Polo

Kaylee brought a friend of hers over and we ate at Pastarrific with them. She wanted to introduce her friend to us and us to her and her friend to Pastarrific’s food and Peach Bellini, her favorite.  It was good to see them and we had fun. The friend liked it enough she got an entree to take home to her husband, too. :). Kaylee is doing all right. Yesterday was her last day at Compass Rose before they shut down her end of it, but she goes back Tuesday to her new place, Farrington I believe, and she really likes it there, too.  So, all good.

The rest of this is flying.

This morning I was supposed to leave in the Conquest for Marco Island, FL to take Andy, his wife Sharla, his daughter, his son and his son’s wife, and their brand new baby girl, 6 weeks old.  We were supposed to go yesterday but the weather and the airspace was a shit show, so we waited for today at 10 am. I checked the National Air Space (NAS) website to look for any EDCT (Estimated Departure Clearance Times) or delays, even as of 30 minutes before we were supposed to depart, and there was nothing listed.  So I’m about 10 minutes from loading up and heading out, and I get a private message from Andrew O, a local Grissom controller and pilot. He asks if I’m taking 5CE to FL today, and I said yep! He then says “You have an EDCT of 2015 zulu”. That is SIX HOURS and 15 MINUTES past when I’m supposed to be leaving. That’s 4:15 pm instead of 10 am.  That is Awful. I warn Andy. It’s not VFR all the way so I can’t just go VFR. Then Andrew tells me I should pick up my clearance with Indy.  Bottom line here, if I try to get my clearance with Grissom in the air or on the ground, they can not give me the clearance, they must hold me until 4:15 pm.  But if I take off out of Frankfort, which is right on the border of Indy and GUS airspace, and pick up my clearance with Indy, THEY won’t see my EDCT, just my clearance.  He told me there was an 80% chance they’d just clear me to Florida and have no idea I wasn’t supposed to be there, and that once I got cleared IFR, they’d make a hole for me and they would not stop me when I got down there.  So I told all my people the risks—we may have to turn around and come back, or land in TN before the clouds roll in and wait, or there was an 80% chance we’d get cleared to go to FL. They were willing ot take the chance, so we loaded up everyone and away we went. I flew for 5 minutes until I was in Indy’s space, then called up for a clearance. They asked if I had one on file. I gulped, said yes, my original airport of departure was Frankfort. Long pause, and then they gave me my clearance. I fist pumped, told the back seaters we were headed all the way to FL, it worked!

There were a couple small lines of storms, but nothing big, and most planes were just going over or around it, not a big deal. They didn’t sound any busier than normal, and the weather was pretty good, so I have no idea why they had a 6 hour delay on letting people into the state.  I can’t stand Florida any more. They are such a mess to deal with. New York has all these huge busy Class B airports next to each other and THEY manage their airspace fine. Why can’t Florida get its act together?!

You’re not supposed to try to game the system. You’re not supposed to take off VFR and try to pick it up in the air and force them to clear you. (They won’t). You’re not supposed to file for one place then request a destination change into the airspace (that works sometimes but not always).  You’re probably not supposed to do what I did either, because you’re supposed to “wait your turn”.  Screw that.  I have no regrets. I got in and got it done.  It WAS my turn. ;)

Something like 7 hours, 8 hours in the air today. I haven’t figured it out yet.  Long time in the airplane, my butt got tired of sitting. And I read an entire novel on my iPad on the way down and back. Thank you very much.

I was supposed to do T-6 flying tomorrow but I don’t have it in me. I got home at what, 9 pm tonight after getting up early again.  I’d have had to get up at 5:30 am tomorrow, figure out how to get to where I was going (we have no working planes right now that I can use for a trip), spend the day with high winds again in a T-6 in training, and I just don’t have it in me for tomorrow. I need the day. So I took it.

My laptop is dead, the screen is just blue. Guess that’s the end of that.  :o

Now, I’m finally winding down and getting tired.  Even though it’s only 10:21 pm.  Tomorrow I probably won’t post much, because I’m not planning on doing anything but billing, paperwork, laundry, and watching movies or reading books.  Now we’re all caught up.