Cross-Country to Rock Hill, SC (KUZA)

Yesterday was a phenomenal day for being outside. It was high pressure, low humidity, and clear, clear blue skies. What made it even more phenomenal was that instead of being stuck inside, I was visiting a potential supplier in Rock Hill, SC. Now, while the occasional business trip is a little fun, the occassional business trip that you fly yourself to being pilot-in-command at the controls is truly a wonderful thing. We left early in the morning, just after sunrise, and flying over the advection fog that settled over the creeks and rivers of eastern Ohio was positively beautiful as we climbed out to 5500ft and started our way south. In comparison to the last time I flew this route, the weather was beautiful and instead of slogging it out under an overcast at 3500ft over West Virginia, we were cruising in smooth air at a TAS of 135kts. Check out the winds blowing the smoke from these powerplants on the Muskingum River...pretty cool.....

As we got about 30 miles away from Charleston, WV Class C, we decided to climb up to 7500ft, to pick up some more favorable winds, and to clear the Class C airspace with room to spare. As we passed over, the CRW approach controller was amazed that a Citation inbound for landing 80 miles away already had the field in sight. "Not too many days like this", he commented. That's for sure. From our perch at 7500ft, we could see the distant ridgelines of the Appalachians peeking through the haze over 100miles in the distance. It was phenomenal visibility. Here's a photo of CRW from overhead, not a whole lot going on at 7:30AM in the morning. We did a few radio checks for the Elkin FSS and were on our way. The Kanawah River valley just south of Charleston was beautiful, with some fog and the lush green of the uninhabitable mountains contrasting with the packed houses and businesses in the river bottoms. Did I just say Charleston, WV was beautiful? Sheesh...what's wrong with me?

The Kanawah River Valley, over Charleston, WV looking south.

Welcome to the Desert of WV. Endless green hills and ravines speckled with coal strip mines as far as the eye can see. Beautiful, huh?

Mountain ridges at the WV/VA border. These ridges just stretched on into infinity...or at least hundreds of miles.

South Holston Lake, near Abingdon, VA with the high Appalachians stretching into the distance.
Ridgeline resort near Sugar Mountain, NC. The last mountain before we started our descent into Charlotte.

I love this view of mountains fading into the haze as far as the eye can see. This is reason enough to get in the air.

The ASOS was out upon our arrival into Rock Hill, SC, but it was definitely gusty. Winds were fairly easy over the mountains - 13-17kts at 7500ft, and as we descended through 4000ft, the surface winds really picked up to about 35kts. At the surface, the winds were gusting a lot, I'm guessing 15-18kts, gusting to 20-25kts. However, it didn't matter that much because they were pretty much straight down the runway. We pulled up next to a brand-new Cirrus SR22GTS, just to make them jealous of our good looks and lean fuel burn. Nice looking airplane, but I think that I was a little more interested in the PC-12 they had for sale out front. I logged 2.8 hours and we burned 26.6gals of fuel - 340NM total distance. 12.8MPG, but if I had driven, it would've taken about 7hours, and I would've burned about 20 gals of BP's finest 87 octane. Flying is sooooo cool.