Short Flight to Fort Pierce

After what seems to me to have been a very long time, we took the plane out for a short flight today. Weekend weather hasn't been all that good lately, but today was looking very nice. Picking a destination proved to be more difficult than expected, but I finally decided to fly to Fort Pierce. Fort Pierce is just south of Vero Beach, has inexpensive avgas, and has the Tiki Bar. I like to find airports with good food and/or good milkshakes. We got a late start, as usual, but the flight distance was short, so I knew I had plenty of time.

At Melbourne, we loaded the plane, but forgot Andrew's booster seat in the car. As Susan went back to get it, I remembered that I wanted to tighten the visor, but didn't have a screwdriver. When Susan returned, I asked her to go back to the FBO and ask for one. While Susan was going back and forth, Andrew and I did the pre-flight checks. Once set, I started the engine and requested taxi for a south departure. During the run-up, I noticed that the engine was running rough on the left mag, so I leaned it out and let it run hotter for a minute. That resolved the problem and we were on our way.

The flight down the coast was nice, but a thin broken layer of clouds at 2,500 feet kept us low. As a result, we got some light turbulence and had to request permission to fly through Vero Beach airspace before contacting Fort Pierce. This was not a problem, but it required some quick radio frequency juggling to accomplish. For some reason, Fort Pierce Tower could not understand me and I almost decided to just fly back to Melbourne, but he understood enough to determine my location and clear me to land.

On the ground, we topped off the tanks and went looking for a milkshake. Unfortunately, the Tiki Bar is all about alcoholic drinks and couldn't satisfy my shake desire. So, we paid for the gas and returned to the plane. By now, it was getting close to sunset. I'm still not night current, so we flew straight back to Melbourne. I decided to fly the western route, over I-95, to avoid Vero Beach airspace. Melbourne Tower cleared me to land on runway 09L, after asking where we were parking. The sun was just dropping below the horizon as we exited the runway. Although brief, my flying urge has been met and the plane got some air under the wings.