Friday the 13th

N5294W - C172R - 2.8 hours

Apparently this weekend is beach weekend for just about everyone, and I got tired of reading everyone's Facebook updates on the matter, so I did something about it.  Using the same media they were using to celebrate the fact that they were going interesting places, I asked if anyone wanted to go to Ocean City for the evening.  Interestingly enough, an old friend from high school picked up on the offer with a "plus one," if you will.

We worked it out so that he'd get there at about 6:30, and we'd leave around 7.  As I walked into the terminal, I passed by a tall guy who looked a lot like Rick Santorum and thought to myself "hey, that guy looks a lot like Rick Santorum - poor guy must get that a lot."  I dismissed it and walked inside to file a flight plan and write down all the frequencies.  As I rounded the corner, I saw a familiar face from back when I lived out in Phoenix and worked at Deer Valley (DVT).  Turns out one of the flight instructors there, who now works the charter side, just flew Rick Santorum back from a conference in St.Louis.  We caught up for a few minutes and he showed me the plane quickly, but they were off for one more leg to Teterboro (TEB).  Crazy.  Unfortunately, as we'd all find out in a few minutes, none of us were going anywhere anytime soon.

Joe and crew waiting patiently

As I was preflighting and waiting for fuel, Matt and Z both got situated in the plane.  At some point in there, Joe taxied by for the flight up to TEB.  Soon thereafter, as I was getting myself situated, I saw a guy pushing a Cessna on the runway.  Getting out for a closer look, the guy was trying pretty hard to get the plane off of the runway, so Matt and I both ran down there to try and help out, joking that our high school track days are long gone.  The plane had a flat on the left main, so it wasn't going anywhere.  We tried to pull it farther off into the grass, but the airport officials said it wasn't far enough and closed the airport until it was moved.

Killing time

Luckily, the Landmark crew brought a tug out to pull it back to their hangar to take care of it.  As we were waiting, there was very little for us to do, so the pilot of the plane started taking pictures of the plane, and I started taking pictures of the sunset.  I'm sure the people sitting in the run-up area were less than pleased that we weren't doing anything productive, but there was really nothing we could do.  In the end, I think there were four or five aircraft in the run-up before the airport reopened and aircraft could depart.

As soon as the Cessna was past the hold line and clear of the runway, I went back to our plane to get us out of there.  Unfortunately, by this time it was already about 8, which is very clear in the video.  I had it running in HD 1080 this time, not that it looks any better since the low light means it's not picking up much.  The high resolution also killed the battery at about 45 minutes in.  To avoid that in the future, while still capturing high def, I ordered a power adapter.  Here's the takeoff, though:


[Video was here, and then Contour went bankrupt for a bit, so it got lost.]

The flight out started off somewhat oddly, as I couldn't turn eastbound until Potomac TRACON observed my transponder (note the terminology), so that I could proceed through the SFRA and the VFR Corridor that I flew through back in August.  I talked to MULRR (126.1) first, then WOOLY (128.7) and BWIFS (119.7).  While with WOOLY, I got to listen in to the controller handling two flights into Fort Meade (FME).  He pointed them both out to me, and then handed me off to BWIFS where I was alerted to three more targets over the Chesapeake Bay.  Two of them passed under me in an uncomfortable way.  I'm really not sure what they were doing, but they seemed to have gone into Annapolis (ANP).  I wish the video picked it up, but it didn't (though it did pick up my opinions of the pilots, muted somewhat by the sound of the engine).

OC Oceanfront at the Inlet

As soon as I cleared the Bravo and climbed a little, I passed the controls to Matt so he could fly some.  Potomac handed us off to Patuxent Approach, and we stayed with them all the way out to Ocean City.  Closer in to Ocean City, I took the controls and brought us out over the city so Matt and Z could get some pictures of the shoreline. Nearing the boardwalk, I attempted to bring us in to Runway 32, but I was so high I needed to circle back around.  That did the trick, and after landing we taxied back to a dark, motionless ramp.

Walking out, we grabbed a Ford Expedition that was left for us and headed off to the boardwalk.  There, we grabbed some pizza and ice cream before stopping by another friend's place up on 89th Street.  Since we needed to have the plane back, we didn't stay too long and made the trek back to the airport around 11ish.

Back in the air I called Washington Center for flight following, but the controller had me wait and let him know when I was passing 4000'.  At first I was confused as to why, but then I remembered it probably had something to do with the radar not picking up aircraft below that altitude (the area is normally covered by Patuxent, using a different radar site, but they had closed for the night).  Later on with Potomac, I managed to get a clearance through the Bravo all the way back to Leesburg.

FlightAware track for the flight home

Once I had Leesburg in sight, the controller dumped me to CTAF for the landing.  You know the routine from there.

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 2.8 - 53.2 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0.0 - 5.6 (of 40)