Dusk Air
Tonight a little bit of night flying was in the cards, so we headed out to Newport News to hop in 99A. We had hopes of seeing an amazing sunset in flight, but high broken cloud layers were threatening to prevent that.
As we were buzzed out the door to the ramp, the distinctive sound of "jet" could be heard. Not 70 feet away from us was a pair of Dornier Alpha Jets spooling up in preparation to taxi out to runway 7. No doubt my little-kid-smile turned on right as I saw them, but as we made our way behind them, where 99A was parked, the jet exhaust and noise was less than desirable. We were about 40 feet behind them and a little to the right. The sound was loud enough that I seriously contemplated doing the external preflight with my headset shielding my ears. The smell was a little bit choking and the heat significant. But don't get me wrong, I'd rather be near a jet than not. :)
They were taxiing away from us to go do their thing before I needed to start doing my external preflight thing. I started walking K through the preflight procedures when, about half way through, she realized we were getting a little late to be airborne before sunset. I finished up the rest of the preflight alone, making sure to consciously ignore any shred of get-there-itis. Within only a few minutes we were taking off on runway 7, in front of an AirTran 737 from LGA that was lining up on the runway but still quite a few miles away.
As we motored our way southward behind our trusty 2300 RPM fan we could see the sun setting into a cloudy horizon out the right windows. It wasn't the sunset we hoped for but at least we were up flying - that was enough for me. I looked at the ground beneath my window and saw a high school stadium all lit up. On the stands we saw the word "CURE" and K surmised that the carnival-style setup on the playing field was a cancer benefit. I think she was right.
Turning westward over the James river we started making our way to our halfway-point for the night - KPTB. We were there in about 25 minutes and made a full stop landing on 23 just as the sky was getting dark. My landing was pretty good this time - I made an effort to flare a little early since I have tended to flare too late when flying at night in the past. This time I flared a little early but had plenty of speed to bleed off, allowing me touch down smoothly. We taxied back to 23 and headed back into the blackness for the trek back to Newport News.
The trip back was uneventful. I spent time looking for fields in the moonlight and enjoying the city lights on the peninsula. K spent time taking wacky photos with a long exposure (see below). We received a long straight-in approach to runway 7 from the Newport News tower and I managed an even better landing than the previous one (K is my good luck landing charm).
As we were buzzed out the door to the ramp, the distinctive sound of "jet" could be heard. Not 70 feet away from us was a pair of Dornier Alpha Jets spooling up in preparation to taxi out to runway 7. No doubt my little-kid-smile turned on right as I saw them, but as we made our way behind them, where 99A was parked, the jet exhaust and noise was less than desirable. We were about 40 feet behind them and a little to the right. The sound was loud enough that I seriously contemplated doing the external preflight with my headset shielding my ears. The smell was a little bit choking and the heat significant. But don't get me wrong, I'd rather be near a jet than not. :)
They were taxiing away from us to go do their thing before I needed to start doing my external preflight thing. I started walking K through the preflight procedures when, about half way through, she realized we were getting a little late to be airborne before sunset. I finished up the rest of the preflight alone, making sure to consciously ignore any shred of get-there-itis. Within only a few minutes we were taking off on runway 7, in front of an AirTran 737 from LGA that was lining up on the runway but still quite a few miles away.
As we motored our way southward behind our trusty 2300 RPM fan we could see the sun setting into a cloudy horizon out the right windows. It wasn't the sunset we hoped for but at least we were up flying - that was enough for me. I looked at the ground beneath my window and saw a high school stadium all lit up. On the stands we saw the word "CURE" and K surmised that the carnival-style setup on the playing field was a cancer benefit. I think she was right.
Turning westward over the James river we started making our way to our halfway-point for the night - KPTB. We were there in about 25 minutes and made a full stop landing on 23 just as the sky was getting dark. My landing was pretty good this time - I made an effort to flare a little early since I have tended to flare too late when flying at night in the past. This time I flared a little early but had plenty of speed to bleed off, allowing me touch down smoothly. We taxied back to 23 and headed back into the blackness for the trek back to Newport News.
The trip back was uneventful. I spent time looking for fields in the moonlight and enjoying the city lights on the peninsula. K spent time taking wacky photos with a long exposure (see below). We received a long straight-in approach to runway 7 from the Newport News tower and I managed an even better landing than the previous one (K is my good luck landing charm).
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