The Maryland-SC-Ohio Triangle

I've been flying a fair bit recently, so now that I have a little "ground time", I'll take the opportunity to catch up on a little blogging. I recently flew a neat little trip with Dad - we headed to the Maryland coast and then south to Rock Hill, SC, and the back home. All right through a wonderful high with nice weather and clear skies. A monster storm had blown through that night, and it was just clearing up as we made our initial descent into Salisbury. I have to say that the 60NM perpetual TFR around Washington is just totally stupid. Is the strongest, most powerful nation in the world scared of a 2300lb Cessna 172 with a max useful load of 900lbs, when anyone can rent a 26ft Ryder truck and drive it within 60NM of Washington? Golly gee whiz! I think it's a good idea.....I mean, who would protect all of the poor Beltway lobbyists and policy pundits from scary "GA" airplanes? Sheesh.

Okay, well, enough complaining. Our intended route of flight flew well south of all those freaked out people, and over the Chesapeake Bay, which is a huge body of water. There were a lot of barges, fishing boats, and a lot of choice beach spots. I could almost taste all of those lobsters and soft shell crabs, just flying over! Here's a photo of some of the shifting sandbars just off the west coast of the bay. That some pretty clear water for the bay, but I guess if you have the right angle and there's not too much slit in the water...you can see lots!

Can you see any soft-shell crabs in that sand?

I'll bet that it's pretty fun to hang out on that little sandbar and fight the sandflies away:).

Just one of the thousands of tidal rivers on the Chesapeake Bay - I love how squiggly these rivers are!

Tangier Island, right in the center of the Bay - I'd like to go there someday - apparently the residents of this island have a very unique dialect and they serve really good soft shell crab sandwiches....MMmmm.....

We talked to Patuxent Approach and steered well clear of the restricted military flying zones (they were HOT) and ran downhill into Salisbury, MD and touched down.

Short final for Runway 32 at KSBY - just 50ft higher than the ocean!

We stopped in to admire the FBO and got a quote for hand-washing a plane - only $200 for a hand-wash & wax! Not too shabby.....if you have $200 more than you need. The people were really friendly and helpful, and we felt right at home. After having some of Tim's Pizza & Subs, we were back in the air and heading to South Carolina. The air was really calm, although really hot, and I was pretty happy at 4500ft for a while, until I needed to climb up to 8500ft to stay up sort of above the clouds. This is one of my favorite things about flying....just gently weaving in-and-out between big puffy clouds. It really gives the sky texture and gives you a sense of how fast you are going. The relative motion of 150kts at 10,000ft above the ground isn't too impressive.

Cloud shooting over Virginia at 8500ft - Check out the wrap-around view!

The Surry Nuclear Power Plant on the James River. This powerplant had a really unique cooling pond that cut a channel all the way across the Hog Back Island Peninnsula to take advantage of the river flow.

Lake Gaston, VA - a huge lake system on the Virginia/NC border. It looked like a lot of people were enjoying the water as we flew over.

Just west of Lake Gaston on the Roanoke River is Kerr Lake, another giant reservoir

Taking a quick look at the Old North State Club, a golf course on Badin Lake, NC

We landed in Rock Hill and surprise of surprise - we saw a Diamond DA40XL on the ramp! I think that it's the first time (other than Oshkosh) where I've landed at an airport with another Diamond. We tried chatting with the pilot, but he was a chartered jet pilot flying alongside the owner as a safety pilot and he was very grumpy. Apparently, he was sorely disappointed to stoop low to fly the DA40 because it wasn't a jet and it wasn't super fast. WELL, EXCUUUSE ME! I know a bunch of pilots that would be tickled pink to fly the DA40 (myself included). Sheesh....the attitude of that guy was unbelievable. Well, we packed it up and headed out to dinner at Harry & Jeans - a nice little eatery only about 4-5 miles from the Rock Hill Airport. I had some absolutely delicious crab cakes (all that flying over the Chesapeake bay made me hungry for crab) and then went to sleep at the Crampton Inn. The next day, we arose, played a little golf at the Waterford Golf Club (a Hale Irwin course), and I managed to almost break 100, so I wasn't ready to buy a new set of clubs.....just not yet:). We packed it all in the plane and headed back north to the arms of my loving wife. The trip back had us flying over some interesting altostratus undulatus cloud layers over the Appalachians. These clouds are typically indicative of icing conditions in the winter time and can be pretty hazardous when it's chilly out....but in the summer, there's little occasion to drop below the freezing level. We tried flying along at 8500ft, but quickly saw that the clouds were higher still. So, we managed to get the ol' DA40 flying along at 12,500ft....which is the highest that I have ever personally flown. We needed a couple of degrees of nose-up attitude to keep flying at that altitude and could only muster about 130kts of true airspeed at that altitude. The DA40 really is a lot happier flying at 7500-8500ft - that's where you get the best combo of performance and fuel economy.

Cruising above the altostratus undulatus clouds at 12,500ft.

Heading north over a high cloud deck at 12,500ft.

Checking the calibration of our altimeter with a snack bag of Hot Fries!

Swooping back down into Coshocton over the Conesville Power Station.