Charter Day

N677JA - C172S - 3.2 hours

"Any chance you are flying to Philly today [laughing emoji]"

As a pilot, a text like that is a great way to start a morning. Of course, after figuring the details out, we planned to meet up at my place to drive to Leesburg (JYO) and fly up to Philadelpha (PHL) so that my two friends could attend a fashion show and avoid having to drive on 95 with an impending snow storm the following day. The end plan was for me to fly them into PHL, drop them off in town in the crew car, head back to the airport to eat and sleep some, and then drive back out and pick them up whenever they were ready.

To keep things easy, we all met at my place and drove together to the airport, stopping by Starbucks for some caffeine. This proved to be somewhat of a critical error, as the coffee made the last part of the trip up to PHL rather painful as we were getting vectored around instead of finding a restroom. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We'd originally been scheduled to fly the DA40, as it is slightly faster than the C172, but the cold weather can take a toll on the battery, making it a tough plane to start. Since neither I nor one of the other instructors could get it started, we swapped the DA40 out for one of the newer 172s and we were on our way. Our route of flight brought us up toward Frederick, over Baltimore, towards Havre de Grace, and then over southern New Jersey before being turned in towards PHL and landing on Runway 35. The ground controller was really helpful in directing us toward Atlantic Aviation. While I knew where I was going, I'd never seen the airport from the ground, so the extra attention from the ground controller was a reassuring as taxiways at larger airports can be slightly tougher to navigate as there are more of them, and more aircraft on them.

It was pretty cold out, so I sent the ladies inside to warm up, and change for the show while I closed up the plane and prepared everything for the late night departure. Despite needing to run inside myself, I stayed out to take in that odd sense of familiarity juxtaposed with the strong foreign feeling that you get when flying small planes into larger airports. Even so, the plane seemed to fit in nicely as I appreciated the cold bite in the air, the moon hanging low, the warm glow of the sunset, and the APUs howling away in the distance.

After they had changed and were ready, I snagged the crew van and we set off into the city. The van being a typical soccer mom minivan, we joked about dropping them off around the corner so that nobody would see them, but the part of town wasn't the best so it ended up being door-to-door service. On my way back, I stopped off at the apparently famous Tony Luke's to grab the necessary Philly cheesesteak, and when I finally got back to Atlantic, I devoured it. The place definitely lived up to all of the hype from the locals. With the hunger satisfied, I grabbed my laptop and took care of work for both the day job and for PMDG before taking some time to lay back, relax, and rest for the trip home. My experience with Atlantic the whole night, I might add, was rather good. I'd definitely go back if I ever have a need to go back to PHL.

I started getting texts around 0230 to coordinate being picked up, and ended up making it into town around 0320. We departed a little after 0400 and made it back to JYO just before 0600 as the sun was just breaking over the horizon. Needless to say, the flight back was rather quiet, both on frequency and in the plane. Despite being incredibly tired and in need of warmth and a bed, I'd say that it was an enjoyable day for all of us.

I have a feeling that if you ask me several years from now how I feel about airport appreciation time - the time spent at an airport while being on call, or waiting for your next flight - I probably won't be as enthusiastic, but this time I actually enjoyed it. I had a 'mission' and I was able to help some friends get to where they needed to go. I don't think I could ask for more than that.

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 3.2 - 93.2 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0.0 - 14.7 (of 40)