Pilot: Bryan K.
November 18th, 2004
Hard to believe that my planned afternoon in Washington turned into an entire week! A series of event (some bad, some good) made me stay way longer than planned in the US capital.
First off, I completely forgot that UK Prime Minister Tony Blair would be in town when I arrived. Needless to say, security was air-tight. The simple thought of having a Canadian flying solo in a turboprop than can fly as fast as a small jet made some “high ranking” officials nervous when I showed up originally to file my flight plan to KORF!
So I decided to do a bit more sightseeing, which turned out not to be a bad thing. I got ready again to leave last weekend, by winds of up to 40 Kts in Norfolk made me change my mind. No sense in risking trouble so early in the adventure!
Then, of all things, fellow Six Pack member Jack showed up in Washington. I’ll spare the details, but let’s just say I was not ready to fly after our night (and early morning) pub crawling in Georgetown.
But finally, I am ready to leave, on this cloudy Thursday morning. Visibility is low in Norfolk, but I just can’t stay here any longer. Of course, with the delay in my departure, the ground staff at the local FBO had to move my plane. But they got my Conquest all ready to leave when I showed up this morning.
This flight should be fairly simple… and quick, since we’ll have a nice tailwind has we go down the Potomac towards Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. After receiving my IFR clearance, I started taxiing to runway 1L. Good news, traffic is quiet this morning, so I should finally be airborne again soon.
Dulles Tower just gave me the green light, and my ATW adventure is back on track!
A last look at KIAD, has I quickly climb to my planned cruising altitude of 12 000’.
With such a great tailwind, and a pretty solid cloud cover, I decided to request FL200, which was rapidly granted. When I reached my new cruising altitude, my Ground Speed reached over 340 kts! Below, I am flying over the Potomac, has it flows into Chesapeake Bay.
Can’t say the weather forecast was wrong! As Norfolk Approach vectors me in for an ILS landing on runway 23, the fog is quite dense over the Bay.
But you can’t fool the instruments! And I finally have a visual to the runway.
On final approach, it’s easy to see that the fog is still “hanging” over the city.
But all turned out fine, has I landed nicely and quickly taxied towards the general aviation parking area.
The fine folks at Piedmont Aviation were waiting for me, since a few of my Six Packs colleagues have already been through here. I’ll only be staying a few hours, since I plan to leave for Greensboro (North Carolina) just after lunch!
Cheers!