Powered by Lycoming: June 2008

No Scud Running

I'd sure glad that I don't have to fly through all this. Last night, we got pounded with storms, and I woke up with a tornado warning for my county. I hope that my commercial flight isn't delayed too much!

Curses! Foiled again!

I was going to have a blog entry about flying into Chicago Midway today, but the weather wasn't cooperating. Low IFR and heavy thunderstorm, complete with torrential rain, hail, tornados, wind shear, and a whole bunch of other nasties that made me fly in a WN (Southwest Airlines) 737-700 cattle car today. The forecast for tomorrow isn't any better. So, instead of having another cool post about flying to Des Moines, I'm going to be taking said cattle car into Omaha, then driving to Des Moines. Maybe I'll take a photo of the weather that will actually turn out to be flyable VFR. I need an instrument rating.

Edenton, NC

I've been frightfully busy at work and at home, and haven't had a chance to catch up on my flying blogging...or blogging flying....which is it? Well, two mondays ago, I flew down to Edenton, NC, right on the Albemarle Sound. I had just gotten back from our trip to Hilton Head Island, and was right back in the plane for a trip towards the eastern end of North Carolina.

Today was a special day, because I was traveling in a small airplane with my brother Joshua for the 3rd time in my life! Trip number one was when we were both very young and I remember taking a night flight over Columbus. Trip number two was when we were older with one of my friends and after a couple of stalls (which I thought were really exciting), Joshua didn't feel the same way about them. Trip number three was a beautiful, perfect clear day, and we were flying over the appalachians, over the Shenandoah valley, and down along the ocean. It was a very beautiful flight, one that I will have to take again soon, and

really special to have my older brother along in the airplane...hopefully, he'll be interested to take a few more airplane rides in the future. For our trip, we had very favorable winds for the trip down - almost a direct tailwind at about 40kts. It was awesome, and I managed to record my highest level ground speed of all time - 193KTs! I'm still waiting for that elusive 200KT level flight club.....of course, I'll probably need 50kt tail winds for that one....have to keep my eyes peeled for the high tailwinds aloft!

After being in Hilton Head for a couple of days, it was a pretty cold morning for the middle of May. Temperatures in the morning were only 41°F, and as we climbed through 4000ft over Cambridge, OH, we ran through some precipitation that sounded and looked like snow! Of course, I didn't believe that it was really snow with all the global warming going on, so it must've been fluffy chunks of rain or something. We headed down past the Ohio River and into the wild, wonderful wilderness of West Virgnia. The part of West Virgnia that we flew over is a really beautiful part, but very desolate and devoid of towns and people in general. Not a lot going on down there! Since I wasn't flying, I didn't have a lot of foreknowledge about the trip or the terrain that we would be flying over, so it was a pleasant surprise that we were flying over the Dolly Sods and the Shenandoah Valley and national park! Those places are really beautiful places, and hold wonderful memories for me - fun places that I have been with my brothers.