Marco Island

It was -7 when I got up this morning, with a wind chill of -15.  I preflighted the plane in the hangar at Frankfort, and when it was time to go, pulled it out and jumped in and left in a hurry.  The heater worked great, which was quite helpful, and I had a 4 hour non-stop flight down to southern Florida.  I had strong enough winds I could make it non-stop no problem, with a little powering back action.  So I limited my caffeine and water intake, turned on the heater, watched the sun rise, listened to good tunes, and read a book all the way down.  It was actually pretty relaxing, not a bad way to get paid.  ;)

Down in Florida, like I said, a Phenom came in and this guy was a shit show. I tried to find the non-sweary word to put on Facebook to explain it, but that's really the only word that fits. He didn't know what he was doing, and he didn't know how to do some basic IFR courtesy stuff.  He left me sitting at the end of a runway for over 10 minutes waiting on him to cancel his IFR and then he asked someone else to do it for him because he didn't know how.  When I got home I looked up the owner, and I'm half tempted to shoot off a message with a list of the unprofessional and improper things their pilot did in one 15 minute interaction at an uncontrolled airport.  Except I hate narks.  If I knew who he was directly I'd just go yell at him directly.

The trip home was longer.  Those rocking tailwinds on the way down became rocking headwinds on the way home, and with six of us on board, and bags, we had to take less fuel and power back both. I was doing almost 280 knots on the way down.  On the way home at one point I was doing 130 knots groundspeed.  Y-i-k-e-s.

So we stopped every 2 hours or so, and everyone got out, and we gassed up, and loaded back up, and we were only on the ground for like 30 minutes each time, or less, and that ain't bad.  And getting six people back on a plane in a timely manner is also impressive.  We listened to music, I read a book, we ate sandwiches she made in the back of the plane, and everyone had a reasonably enjoyable flight, actually.  Long, 11.1 hours total again, but good.

The Wordle took me four guesses today.  I had two words it could be, and I didn't guess right the first time.  So it goes.  ;)

I've run out of steam, so I'm going to post the pics and go to bed.

This real working phone was on the wall in Georgia

Smoky Mountains

Knoxville, TN

All of us in the plane.  Ethan, me, Atlee, Amity, Amber, Tell.  :)