It was Morgan's day to do this on her own while I just sit there. I asked her if she was going to add to her list of reasons why she is mad at me, but she said she thinks she's over that and will be fine. The whole way there she did great. Made all the decisions, radio calls, flying, even the approach into Atlanta/LZU. I didn't have to tell her anything, and she didn't ask any questions. All was well.
We picked up Caleb, the weather in Atlanta was supposed to be around 400' and 2 miles, which is fine. We launch, get in the air, and about an hour into it, the weather up there in Atlanta has taken a serious dump. In fact, it has gone downhill all the way up past Knoxville, TN. Like I said, it wasn't forecast to go below 400', but apparently it didn't know that. To make it even better, airports around there amazingly don't have approaches that go down to 200' and 1/2 except Atlanta International (the busiest airport in the world). Almost EVERY tower controlled field has at least an ILS down to 200' and 1/2, but not here! The few that have them are all NOTAMd higher minimums for a year or more for cranes or whatever. Peachtree's ILS only goes down to 400'! Covington's lowest RNAV is 300'. Fulton County's lowest is 300'. LZU where I usually go is 281' and 2/3, and their weather went down to 200' and 1/2 while I was still 45 min out, and half the places went down to 100'. I didn't have enough gas to go north of Knoxville, where it was not foggy any more. I could go to ATL but would rather not, and I really had one option left, Athens, which does have an ILS that goes to 200 and 2/3, and got in there. Airplanes were diverting all over. A TBM came in right behind me who had tried LZU too. I didn't even try, because the weather update was fresh, and everything was going down, and I didn't want to not get into Athens, either, so I abandoned LZU and made a run for Athens. On the ground there were a couple local flight school planes that were trapped and unable to get back into their home airports because the wx took them by surprise.
I went through enough rain I think I got some bugs cleaned off too.
I abandoned the "not helping Morgan with anything on this flight" plan, because she's never seen or done anything like that, and leaving her to her own devices in Atlanta's airspace with the weather tanking quickly would have been meaner than I cared to be. Now that she's done it, she'll remember it, and she'll be able to work it herself next time, I feel pretty confidently.
Got home at 5:30, and they waited for me this time, and put the plane away for us, and I didn't have to put all the prop stuff on it. So that was nice!
Stopped at Taco Bell on the way home because I had a weird craving, and now it's time to get caught up from today and get ready for the rest of the week. Tomorrow I'm flying the Purdue coach in the Cheyenne to Toledo for a game, Wednesday I'm flying MBros 340 to Eagle Creek with a couple who won the flight at a charity auction, going to Rick's Boat Yard restaurant for a sunset flight. Thursday I'm airlining out to Wyoming to pick up the Conquest, stopping in Colorado, and then coming home. Another long day on that one, but glad to have the Conquest home!
Marion Airport has an ice cream shop inside!
Look at these flavors!
Morgan as the sun came up
Interesting sun 'rainbow' circle...thingy.
A couple of Florida water views
Coming in to land in Athens
THERE'S the lights!
Morgan accidentally turned to a line guy and did this when he put chocks in and she was horrified so we re-created it later and it makes us laugh every time we think about it
Pretty Georgia stuff
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