Wilmington Meeting

The plan today was to launch early (8:30am)and make our scheduled meeting at 10am on the north side of the Wilmington airport.

I felt like I might have something coming on, coughing and sneezing yesterday. I took amoxicillin last night that I have for pre-meds for any dental work since I had my total right hip replaced. When I got up this morning I was feeling good, the cough was quiet and no sneezing, maybe just some allergy's kicking in or the cats hanging out to close.

Mary and I both over slept this morning. We had to hustle over to the airport since I needed to take on fuel before departure. I followed John (Ops) through the gate and he stopped so I could pull along side his truck. He had asked if we were headed out and if we needed fuel, I responded yes sir, 08Romeo needs some go-go juice.

I quickly had 08Romeo on the ramp and pre-flight completed. I did the remote pre-heat last night so 08Romeo was warm and toasty. I had just closed the hangar door as John pulled up in the fuel truck. 08Romeo took on 25 to bring me back to 50 on board. I could make the round trip with plenty to spare but I plan on taking on 10 gallons at FlyAdvanced since I'll be asking for the use of the crew car. I guess it all works out.

Dover AFB - bottom left and the Salem Nuke plant - center

It was a smooth flight north and I picked up my IFR clearance with Dover approach in the air. I was sitting at 4.5 and they assigned a squawk and had me climb to 5000. North of Dover I noted the Wilmington ATIS and let Philly know I had the wx as soon as Dover handed me off. Philly dropped me down to 3000 then 2000 once I had the field in sight. I was cleared for the visual one niner and handed off to the tower.

I swapped info with the tower and was cleared to land runway one nine. A nice landing and long roll out for the last taxiway that would drop me in front of FlyAdvanced. Usually there is a line person there to marshal us in but there wasn't anyone around this morning. I dialed in their Unicom 132.0 while taxing along the outside edge of the ramp. We all know to STOP, set radios or whatever avionics right...I didn't.  I actually ran the left main gear just at the edge of the grass and ramp. Ughhh...throttle up a bit and right turn, no problems and stayed out of the grass...what a dip stick. Once secure, 08Romeo took on 10 gallons and we used the courtesy car for our forty minute meeting.

The return trip was as smooth as the trip north except the tail winds were now head winds. Gone was the 129 knots and now I was watching 90 to 104 knots, we have to pay the piper at some point. 

ADS-B was painting targets and one in particular got my attention. An aircraft that had launched from OXB was coming directly at me climbing, hopefully through my altitude. I was 10 miles north of OXB at the time.  I watched the target turn yellow and as he broke the 6 mile mark he was already above me and still climbing. We crossed with 1200 feet between us and he was almost directly overhead. The iPad did flash a dark orange bar that gave a traffic warning along with an audio alert, good stuff, it gets your attention.

East end of the C&D canal at the Delaware River

C&D canal running west to Chesapeake Bay

My lovely Bride slept on the return leg home so at least she was comfortable. I made my calls and followed with a straight in for runway two zero with a smooth stall horn landing.  Thanks to General Aviation it was an 8:30 departure this morning and we were  back home, airplane hangared, leaving the airport for lunch at 11:50. If I drove this I would have had to been on the road by 7:00 to make our meeting and then after just forty minutes we would have to turn and burn 2 plus hours for the ride home.  2.1 flying round trip vs 4 plus hours driving...a no brainer.