was obvious, I don’t go west very much or often. So, the mission today was to fly over to Sullivan County airport (MSV), perhaps land there and return. Oh yeah… and of course drink in the luscious autumn colors that were currently happening.
It was late-ish in the afternoon and the westerly climb out was almost directly into the sun. I found myself fighting between flying the course I planned and pointing more northward away from the sun (knowing that I’d have to jog south later). During the climb, my daughter was chanting some new nonsensical “song” that she picked up recently on the playground. “Double double this, double that, double this double that, double double…” As I was keeping an eyes pealed for traffic that I heard on the radio, scanning my instruments, and squinting into the sun, I couldn’t help but laugh inside as I remembered my “distraction training” that my instructors would put me through. This sure was a real world example. I was pleased that I was able tune it out and stay focused.
Sullivan County came into sight pretty quickly. I tuned to 134.02 and listened to the AWOS. It was no real surprise that the winds were out of the north here too. Tuned to CTAF 122.8 and started listening, then made a position report that I was going to fly over the top of the airport. That call prompted another pilot to announce that he was on an ILS approach to 15 – hmmmm. Now that complicates things a bit. It was getting late, and this guy using the opposite runway that I would choose to use. I decided after crossing over the airport 1000′ above pattern altitude to simply do a 180 and head back home.
This is the part of the flight I was most looking forward to! There’s nothing better than a low sun at your back lighting up a fall festival of colors with long defining shadows. I’m not a good enough writer to do the rest of the flight justice. You’ll have to just take a look at these photos!
When you do local flights, do you seek out new locations, scenes? Or, do you have a favorite course around the neighborhood?
October 21st, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Wow, great photos, Captain. I agree, it would have been hard to describe those scenes in mere words.
For solo local flights, which I m just getting back to, I like to set off in different directions – for area familiarization. However, today I had my first pax (in the last 37 years) and had a 20 minute flight already planned. There is a major hydroelectric dam on a nearby river and, although over-flight at low altitudes is prohibited, a scenic flyby is interesting, and well outside the restricted area. We have hills, a river valley, some cute towns and the northern Chesapeake Bay for sightseeing. So first-timers will most likely get a similar tour (but on a day much less windy than today).
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:00 am
This is what GA is all about! What better way to spend some quality time with your kid than with an impromptu “Let’s go Flying” !!! Nice shots, too!!
DR