Big East Trip – Travel Day 4
Saturday June 5, 2004
DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3 DAY4 DAY 5 DAY 6 DAY 7
Teterboro, NJ – Allentown, PA
Full stop @ Allentown, PA (KABE)
After an incredibly inept taxi driver took us on a tour of Newark, we finally arrived at Teterboro. This time we had our cameras all charged up and we weren’t going to miss the passing scenery. After taking off from Teterboro, we flew out the way we had wanted to come in a few days earlier. We headed right for the George Washington Bridge, and flew right down the Hudson River on the New Jersey side, at 1,000′ above the ground. We got a great view of Central Park and all of Manhattan. We then flew right over Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. From there it was circumventing Newark Intl Airport then west towards Allentown, PA. Once out of the metro area though, the weather got worse and we once again had to go IFR westbound. Another part of that same system was coming by again. We had to shoot another ILS approach into a low overcast and light rain.
At this point you might ask why we picked Allentown, it’s not on the way, as a matter of fact it’s out of the way. And we had an earlier chance to land at Erie a few days earlier. Turns out Brig’s stepdad’s family lives there. We stopped by, said hi, and had lunch with them. On returning to the FBO, I found out the weather was the same all the way south to Washington. I had to file individual IFR flight plans for each leg of my next trip. But at least there were no thunderstorms, just more of the gray sky, low ceilings, and rain.
Allentown, PA – Washington Dulles Intl, VA
Touch & Go @ Middletown, DE (KEVY)
Touch & Go @ Westminster, MD (KDMW)
Touch & Go @ Martinsburg, WV (KMRB)
Full stop @ Washington Dulles Intl, VA (KIAD)
After departing Allentown, we were in the clouds pretty quick. And unlike our previous encounters with weather like this, we never got on top of it. It was nothing but white nearly the entire trip. Our first scheduled touch & go was at Middletown, Delaware. After getting the wind info (I already knew the cloud info, it was IFR) I picked a runway to use
after shooting the VOR approach. It wasn’t easy spotting the runway, but we did, then did a touch & go and a missed approach. From there it was on to Westminster, Maryland. This day was the same day as AOPA’s huge fly-in to their headquarters not far from Westminster, Frederick, MD. I heard one airplane after another come out of that airport, none VFR or on their own, all on IFR flight plans, the weather was that bad. The approach into Westminster was even tougher than Middletown and we barely picked up the runway before shooting a missed approach. Luckily we got it in time, did a touch & go, then a missed approach.
The whole time I was doing this, Potomac Approach was working me. They are a fairly new facility, but I was impressed on how they worked me on these multiple, and individual, flight plans. Knowing how bad the weather was at Dulles, and how busy it’d get with weather like that, I was concerned about getting in there. The controller wanted to get me in and out of my next stop, Martinsburg, WV as quickly as possible to beat the rush into Dulles. Unfortunately, I was held up too high and too fast and never had a chance to make the runway after shooting an ILS approach. We saw the runway about 800′ below us on our first approach and had to execute a missed approach. For the first time on the trip I was afraid we’d miss a state and have to do it some time later. Luckily, Potomac Approach said there was time for one more try and we shot a successful ILS into Martinsburg, which by now the control tower had shut down, and then a touch & go and missed approach.
Then it was on to the big time, Washington Dulles International Airport, one of the busiest. I was asked more than once if I was really going into Dulles by the controllers. I think one of them thought I was going somewhere else and left me on a vector away from it for a while. Finally I was turned inbound and told to keep my speed up, I expected that. I was now on the ILS for RWY1L, and I could hear the controller clearing airliners behind me for the same runway. That was the fastest approach I’d ever flown, faster than cruise speed until a very short final, then I dumped all the flaps, pulled the power and got on then off the runway pretty quickly. As we pulled off it was one airliner after another landing behind me. We taxied up to the FBO, were treated again like a bigger and more expensive airplane, and were taken to get our rental car.
This was a pretty satisfying day of flying, even though we saw little of the passing scenery. We flew right by Philadelphia, Chesapeake Bay, and much of Maryland, but didn’t see hardly any of it. The onboard weather system did a great job keeping me up on the weather at each airport, the controllers did a terrific job with my fairly demanding multiple flight plans, and the airplane and the autopilot worked perfectly in solid IFR conditions and multiple approaches. Of course, I had a little to do with that as well.
Accommodations
Staybridge Suites/Dulles, Virginia
