Charlottesville? Again?

N144ME - C172S - 1.6 hours

A few weeks ago, when I met up with my Washington Center (ZDC) controller friend, Julie, we decided she needed to get back up in the air.  At first, my plan was to meet a friend for breakfast, then run to the airport for a flight out to Luray or similar, and then run out to Strasburg to visit the grandparents.  Breakfast ran late, so I was late to the airport, and I had booked the plane later than I had thought, so I royally screwed up there.  After calling the grandparents, though, they decided that it was better to visit another weekend anyway, which freed up more time for a longer flight and a longer trip in general.

During the week, we were looking at several destinations, but the last two we were looking at were Luray (W45) and Cumberland (CBE).  Cumberland looks like a nice flight with some cool terrain around the airport, and I know Luray has a few things in town, but I wasn't sure about the availability of cars to get us around on a Sunday.  I did know, however, that my frequent flight spot Charlottesville would definitely have a car for me, so we headed in that direction.

Rolling on 17 JYO

The guy in N144ME before us got back a little early, but something happened to the software the school uses to track its aircraft, so that ended up negating an earlier departure.  In the end, I just grabbed the keys so that I could preflight while they worked out the computer issue.  Everything checked out with the plane and Julie managed to grab the book while I was finishing up, so we jumped in and taxied down to Runway 17 to head down to Charlottesville.

Final 21 CHO

On the way down, Julie got some time on the controls and called a few co-workers up in a few different sectors of ZDC.  The trip down was pretty smooth, but smooth means hazy, as the pilot folk reading this should already know.  I kept it high and fast coming in to Charlottesville to see if I could beat my time from the last flight.  I managed to make it in at 0.7 hours, tying the last flight.  As we walked in, I grabbed the crew car from Landmark to head into historic downtown for the first time in a long time, and grab food.

Charlottesville Historic Downtown

Driving towards downtown, I remembered why I hated the drive down to Charlottesville: stop lights, and an endless amount of them at that.  In any case, I managed to remember how to get downtown without too much of an issue, even though I hadn't been there in three years (not that it's too hard anyway).  I'd forgotten how short the walk is from end to end, but I missed the local feel of the whole thing.  We walked in a few stores to look at what they had, and ended up running in to Great Scott's Popcorn to get a snack.  I think I've only added butter, Old Bay, and maybe salt and pepper to popcorn, so the flavors they had there were quite the experience, and they were actually rather delicious.  Definitely worth a stop if you're down there.

Can you see the excitement?

When you have the crew car, you're only supposed to have it for two hours, max, so we made our way back towards the airport, stopping at Timberwood for lunch.  Our server, who I've had before but have forgotten her name again, made sure we were in and out and back to the airport with a little time to spare on the two hour mark.  It isn't that she's not memorable, it's that I'm horrible with names.  I guess I should work on that.

Unfortunately, when we got back, there was a crew waiting on the car.  We were definitely back within the two hour limit, but the guys seemed pretty irritated.  I can understand that to a certain degree, but relying on the crew car is luck of the draw.  I flew down to CHO and flew back without having ever left the FBO because someone took more than the two hours (Turning into a Charlottesville Regular has that story).  Stuff happens.  Even so, I still feel slightly bad, because some pilots get worked hard, and the last thing they want to do is sit in an FBO waiting on someone else to give them an escape.

Before we left, Julie, being a controller, was able to get us up in the tower last minute for a quick tour.  The controller there had been there forever, and had his quirks, but he also had cookies and a cool view of the airport.  We stayed up there for a few minutes and then decided to head back home while there was still a little daylight left.  On the way out we had to hold short for an inbound SAAB 340, but after they were off, we were off.  The trip back took just under an hour, and I got a few minutes of night PIC.  As an added bonus, Julie handled all the radio work and some of the flying until we got back closer to Leesburg.  I think the next time we head out, we'll have to hit somewhere northwest, or southeast.  Looking at my flight map, it's decidedly lacking in those two directions:

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 1.6 - 40.2 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0 - 4.2 (of 40)