Flight to Florida -- The Cure for Winter

6 days, 16.5 hours of flying, 2500 miles, all VFR. The perfect escape from a
brutal Iowa winter!

Here are few PIREPS from the journey:

- Thanks to great weather and a nice tailwind, I climbed to 5500 feet,
leveled out -- and never changed course or altitude again till we touched
down 4.8 hours later. We could easily have made Florida in five hours
non-stop, a new record for us.

- Following Jim Burns' advice, we stopped short in Bay-Minett, Alabama for
fuel. This is a WONDERFUL place to stop, with a great FBO, incredibly
helpful and friendly people, reasonably priced MOGAS (thank God!), and nice
long runways. Tanking up there saved us over $100 compared to Pensacola
fuel prices.

- Pensacola has a nice airport, but I'm really glad we stopped short in
Bay-Minett to buy fuel. The folks in Pensacola barely looked up from their
paper, didn't have a line-guy tell us where to park, didn't move a muscle to
help us carry a ton of luggage (or offer a cart), didn't tie us down, and
generally regarded us as a somewhat amusing nuisance on their ramp. We won't
return.

- The Naval Aviation Museum at the Pensacola Naval Air Station is fantastic.
The fact that the Navy moved the old Cubi Bar from our now-abandoned Subic
Bay Naval Base in the Philippines -- and I mean EVERYTHING, from the
squadron plaques right down to the barstools -- made it all the better. This
museum was the last one of our "must-see-before-we die" aviation museums in
the US -- now we have to start on Europe.

- St. Petersburg's downtown airport, Albert Whittig, is every bit as cool as
Meigs Field in Chicago was! Landing on that little 2800 foot by 100 foot
wide runway, I was surprised to see SAILBOATS at the end of the runway! And,
yes, they were in the water. Precision is rewarded.

- St. Pete's Beach, on a little barrier island in the Gulf, just off-shore
from St. Petersburg, is an outstanding place to recover from winter. I
wouldn't want to live there, but miles of white sand beach and mid-80s sure
felt good.

- Thanks to Jim, who's as Irish as they come, we managed to find not one
but TWO great Irish pubs (one in Pensacola, one in St. Pete) where we could
celebrate St. Patty's day, his birthday, and their wedding anniversary.
Another great use for the internet!

- Muscle Shoals, AL is always a nice place to stop for fuel. Great,
under-utilized facility, nice people, relatively cheap fuel. We always stop
there on our way back from Florida.

- Spirit of St. Louis has a nice airport, and the Jet Corp FBO is extremely
nice -- but they are used to the jet crowd. We paid $5.20 per gallon for
100LL! Next time, we won't simply taxi into the closest FBO when there are
several to choose from. (We knew when we saw the *free* Starbucks coffee
and individually custom wrapped, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies that we
were in for a world of hurt -- but it sure was a nice place.)

- The flooding in Missouri was incredible. After flying over a "normal"
Mississippi River one day, and then (just 5 days later) flying over after
15" of rain, the difference was amazing. We saw many isolated farmhouses,
and lots of Coast Guard helicopter performing rescue work. (They were
staging out of KSUS)

- If you've never been to City Museum in St. Louis, make plans now. This
was our third visit, and we always leave wanting more. It's an
indescribable place, sorta like a museum on acid -- but where else would
they stick an old LearJet on a four story pole, and then weld up re-bar
coils to let kids (and us bigger kids) safely climb up to it?

Florida ain't cheap, but, boy did it feel good to hit the beach for a day or
two. We made it down in record time (thanks to our 84 gallon fuel load) and
truly enjoyed a few days away from the late-winter Midwest.

Click to view pix from our flight:

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/2008_florida_trip.htm

Blue skies!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Nice post as usual, Jay. Thanx. It's probably the only way this old
Walter Mitty is gonna get to FL.

Nice post, thanks.
That Lear Jet at the museum is fantastic!!!

John

Jay Honeck wrote:
6 days, 16.5 hours of flying, 2500 miles, all VFR. The perfect escape from a
brutal Iowa winter!

Here are few PIREPS from the journey:

- Thanks to great weather and a nice tailwind, I climbed to 5500 feet,
leveled out -- and never changed course or altitude again till we touched
down 4.8 hours later. We could easily have made Florida in five hours
non-stop, a new record for us.

- Following Jim Burns' advice, we stopped short in Bay-Minett, Alabama for
fuel. This is a WONDERFUL place to stop, with a great FBO, incredibly
helpful and friendly people, reasonably priced MOGAS (thank God!), and nice
long runways. Tanking up there saved us over $100 compared to Pensacola
fuel prices.

- Pensacola has a nice airport, but I'm really glad we stopped short in
Bay-Minett to buy fuel. The folks in Pensacola barely looked up from their
paper, didn't have a line-guy tell us where to park, didn't move a muscle to
help us carry a ton of luggage (or offer a cart), didn't tie us down, and
generally regarded us as a somewhat amusing nuisance on their ramp. We won't
return.

- The Naval Aviation Museum at the Pensacola Naval Air Station is fantastic.
The fact that the Navy moved the old Cubi Bar from our now-abandoned Subic
Bay Naval Base in the Philippines -- and I mean EVERYTHING, from the
squadron plaques right down to the barstools -- made it all the better. This
museum was the last one of our "must-see-before-we die" aviation museums in
the US -- now we have to start on Europe.

- St. Petersburg's downtown airport, Albert Whittig, is every bit as cool as
Meigs Field in Chicago was! Landing on that little 2800 foot by 100 foot
wide runway, I was surprised to see SAILBOATS at the end of the runway! And,
yes, they were in the water. Precision is rewarded.

- St. Pete's Beach, on a little barrier island in the Gulf, just off-shore
from St. Petersburg, is an outstanding place to recover from winter. I
wouldn't want to live there, but miles of white sand beach and mid-80s sure
felt good.

- Thanks to Jim, who's as Irish as they come, we managed to find not one
but TWO great Irish pubs (one in Pensacola, one in St. Pete) where we could
celebrate St. Patty's day, his birthday, and their wedding anniversary.
Another great use for the internet!

- Muscle Shoals, AL is always a nice place to stop for fuel. Great,
under-utilized facility, nice people, relatively cheap fuel. We always stop
there on our way back from Florida.

- Spirit of St. Louis has a nice airport, and the Jet Corp FBO is extremely
nice -- but they are used to the jet crowd. We paid $5.20 per gallon for
100LL! Next time, we won't simply taxi into the closest FBO when there are
several to choose from. (We knew when we saw the *free* Starbucks coffee
and individually custom wrapped, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies that we
were in for a world of hurt -- but it sure was a nice place.)

- The flooding in Missouri was incredible. After flying over a "normal"
Mississippi River one day, and then (just 5 days later) flying over after
15" of rain, the difference was amazing. We saw many isolated farmhouses,
and lots of Coast Guard helicopter performing rescue work. (They were
staging out of KSUS)

- If you've never been to City Museum in St. Louis, make plans now. This
was our third visit, and we always leave wanting more. It's an
indescribable place, sorta like a museum on acid -- but where else would
they stick an old LearJet on a four story pole, and then weld up re-bar
coils to let kids (and us bigger kids) safely climb up to it?

Florida ain't cheap, but, boy did it feel good to hit the beach for a day or
two. We made it down in record time (thanks to our 84 gallon fuel load) and
truly enjoyed a few days away from the late-winter Midwest.

Click to view pix from our flight:

http://www.alexisparkinn.com/2008_florida_trip.htm

Blue skies!

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:NWrHj.96911$yE1.61751@attbi_s21...
6 days, 16.5 hours of flying, 2500 miles, all VFR. The perfect escape from
a brutal Iowa winter!

Here are few PIREPS from the journey:


Jay: Great story and pics.Let's hope it warms up
here in the northeast soon.

Bob Barker N8749S

Well...Thanks Pal... I'm just a couple of miles up the road from St Pete
and you don't even want to have a beer?.... I'll remember this.

Sorry, Bob -- that really WAS stupid of us!

In our defense, we really, honestly didn't know we were headed to Florida
until the morning we left -- and we were meeting Jim & Tami there, and it
was their anniversary, and we were thinking of finding ...

Oh, hell...okay, I've got nuthin'. I just plain forgot you were in that
neck of the woods, Bob. I therefore owe you TWO fruity/girly drinks (with
umbrellas in them) at the next Sun N Fun we attend...or, if you EVER make it
up to OSH, dinner at Friar Tucks is on us!

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

That Lear Jet at the museum is fantastic!!!

Isn't that a kick? City "Museum" (or whatever the heck you call it -- it's
so much more than a traditional museum) is the most amazing place I've ever
been. Their newest addition is a huge 1926 Wurlitzer pipe organ that --
when played inside that six-story former shoe factory -- sounds absolutely
phantom-of-the-opera astounding...

If you ever get to St. Louis, check City Museum out. No pictures or words
can adequately describe the place.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I thought you said it was global warming, the cure for winter...

Bertie

"Jay Honeck" wrote in
news:1HCHj.97663$yE1.68829@attbi_s21:

That Lear Jet at the museum is fantastic!!!

Isn't that a kick? City "Museum" (or whatever the heck you call it --
it's so much more than a traditional museum) is the most amazing place
I've ever been. Their newest addition is a huge 1926 Wurlitzer pipe
organ that -- when played inside that six-story former shoe factory
-- sounds absolutely phantom-of-the-opera astounding...

If you ever get to St. Louis, check City Museum out. No pictures or
words can adequately describe the place.

Great aviationcontenet, there, Jaybo.


Bertie

On Mar 29, 9:59*am, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
6 days, 16.5 hours of flying, 2500 miles, all VFR. The perfect escape from a
brutal Iowa winter!
- Thanks to great weather and a nice tailwind, I climbed to 5500 feet,
leveled out -- and never changed course or altitude again till we touched

Jay,

Thank you for the great pirep. With the report of all VFR in 6 days
of flying, you convinced us that it can be safe to make the trip from
NY to Florida this time of the year. We have always wanted to make
the trip in early spring but were quite leery of weather. In the
Northeast, weather swings wildly this time of the year.

An example of this was our short flight of 126nm from Poughkeepsie,
NY to Nashua, NH for the New England Aviation Safety Expo yesterday.
Both TAFs and other weather sites predicted perfect VFR weather. We
planned for both IFR and VFR just in case. Sure enough the next
morning a totally unpredicted snow squall visited KPOU leaving snow
flakes on top of the frost on the wing. It blew over quickly but our
departure was delayed by over an hour.

Rick did not want to file IFR since we were legal but did feel
proficient enough and there was always strong icing possibility if we
ever got in the clouds. So we departed VFR climbing to 7500' following
the IFR route and tuning in approach frequencies to practice our
instrument flying skills. Less than half an hour into the trip, we had
to descend to 5500' to conform to cloud separation rule. Before long,
we had to go down to 3500'. About 15 miles to our destination, even
though ATIS stated 4000' broken ceiling, the cloud and mist was down
to 2000' and the terrain was rising.

To avoid scud running, we had no choice but to find a blue hole to
circle up (the commercial chandelles would be handy but Rick did not
think it was needed). I called Boston approach and asked for a popup
IFR clearance to descend back down through the cloud. They told us to
maintain VFR at 5000' with a 360 heading. This would get us into to
cloud so Rick circled inside our little blue hole to remain VFR. ATC
got back and asked us why we were heading south! Once they learned of
the situation they quickly gave us IFR clearance and vectored us
around to avoid the paths of other aircrafts. One of them was
supposedly VFR and stated that he could not see us! I told approach
that we were in the cloud at 4000'.

So Rick got about 20 minutes of real IMC since it was not VFR until
we got down to around 1500' with the airport about 4 miles straight
ahead. ATIS still gave a rosy scenario of 4000' broken ceiling and
visibility of 10 miles or so but it was quite misty with some snow
flurries. During the time we were in the cloud, I nervously monitored
the meat thermometer for icing signs and was quite relieved to find
none.

The trip back was perfect VFR all the way. I stayed at 8500' to be
above the layer of scattered clouds at 6000' and calm flying
condition. It was perfect to maintain my goal of
2degrees-2knots-20feet variations. About 30 miles to KPOU, I started
to descend and it was bumpy all the way down. I did a short field
landing on 33 with wind at 35, 9knots gusting to 20. It was a routine
landing with all the landing practices that we had done for the
commercial check rides.

I am quite curious on your reason of staying at 5500 feet for the
entire trip. Was it because of the ceiling? If there was no ceiling
problem, I'd think that flying at 7500 would be calmer and more fuel
efficient especially with a tail wind.

I will save your post for our future Florida trips.

Regards,

Hai Longworth

I will save your post for our future Florida trips.

The secret to doing long, multi-day VFR cross country flights is to be
relaxed and flexible about your ultimate destination. Remember, we always
have three destinations flight-planned, and choose the one with the best
long-range weather prognosis on our day of departure. Thus, even though we
once again hoped to go to the Hangar Hotel in Texas, for the third spring in
a row we scrubbed the idea and headed direct to Florida, thanks to
nasty-looking predicted weather in the Texas panhandle.

The other "secret" (although it's hardly rare) is to have XM weather. With
that incredible tool on board, we know what we're flying toward hours in
advance, and can make adjustments accordingly.

For example, we left Pensacola (heading South to St. Pete) with conditions
marginal VFR and deteriorating. However, with XM weather (and a thorough
pre-flight weather briefing), we knew that flying North (away from the gulf,
which was pumping the moisture on-shore, causing the lowering
visibility/ceiling) would get us quickly into nice VFR, and then (at
Tallahassee) we could hang a right and head straight south in good (if
incredibly turbulent) VFR. From Tallahassee South, ceilings were 3500
scattered-to-broken, and the view of the gulf was fantastic.

I would NEVER have attempted that flight "pre-XM", simply because I'd be
trying to paint a picture of weather in my head from a radio briefing (IF
you could even get ahold of Flight Service), and you'd have no idea of the
"big picture" that live XM paints so wonderfully for you.

With XM, however, it was just another routine flight. Not comfortable,
thanks to the bumps (and, yes, it would have been nice to have gone on top
of the layer, where conditions were reported to be smooth by Jim & Tami, who
were IFR in their Aztec), but entirely safe.

Flying at 5500 feet, my lovely wife has corrected me -- we *did* climb
to 7500 feet after departing Iowa City, and never deviated again until we
landed in Bay-Minett, AL.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"