ATW with the Six Pack

Leg 6: KATL-KJAX

Pilot: Bryan K.

November 29th, 2004

After having “Georgia on my mind” for almost a week, I decided it was time to leave for Florida. During my stay in Atlanta, I had the chance to do some sightseeing with Jack for a few days. Needless to say, the sightseeing involved some pub crawling (again!). Jack flew to Jacksonville yesterday, but I stayed back to visit some friends who live in Savannah. But now is time to leave. The weather forecast is nice, and I filed a low flight plan to check-out the scenery has I fly to the southeast.

No doubt about it, KATL is one busy place. I arrived early so that all the formalities could be done for my departure. Atlanta Hartsfield being a Livewire hub, I had the mechanics take a quick look at my Conquest during their downtime. All is in order, so it’s time to fly!

After received my IFR clearance to Jacksonville from Atlanta Clearance, I tuned all my navigation tools and radios. After contacting Atlanta Ground and receiving my taxiing instructions, I released the parking brake and started rolling at 9:36am. While taxiing to runway 9L, I noticed some work being done in this area of the terminal. Damn, as if this place needed to get bigger!

Taxi was short to runway 9L, and I had to hold short for just a few minutes, while Delta 1012 took off.

At 9:49am, I am cleared for take-off, and to finally leave this very busy place.

One last look at KATL, has I rapidly climb to 11 000’.

The flight to Florida was quite boring I must admit. But I did manage to fly over some pretty sights, like Jackson Lake…

…. And right between KMCN (Macon) and KWRB (Robins Air Force Base), also in Georgia.

At around 83 nm from Jacksonville, I received my first vectors for an ILS landing on runway 7. Later, Jacksonville approach instructed me to descend to 7000’, and then 2000’. I crossed a flew clouds on descent, but visibility was fairly good as I progressed towards KJAX.

With the skies around KJAX pretty quite, and the winds calm, I decided to fly the approach “by hand”, without the always faithful autopilot. I came in a bit to the left, but quickly corrected and followed the needles fairly well. My landing was a bit rough… But no passengers on board to complain!!

Taxiing was long, since both the GA parkings at Sheltair Aviation and Signature Flight were full, or awaiting other incoming flights. Ground control sent me at the other end of the terminal to park. After turning off the engines and climbing out, I made some arrangements for refuelling, and headed to the terminal for lunch. After that, I will be on my way to Orlando.

Cheers!