08R’s Headed to Annual

Mary and I dragged ourselves out of bed this morning so she could run me to the airport (Wilmington) and then head over to her Mom and Dad’s to meet the movers. It has been a crazy….CRAZY few weeks in our home. Truth be told I am as nervous as can be about the first annual on 08R after we spent so much on the down payment, insurance, tie down location and the list goes on. Mary on the other hand has been busy helping her Mom and Dad get ready for the move to their condo and the sale of their house while taking the time to send out resumes for potential work. I have to give her a lot of credit; I don’t know how she does it.

Some history leading up to this morning....Mary and her cousin Amy went through the condo top to bottom spending Sunday cleaning and Monday putting the kitchen together and getting things set up. I thought the place was pretty darn clean to start but hey, I’m a guy what do I know. I was wide awake Monday morning by 3:30am and now that the day is coming to a close I was really dragging. Mary and I met at the house last night, took care of the zoo then headed to Elkton, MD (58M) Cecil Aero to drop off a car so that I would have transportation to work. Two vehicles making the run, rush hour traffic and I am starting to really feel the effects of very little sleep last night. I was leading the way and somehow managed to find this gem on the back country road and having not been here for a year. A few things I noticed; There is a new terminal building that is really impressive and a new parallel taxi way to access runway three one. We locked up the car and piled in the truck, both dogs in tow. Maggie and Rudder came with us just for a change of pace.

Why does it never seem to take as long going home as it does getting to the destination? One of those mysteries of life I would guess. We made it back to the house around 7:30 and after letting the pups out we went right to bed, we were both dead beat tired. I also started to feel like I was getting a sore throat and the sinus was acting up. I had one pill left from my last antibiotic prescription so I took that and crawled in bed. I managed to drift in and out and did catch the last inning or two of the Philly win over the Yankees. Mary let me know this morning that between me and Maggie girl it’s lucky the house is still standing, we both were snoring pretty badly.

I am up and ready to go around 6am and the dogs are ready to eat. Mary tossed and turned all night reminding me that the little guy, Rudder, walked all over the bed last night and kept her up. I wouldn’t have known if a bomb had dropped. My throat feels better and I’ll call the doc for meds to fight it off. Mary was up, showered and ready to roll by 7am. I drove to the airport and together we uncovered 08R. I ordered fuel from AeroWays since Dassault didn’t answer the phone. 08Romeo took on 21.3 gallons of fuel for her 2.5 hours of work on our last flight. 8.5 gallons per hour burn and I’m just starting to get the hang of the JPI engine monitor.
Mary left for her parents and I got the plane started. I sat for a good bit letting the oil temps come up all the while enjoying the sun as it was warming the cockpit.

I picked up the ATIS info and called ground for taxi instructions. I was directed to taxi to runway one, that’s it, just taxi to runway one. Hmmm…ok, Zero Eight Romeo taxi to runway one. I took my normal path and once at the hold short I completed my run up. Once cleared to take off I gave 08R some throttle and we were off. It was gorgeous this morning, at least around Wilmington. Looking towards the Chesapeake Bay I could see ground fog. When I was nine out of Cecil County I announced my positions and intentions. Winds were out of 240° at 6 knots so I planned to land on runway three one with a crosswind. I was watching the ground fog linger around the bay and hang around Elk Point just of the extended center line of runway one three or as you can guess covering the approach to three one. I decided to buy a bit more time and repositioned for a crosswind entry to three one and I was at pattern altitude of one thousand feet. I turned to the downwind and d had a clean view of the three one approach and had the numbers clearly in sight. As I added a second notch of flaps and turned left base the end of three one was covered by ground fog. Ugghhh….one three was clear to the north so I announced my new intentions to enter the left downwind for one three and give this a try. Down wind was looking good as I watched my airspeed and position to the runway. I was keeping this one tight as I turned base then final now deciding to hold off on the last notch of flaps until I was over the displaced threshold. I was right on it, descent looking great, on center, last notch of flaps added followed by wheel chirp, I was on the ground. Flaps retracted and brake brake brake, there would be no missed this round. I made a turn off at the old terminal and taxied back to Cecil Aero in search of a tie down.

Tale of the tape for 58M
Runway 13/31 Dimensions: 2987 x 70 ft.
Displaced threshold: Runway 13 is 288 ft - Runway 31 is 602 ft

Roger walked out to meet me and he chocked the plane. I handed over the books for 08R and stood around to chat for a bit. I know he is busy so I told him I would wait for his call so I could take time off work to ‘assist’ (get in the way) for the Sundowners first annual. There will be more posts and lots of pictures to document the process. There is so much to learn about a new plane!