Flight Time–Fernandina Beach

The weather today was forecast to be clear all day. That meant it was time to plan a longer than usual flight. Today, we planned to go to Fernandina Beach, on Amelia Island. I planned the flight in Foreflight and we left for the airport.

At the airport, we pre-flighted the plane and prepared for departure. We took off from runway 32 and climbed to 4,500 feet. At this altitude, we were in cool, smooth air and we were high enough that we didn’t need to navigate around airspaces.

When we reached St. Augustine, I attempted to contact Gainesville Radio to ask about the Special Military Activity airspace. Unfortunately, I could not make out what the specialist was saying. Our radios continue to be a frustrating issue for me. To punctuate the fact that we were close to a military airspace, two F/A-18s departed below us and did a climbing turn in front of us, then around past our right side. I half expected them to pull up beside me and signal for me to land, but I knew I wasn’t doing anything wrong. To be sure, though, I descended to 2,700 feet to go below the airspace floor.

As we approached Jacksonville, we had to continue to maneuver around airspace. Once clear, we flew directly to Fernandina Beach and landed to the north.

On the ground, we taxied to the Bent Wing. Susan had called them from Valkaria, so they knew we were coming. Three ground crew came out to meet us. I parked where they directed me, then shut down the engine. One of the workers came up and asked us if we wanted gas. I decided to top off the tanks, just to be sure. Turns out, getting gas waives the landing fee.

We entered the FBO and met the folks at the desk. We told them who we were and they asked us to set up an account. We gave them our information, then asked about restaurants near the beach. They offered some suggestions, then offered to drive us to Slider’s on the beach. We gladly accepted the offer.

At Slider’s we ordered lunch. While waiting, I called the Flight Service Station to ask about the military zone. This time, I was able to hear the specialist just fine, but yet we still failed to communicate. He had no idea what I was talking about. Apparently, no one knows anything about these special, unnamed airspaces that clutter our charts. And to make matters worse, he basically blamed me for not being able to communicate what I wanted to ask.

After eating, we decided to walk around town and slowly work our way back to the airport. We started our walk on the beach. The beach was OK, but I didn’t find it to be all that special. That said, we found a lot of out of state cars in the parking lot. Apparently, some people really like it.

After a short distance, I was done with the beach, so we started walking towards town. It was around noon, so it was hard to find shade, and it was starting to get hot.

We continued walking until we came across a sign for an Open House. We figured that it might be fun to see a condo near the beach, and it would also be nice to get out of the heat for a few minutes. We rang the doorbell and an agent welcomed us inside. She told us about the amenities and offered us water and cookies. The place was very nice and was selling for $570k.

Eventually we arrived back at the Bent Wing. From the outside, the building looks like an F4U Corsair, which is one of my favorite planes from the WWII era.

Back inside, we asked about a comfortable place to sit. We were directed to the pilot lounge. In the lounge, we found a couch and a couple chairs. One of the chairs was a massage chair. If you haven’t sat in a massage chair, I highly recommend it.

After our nice little rest, we left the lounge and looked around the rest of the FBO. The place had many models and lots of information about the Corsair.

While looking around, I saw the pilots of the Wheels Up King Air that had recently arrived. The pilot’s life is still amazing to me. The pilots talked about how they got to where they are in their careers and how they were in New York the day before, and in Norfolk this morning.

After our chat, we decided to prepare for our flight back home. I reversed the flight plan and checked the brief. The weather was still looking amazing along the route. We took off and headed back along the route we came. This time, we climbed to 5,500 feet and enjoyed the smooth air. The flight would have been a complete joy, but Foreflight started crashing again, repeatedly. With it being so cool at our altitude, I refused to believe that it was a heat issue. I disabled the Bluetooth on the iPad and the problem went away. Somehow, it seems that the device that provides traffic and weather information is causing the Foreflight application to crash.

As we approached Melbourne, I started a slow descent to 3,000 feet and tuned in Melbourne Tower. I heard a pilot mention “Gatwick” and realized that it was a TUI pilot. Then we saw that there was another TUI taxing for departure. As we crossed over the airport, the second TUI took off to the east and climbed over the Indian River towards the ocean. It was a very cool sight (but not as cool as seeing the F/A-18s)

We continued south for a few more miles and landed at Valkaria. Overall, the flight was a nice departure from the low cloud experiences we’ve been having this summer.