Sunday, December 16, 2012

MQS Lunch Run

After saying goodbye to Danny and his Mom, Vince and I decided to get a bit more air time. We called AeroWays for fuel then with sumps complete we saddled up for KMQS-Chester County and the Flying Machine Cafe.  Vince handled the take off roll and got us in the air very nicely.  The radio was busy at Chester County with all the other airports on the same frequency, it's a mess.  We did manage to weed through the hornets nest of calls and slowly but surely picked out all our traffic into and out of Chester County.  It was a busy place with pilots taking advantage of the nice wx before the front passes through tonight bringing cold wx and rain.


I suggested entering on the cross wind for runway one one and Vince asked about crossing mid-field and circling back to enter on a forty-five for the down wind. The student in him shines through and as Picard (Star Trek reference) would say, make it so.  We overflew one thousand above pattern altitude and made a wide right descending circle back towards the pattern.  All the while dealing with traffic coming in to enter the down wind.  Vince did a great job and I made the radio calls to get us to down wind, base to final.  I took control and once again made a super soft landing. 
It was time to eat!Vince and I each had a roast beef with cheese, the sandwiches were pretty good. We talked flying of course and plane spotting. We settled up the bill and decided to get back in the air. While we were heading out we heard the call of a flight of five RV's.  Yep, we had to stay and watch them come in. I was hoping it would be Bill from Pilot Bill's RV and Travel Log. I was not disappointed, Bill was in the lead ship and made a sweet landing, I knew that paint scheme from his blog. Once the group taxied in and shut down I went over to introduce myself as a reader of his blog. The conversation was short, I wanted to get in the air and he had his group looking hungry.  A rare moment to put a face with the blog, good stuff!
Vince and I saddled up and headed for Wilmington. Vince wanted to pick up flight following with Philly but it is not worth it for a ten minute ride home. I advised they were busy enough and didn't need to have us since we weren't going to be needing to enter their space. With that a few check in's were picked up but told to remain clear of the bravo.

Upon contacting Wilmington tower we were directed for a left base entry on runway niner and acknowledged. Vince took me to a very short final and just about had us on the ground when I took control and asked him to shadow my control input. I added some power to arrest that "butt sink" feeling and with just a tad of power it made for a sweet landing once again, sometimes we just get lucky.

Once clear and 08Romeo was shut down we reviewed our landing, the approach angle, sight picture and that right time to flair for landing. I tried to compare the Cessna landings with the Sundowner.

That's it for this weekends flying. Tomorrow is football and some house projects. I have one item left to pick up for my Bride and then my Christmas shopping is completed.
One last note.  On the way out of the airport Vince spotted this Red Tail Hawk sitting on the road sign. Great shots Vince! The hawk sure does look better on that sign vs meeting in flight.

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