10,500 feet is way the heck up there!

I've spent a fair number of hours droning along at 10,500 feet in the
MidWest. (For you mountain-flyer-types that think 10.5 K is LOW, that
altitude is a lot different here in Iowa, cuz it puts you almost two miles
above Mother Earth.) It's usually quite boring, and is something I
normally do only en route.

However, I've never actually maintained that altitude *over* an area I was
familiar with. This past weekend we were on our way back from leaf-peeping
in Wisconsin, and the visibility was just stunning -- crystal clear, azure
blue skies, with no humidity and temperatures in the upper 60s -- so it
seemed like a perfect time to get some aerial photos of Iowa City.

(I've been trying for some time to get a picture for our website that had
enough scale to show the whole area, and our position in it -- but have just
never had the right opportunity.)

A few things I discovered:

1. Two miles up is actually TOO high for good photography with a standard
Canon Elph digital camera. The pictures I found to be best were taken
around 8,000 feet as we slowly spiraled down to land.

2. The kids thought it was great! With hundreds of hours in the air over
the last nine years, my kids are old pros that only rarely look out the
windows anymore. At 10.5K over familiar territory, however, they were like
newbie passengers again, squealing and pointing. We were all amazed at what
we could see.

3. Spiraling down from 2 miles over the airport takes a LONG time! I tried
to maintain a nice, easy 300 - 400 fpm descent, which meant circling the
airport for twenty minutes in order to land!

4. It was fun watching the landing pattern from a "God's Eye" point of
view.

It's not something you would normally think of doing, but if you get a
chance viewing your home turf from WAY up high is kinda fun!

(And you can take a peek at the picture I selected for our opening webpage
at www.AlexisParkInn.com. It's really shows our position relative to the
airport and other important local attractions. For our potential guests,
this picture really is worth a thousand words...)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"