Obituary for Noemi Haksch

Noemi Irene Haksch, 94, of Rockville , VA, went to be with her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ on Saturday November 30, 2024. Affectionately known as Mama, Nagymama, and Aunt Noemi, Noemi was loved by all who knew her gentle and loving nature.

Noemi was preceded in death by her parents, Jenő and Rosalia Nagymajténi, husband, George E. Haksch, sons, Thomas Joseph Haksch and John “George” A. Haksch, grandson, Gabriel Thomas Pearce, and sister, Anikó Bús

Noemi is survived by her daughters, Noemi (David) Pearce, Susan (David) Straka, son, Peter E. Haksch, grandchildren Michelle, Theresa, Alisa, Michael, Ephraim, Caleb, Noah, and Andrew, 12 great-grandchildren, and four great-great grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews in the US and Hungary.

Noemi, who was born and raised in Hungary, lived through German and then Russian occupation during World War II. She and her family had to relocate several times to avoid invading soldiers, including crossing the frozen Danube.

Noemi graduated from a teacher’s college but worked as a statistician in Hungary. She married the adventurous, George Haksch, in March of 1952 and at the end of that year welcomed the first of their five children, George. A few years later Noemi and family had to escape the then communist Hungary without telling family and with only the clothes on their backs. She lived in a refugee camp in Austria until they found distant relatives of her husband to sponsor them to emigrate to the United States of America.

Noemi focused her life on nurturing her family of five and being her husband’s helpmeet. In Richmond, Virginia she was self-employed in the home, including providing childcare for working families, and worked outside the home for the US Census bureau. When she moved to Rockville, VA she worked at the Goddard School and the former Missionary Learning Center caring for young children, and watched her local grandchildren after school. Her tender loving care of children inspired her daughters and a family friend to pursue careers in caring for and educating children.

After the passing of her beloved husband, Noemi moved from her Rockville, VA home to a senior apartment in the Tuckahoe area of Richmond, VA. Despite being an introvert, she enjoyed socializing with the women in her building and arranged for regular “happy hour” get-togethers to watch game shows, do puzzles, and play cards and bingo.

Noemi’s last months were lived with her doting daughter, Noemi and family, during which she shared family meals and celebrations. Noemi received in-home nursing care from James River Hospice, and direct care from her daughters Noemi and Susan, and granddaughter, Alisa. On Thanksgiving Day, the family gathered around her bedside to serenade Noemi with her favorite hymn, “Amazing Grace.” Noemi was ushered into heaven while surrounded by Noemi, Susan, and Alisa.

Noemi was a member of Berea Baptist Church in Rockville, VA, where the Visitation and her Celebration of Life will begin at 1 PM on Saturday, December 21, 2024, with a reception following the service. Graveside service will be at Westhampton Memorial Park at 2 PM on Monday, December 23, 2024 . In lieu of flowers, please make contributions to Berea Baptist Church: https://onrealm.org/BereaBaptistChu/-/form/give

Flight Time–Seaplane Rating

Ever since I earned my Private Pilot Certificate oh so many years ago, I thought it would be fun to follow it up with my seaplane rating. When we lived in Bothell, Washington, we would go down to a park on the shoreline in Kenmore and watch the Kenmore Air planes return home from a day’s work. There are few things as cool as watching a Beaver on floats gliding in for a smooth water landing in the golden glow of “Magic Light”.

Now, twenty-five or so years later, I finally chased that rating. It all started when I began to reconsider how to spend my time once I leave software behind. I figured I’d rather fly planes than sit around the house watching TV. To do that, I’d need to get hired. To get hired, I’d need to accumulate more flight time. I bought a share of the Valkaria Flyers Piper Cherokee 180 and have been building time in it for over a year. While searching for jobs for low-time pilots, I came across a company located in Fort Lauderdale that flies Cessna Caravans on floats to the Bahamas. Ever since finding this, I’ve been checking off boxes from their qualifications. The single engine seaplane rating was the big one that needed to be achieved.

To get things started, I flew the Cherokee to Winter Haven early one morning. I went to visit Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base. I planned to park at the FBO, then walk about a mile to Jack Brown’s, but instead, I asked if the FBO could drive me over, and they said yes!

While there, I walked around the facilities, checked out their maintenance facilities, and talked to several people. It was clear to me that this was a first-class organization. I then went to the front desk and signed up for my two-day training window. I was hoping it would be sooner, but I accepted October 30-31.

On October 29, I drove to Winter Haven after work. I had rented a small over-garage condo for two nights. Finding it in the dark was challenging, but the owner gave me clear directions from where Google thought I should go.

The next morning, I got up early, ate breakfast, and drove to Jack Brown’s. It was peaceful and quiet, and the lake had only the tiniest of waves from the light breeze. I soon met the other student and the ground instructor, and we began our two-hour ground session. I asked too many questions, so the instructor had to rush to get all his topics covered in the allotted time.

Piper Cub at dawn

I met my flight instructor, and we walked out to the dock to start out pre-flight. The main difference to pre-flighting a plane on floats is that you cannot access half of the plane because it is over water. This turned out to be a non-issue, as the ground crew rotated the plane around for me. Another very important issue is water in the floats, so the ground crew pumped water from the floats before every flight. And one more difference is that you wear your floatation device at all times.

N46168 at the ramp

The ground crew untied us from the dock and gave us a gentle shove downwind. I started the engine, lowered the water rudders, and started idle taxing away from the dock. Given that the Seaplane Rating is just an add-on to my existing license, I did not have to demonstrate all maneuvers that a pilot would normally demonstrate. I also did not have to concern myself with communication or navigation.

For the first flight, we departed Lake Jessie and headed to the training area. I was instructed to do some slow flight and a stall, then we headed for one of the many nearby lakes. My first landing was pretty decent, warranting a knuckle bump from my instructor. We practiced idle and step taxiing, and rough water take-offs and landings. Eventually, we returned to the base.

After lunch with the other student, I was back in the air again to continue training and learning the glassy water take-off and landing techniques. I don’t know what happened during lunch, but during this flight, I was wildly misjudging my height above the water and consistently flared too soon, requiring a quick injection of power to avoid slamming onto the water. At one point I asked if I could fly the length of the lake as low as possible so that I could get the sight image in my head. My instructor agreed, so I did it, but in the end, my landings were still not what was desired.

N46168 at the dock

After debriefing, I went back to my condo, dropped off my stuff, and took a long walk around the nearby lake. When I got back, I found that the power was out in the condo. This was not good, since I was planning to read all of the material a few more times and it was just about to get dark. I considered going to a library or coffee bar, but they all closed soon, so it wasn’t worth going. Luckily, the power came back on, and I was able to read and prepare for day two.

Day two started early with a quick breakfast and drive to the seaplane base. During the night, I thought a lot about what was different from the first flight to the second flight. I realized that during the second flight, I was using the trim during the approach - something that I had not done on the first flight. I decided to remove that as a variable from my approaches today.

After reaching the base, I found my instructor and we began our third flight. The flight was going pretty well, but not perfect. After two and a half hours, I was getting hot and tired, and I was ready to return to the base.

My next flight was supposed to be my check ride, but I felt like I still had some things to work out. There was not enough time to fly again and take the check ride, so I decided to use my next flight time window to fly with my instructor and reschedule the check ride for another day. While I was busy with the scheduler, the Cessna was out flying with another student. When it returned, we realized that all the planning was unnecessary because the Cessna had a large crack in the spinner. The plane was now grounded until the spinner could be replaced. I worked with the scheduler and arranged to continue with a flight on Friday, November 8.

During the week of November 4, Susan got a call from her sister, urging her to go to Virginia. I put her on a commercial flight to Richmond the next morning and wondered if I would need to fly home, too. As a result, I was unable to focus on flying, so I rescheduled my seaplane flight until Thursday, November 14.

On Thursday, I drove back to Winter Haven to continue my training. After flying for an hour, I felt that I was ready for the check ride, so I said that I wanted to return to the base. My instructor asked me if I was sure, and I said, "Yes."

Back at the base, my instructor and I sat down to debrief the flight. I was mentally preparing myself to take the check ride, but he had other ideas. He pointed out that we still had several maneuvers to practice before he would sign me off. If I'd known he felt this way, I might have considered continuing the previous flight. Instead, I had to reschedule my check ride for a later time. After a long discussion with the scheduler, I planned two flights for Saturday, November 16.

On Saturday, Susan and I drove to Winter Haven, hopefully for the final time. My first flight went very well, and my confidence finally started to build. On the way back to base, I noticed a water park below us and descended to take a closer look. My instructor told me that we were flying past Legoland.

After a quick circle around the park, my instructor guided me toward Lake Winterset. The lake he pointed out had a much smaller lake attached to it with a narrow canal. He wanted me to land in the small lake and use the canal as the landing lane. Once I saw the canal and the small lake, I looked at him like he was crazy. He said that he was serious, so I set up for a normal approach to the small lake. During the approach, a pontoon boat entered the canal, so I did a go-around. I soon entered the downwind again, and this time the landing lane was clear of boaters. I continued the approach and splashed down in the small lake, then shot through the canal like gas through a funnel, settling into an idle taxi in the larger lake. This turned out the be the final shot of confidence that I needed before taking the check ride.

Back at the base, we did our normal debrief, then Susan and I went to lunch. After lunch, I met my examiner, and we started our discussion. He asked me real-life, scenario-based questions about how I would handle various situations. Some of his questions were quite humorous and I had to ask him to stop making me laugh because I was trying to concentrate.

After the oral part was complete, we headed out to the ramp. The Cessna was waiting for us and the ground crew was sumping the floats. I opened the door and found my floatation device. I asked the examiner if he had his, and he asked if he needed it. This led into a brief discussion about the differences between the FAA rules and the Coast Guard rules. Finally, he asked me if I wanted him to wear it, and I said, "Yes". He respected my Pilot In Command decision making and went to get it.

With the preflight complete, the ground crew shoved us away from the ramp and I started the engine. We taxied out into the lake and determined the wind direction and chose a takeoff lane. The lane was shorter than I'd like, so we started the takeoff run with a slight crosswind, then turned upwind, then turned crosswind again to avoid taking off into the Winter Haven traffic pattern, lifting the right float out of the water before becoming airborne. He pointed me to the north and we flew over to Lake Mattie, where I did all the various types of landings, take-offs, and taxiing techniques. During the glassy water takeoff, the examiner reduced the power slightly to simulate the extra drag caused by smooth water. It was very enlightening to see how much longer the take-off run took in this condition.

In less than an hour, we completed everything that the examiner wanted to see, so we returned to the base. On my approach to Lake Jessie, he told me to land within 100 feet of the buoy in the middle of the lake. I had seen the buoy on previous flights, but I couldn't see it during the approach. He guided me toward it until I finally saw it and I splashed in right beside it and step-taxied toward the base. I idle taxied up to the ramp, then cut the engine for the final 10-foot drift.

Back at the base, we debriefed the flight. He pointed out that I need to work on my coordination, but other than that, I did well. He handed me a package that contained a printed certificate, and he signed my logbook. I am now a Commercial Seaplane pilot.

Flight path of the check ride

Flight Time: 8.2 hours
Total Time: 650 hours

Hurricane Milton

For the past week, we’ve been getting to know Milton – Hurricane Milton. Milton started off like many hurricanes – a tropical disturbance – in the Gulf of Mexico. Throughout the weekend, it grew and eventually made it all the way to a Category 5 hurricane. It was projected to cross the Florida peninsula on Wednesday evening. For obvious reasons, this one got my attention.

As the week started, I had to decide what I was going to do. For as long as I have lived here, I’ve never stayed home for a hurricane. We have always packed up and made a mini vacation out of them. This time, Susan was in Virginia with her mother, and Andrew was at UCF. Andrew was told that classes were cancelled for Wednesday and Thursday. I was at work, with guidance that Northrop Grumman was not going to shut down the site. I had a dental appointment at 2:00 on Tuesday, so I knew I was leaving work at that time, but I wasn’t sure if I was going back Wednesday. I was surely taking off today.

On Tuesday night, I discussed some options with Susan and Andrew. We decided that Andrew and I would both stay where we were. I would later learn through an email that NG decided to shut down the Melbourne site on Wednesday and Thursday. UCF eventually decided to cancel classes on Friday as well. Had I received this information a little earlier, I could have picked up Andrew after my dentist appointment and driven, or flown, somewhere fun, like to Dallas to see the Union Pacific Big Boy steam engine, or to Georgia, or even to Virginia. But that didn’t happen, so I stayed at home, alone.

Since I didn’t leave town, I needed to find something to do on Wednesday. At first, that was easy. I have lots of things to check and update on the computer. After that, I decided I should probably prepare the yard for the approaching tropical storm (or higher) winds. I started with the back patio. I removed everything that I thought might get carried away.

The patio, before preparations

After many trips to the garage, the patio was ready for the storm. The only things left were the heavy granite table, the hot tub, and some baskets full of pool supplies. I moved the sandbag from the table onto the baskets, along with a bag of potting soil.

The patio, after preparations

After clearing the porch, I went inside and turned on the TV. I quickly found that I couldn’t pull myself away from the WESH 2 News broadcast, with its continuous, commercial-free coverage of the progress of the storm as it approached the Gulf Coast of Florida. It was unclear whether it would make landfall at Tampa Bay, or further south. This was a big deal, due to the rotation of the storm and how it effects the storm surge. If it arrived to the north of the bay, they expected a 15-foot storm surge into the bay. If it arrived to the south of the bay, they expected a very small surge, and possibly a drop in the water level, as the winds pushed the water out of the bay. This was very important to the people living there, for obvious reasons, but also because they had just dealt with the storm surge from Hurricane Helene just a few weeks earlier.

As Milton approached landfall, it weakened due to a large, dry airmass moving into the Gulf from the northwest. Even so, the counterclockwise swirling bands were still spinning up tornados in Miami and up the coast. As I watched the drama on the News, there was one tornado warning after another. Slowly, the warnings proceeded northward and eventually approached Melbourne. There were several strong cells just southwest of here, on the west side of Interstate 95, near Deer Park. Luckily for me, the next set of strong cells were offshore as they passed Melbourne. Cocoa Beach wasn’t as lucky, as those cells came back onshore and did some serious damage. The News team was struggling to verify if there were actually any tornados touching the ground because the storms were also creating an enormous amount of rainfall, with rates up to seven inches per hour. Later, the News reported that there were 98 tornado warnings issued, and there were four fatalities due to a tornado that hit in Fort Pierce.

Milton made landfall around 8:30 PM, as a Category 3 storm, near Sarasota. This is south of Tampa Bay, so that was good for everyone in the bay area. I went to bed around 10:00 PM, wondering what I might find in the morning.

During the night, I was awakened to the power going out. My subwoofer makes a low popping sound and my uninterruptable power supplies chirp when the power goes out. I thought I might have to get up and turn them off. Luckily, the power came back on a few minutes later and the chirping stopped. Later I awoke to hear strange noises coming from the roof. All in all, I was surprised how quiet the storm was. I expected the wind to keep me awake, and terrified of what might come slamming into the house.

This morning, after the sun rose, I started looking around. Out back, I noticed that the two angled braces in the corners of our screen were no longer connected. I also noticed a few dead palm branches lying in the yard.

A view of the back yard

Out front, I was surprised to see very little evidence that a hurricane had passed right over us the night before. I’m sure part of that is due to Hurricane Helene knocking a lot of branches down a few weeks earlier, but still, there wasn’t even standing water.

A view of the front yard

When I walked out further, I notice a bunch of loose shingles on the ground. I wondered, “Where did these come from?” I remembered the strange sound I had heard during the night, so I walked around the house to inspect the roof. I could not see any missing shingles on my ridge lines.

Scattered shingles

Later, when the light rain stopped, I went outside to start cleaning up the small branches. I created a pile in the back yard, then started raking the front yard. I quickly got tired of raking, so I moved everything that I moved to the garage back to the patio. It was nice to get the cans of fermenting yard waste out of the garage. When I finished this, the rain started to pick up. This felt good for a while, but then I decided to go back inside to cool off.

Several hours later, the sun started to come out through gaps in the clouds, so I walked around the neighborhood. I was hoping to find a house with missing shingles. I walked the loop and didn’t see any missing shingles, so I pulled out the ladder and climbed up on my roof. The smaller ridge lines were all intact, but then I saw a long, black streak on the top ridge. At least a dozen cappers were missing.

I climbed back down and pulled out the rake again. I finished raking the front yard and added my twigs to the large pile of broken trees that my northerly neighbors had created earlier. Now we just have to wait for the yard waste guys to come haul it all away. Hopefully that will happen before the grass under the piles dies.

Ridge line with missing shingles

The picture below is the full track of Hurricane Milton.

Track of Hurricane Milton

Flight Time–Stuart

According to the forecast, today’s weather was supposed to be nice this afternoon. With this information, I decided to leave work early to go fly. When I got home, I changed clothes and pulled up a planned flight that I’ve been wanting to fly. To my surprise, there was a Convective Sigmet along the route. I tried routing to another destination, but that route had thunderstorms predicted for my time of passage. I was hoping to fly for four hours and to land just before sunset, but going west was out, so I started looking at weather along the coast. I decided to fly to Stuart again.

Susan and I departed Valkaria at 4:00 and headed south along the coast. I contacted Orlando Approach while climbing to 5,500 feet. Approach told me to contact Miami Center, and I obliged. After passing Fort Pierce, I was passed on to West Palm Beach Approach and then to Stuart Tower. The ATIS reported that the active runway was Runway 12. After contacting Tower, I was told to report a three-mile final for Runway 16. This was more in line with my current heading, so I was fine with the unexpected runway assignment. After landing, I exited the runway on Taxiway D1.

Then things got a little confusing. Since I had just landed on Runway 16, I expected to be given a clearance back to Runway 16 along Taxiway D, with a hold short at Runway 7. Instead, I was told to taxi to Runway 12 along Taxiways D and C, with a hold short at Runway 12. As I taxied north along Taxiway D, I crossed over Taxiway C and stopped short of Runway 7. Tower told me that I was not where I should be, then asked if I could do something else, which I didn’t know. I told Tower that I was unfamiliar and that I’d look at my chart. I then asked if I could continue to Runway 16, and I was granted my request.

The interesting thing about this turn of events is that I was just talking to someone about aviation, and I told them that the key to communication is to know what to expect so that there are no surprises. In this case, I had back-to-back surprises, and I was not prepared to handle them. Looking back, I should have asked for progressive taxi instructions or spent a little bit longer studying the chart before moving.

Airport Diagram of Witham Field, Stuart

Back in the air, we turned to the north and contacted West Palm Beach Approach, while climbing to 3,500 feet. As we approached Valkaria, I told Approach that I did not want to land yet because it was too nice to land. He handed me off to Orlando Approach and told me to tell them my intentions. After contacting Orlando Approach, I was told that he would follow me to Cape Canaveral, then drop me. And that’s what he did.

Cape Canaveral

At Cape Canaveral, I turned west and flew to the St. Johns River. I followed the river and lakes south past Melbourne. At Palm Bay, I found the power lines that pass through The Compound and followed them. We passed over the spot where Andrew recently launched his rockets and earned his L1 certification. We continued south to Vero Beach, passing over our old neighborhood. Finally, we turned north and followed the Indian River back to Valkaria.

The Compound

The flight track is shown below.

Flight track to Stuart and around the area

Flight Time: 2.6 hours
Total Time: 634 hours

Flight Time–West Palm Beach

Today I wanted to fly to another new-to-me airport and the weather forecast looked pretty good to the south. I chose to fly to a small airport just south of Palm Beach International Airport.

The flight started as usual. One difference is that I made sure that my iPad mini was connected to the ADS-B device before I started to taxi. I departed Valkaria on Runway 32 and turned to the south. Once clear of the Valkaria traffic pattern, I contacted Orlando Approach and asked for flight following to KLNA. Approach asked me what altitude I wanted and I asked for 5,500 feet. I flew along the Indian River until I passed Stuart, then decided to pass by a large cloud to the west. Soon after making this decision, Approach told me that my flight following was cancelled and to squawk VFR. I was caught off guard, as I didn’t request to cancel flight following, and now was when I needed it most. Approach quickly came back on the radio and asked if it was me who wanted to cancel flight following and I said, “No, I would prefer to keep it.” Approach apologized and told me to keep my squawk code. I was pleased with this decision.

Soon afterward, Approach told me to follow the shoreline at 1,000 feet or below. Luckily for me, there were no clouds on the south side of the large cloud that I was bypassing, so I was able to easily descend clear of the clouds.

Clouds beginning to tower above me

I descended to 900 feet and followed the shoreline past West Palm Beach. Along this route, I flew over the infamous Palm Beach Country Club.

Lost Tree Club golf course, West Palm Beach

A little further south, I flew past Mar-a-Lago Club and Palm Beach International Airport.

Palm Beach International Airport

A few miles further south, Approach told me that a frequency change was approved, but to maintain my squawk code until I landed. I made my first position report to Palm Beach County Park, but was surprised to hear no one else making traffic reports to that airport. I noticed a few other planes near the airport on Foreflight, but still no one was reporting to the airport that I was flying to.

There were, however, planes reporting to Lantana Traffic. I soon realized that Lantana Airport also had Runways 10 and 28 and one of the planes was on downwind to Runway 28. I was able to identify this plane by his icon on Foreflight, so I concluded that Palm Beach County Park and Lantana were the same airport. I updated my position reports to Lantana Traffic and landed on Runway 28.

After landing, I rolled to the intersecting runway, turned off Runway 28, then turned onto Taxiway Charlie. I reset my transponder to VFR and taxied back to Runway 28. I was number one for take-off and was soon back in the air.

Once clear of the traffic pattern, I called Palm Beach Approach and asked for flight following back to Valkaria. I was given a new squawk code and told to fly west, avoiding the tall antennas in that direction. I stayed low because I had the uneasy feeling that I would bust the Class C airspace if I exceeded 1,600 feet. But then I convinced myself that I was not told to stay outside the airspace and that I was talking to Approach, so I was good to keep climbing. Even so, I stayed below 1,600 feet until I was outside the Class C ring before I continued climbing up to 2,500 feet. I could not climb any higher due to the clouds, and they were too tightly spaced to find a gap to fly up through.

I stayed below the clouds nearly all the way to Stuart, then I made a change. I so blue sky along the coast, so I turned towards it. I had to descend to 2,200 feet to get below the last cloud, then I was in the clear. I started climbing to 3,500 feet. I needed to get above 2,500 feet to fly over the Stuart Class D airspace. Right as I was starting my climb, Approach told me to turn left to a heading of 280 for departing Stuart traffic. Uh, I couldn’t do that without entering the clouds or entering Class D airspace without permission, so I responded, “Unable due to clouds.” Approach responded quickly and said something unintelligible and I continued to climb straight ahead. I could see that the departing traffic was not going to be a factor.

I followed the coast the rest of the way back home. Just south of Sebastian, Approach told me to stay at least five miles east of the airport to avoid parachute jumpers. I replied, “Will do.” A few minutes later, I was told to squawk VFR and frequency change was approved. I tuned in Valkaria Traffic and commenced setting up my pattern entry for Runway 32.

After landing, I taxied to the fuel pump to top the tanks. There was a Cessna 152 parked at the pump and two girls were struggling with the hose. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to get it out or put it away. The struggle went on and on, with both practically climbing into the box for better leverage. Eventually they succeeded at whatever it was they were trying to accomplish, and they got back into the plane. Soon, they started the engine and taxied away. I noticed that something was hanging from the right side of the plane, so I called them on the radio, but got no response. I tried again a minute later, but still no response. I decided that I tried my best, then taxied to the pump. Before I shut down the engine, one of the girls thanked me for letting her know about the item hanging from the plane. Yay!

The flight track is shown below.

Flight track to and from West Palm Beach

Flight Time: 2.6 hours
Total Time: 632 hours

Flight Time–Winter Haven

Recently, I’ve been thinking about what I need to make myself a more complete and potentially a more hirable pilot. One of the things that is missing is a seaplane endorsement. So, I did a little bit of investigating and found a few flight schools that provide seaplane training. The top choice for me was Jack Brown’s Seaplane Base in Winter Haven. Today, I planned a flight to Winter Haven to see the place for myself.

The flight over started around 9:00 AM with me leaving Valkaria. The flight did not start off as desired, though. I recently bought a new iPad mini, and I haven’t worked it into my routine yet. Since it does not have a built-in GPS, I must ensure that it is connected via Bluetooth so that it can get location data from the ADS-B receiver. I did not do that before taking off, so my location was not showing up on Foreflight. Once I was clear of the airport and stabilized, I connected the device, and everything worked properly from that point forward.

The flight to Winter Haven was short and took about 30 minutes. The sky was mostly clear, and the ride was smooth at 2,500 feet. The weather reports I reviewed earlier showed some areas of fog and low clouds, and I flew over a few patchy areas along the way.

At Winter Haven, I entered the pattern and landed on Runway 23. From Google Maps, I knew that the seaplane base was at the western side of the airport, but I wasn’t sure if I could park the plane there. Instead, I parked on the ramp near the FBO.

The FBO at Winter Haven

The FBO is very nice and modern. I was greeted when I walked in, and I asked if there was any way I could get a ride over to Jack Brown’s. The attendant told me he’d check, then came back a moment later. He said that he could drive me over in the company truck. We walked out to the truck, then proceeded to drive down the taxiways and across Runway 11. He dropped me off, then gave me the number to call when I was ready to be picked up. How cool was that?

Meanwhile, I noticed that I had a voice message, so I listened to it. It was Pat from Jack Brown’s. She told me that she’d be there and to come on in when I arrived. I went inside, met Pat, and we talked about what it takes to get a seaplane endorsement. Then she gave me a quick tour of the place. I left her and walked out to the docks and watched as a ‘student’ prepared to fly the Cessna 172 on floats. The pilot started the plane, then slowly taxied to the far end of the lake. Eventually, they took off and I went back inside.

Cessna 172 on floats prepares for flight

I talked to Pat again and we worked to find a time on the busy schedule. The soonest I could get in was the end of October. She gave me a packet of information, then I walked back outside and called for a ride back to the FBO.

Back at the FBO, I thanked them for the ride and walked out to the plane. The flight back to Valkaria was quick, but bumpy. The clouds were now building, and I stayed under them at 2,000 feet.

Back in Valkaria, I topped off the gas tanks, cleaned the plane, then headed back home. The plan was to get cleaned up and go back to the office. Unsurprisingly, I found it very hard to concentrate on work after thinking about aviation all morning. I'm looking forward to reading and learning about what it takes to operate on floats.

The flight tracks are shown below.

Flight track to Winter Haven

Flight track to Valkaria

Flight Time: 2.0 hours
Total Time: 629 hours

Flight Time–Local

It’s been nearly a month since my last flight, so I really needed to get back in the air. Unfortunately, the weather has been less than ideal for VFR flying – that’s life in Florida in the summer. But today started off nice and clear, so I went for it.

Since the last flight, I’ve made a few changes with my Electronic Flight Bag. Since Garmin Pilot would not update the maps during flight, I decided to make the leap and bought a brand-new iPad mini. With nearly a month left on both my Pilot trial and my Foreflight subscription, I figured I’d have plenty of time to try them both. A few weeks ago, I tested Foreflight’s ADS-B connection while on the ground, outside the hangar. Foreflight remained running the entire time and I could see the traffic in the pattern on the screen. This gave me hope that it would also work properly in the air.

We arrived at the airport, did the preflight routine, and started the engine. After run-up, we taxied to Runway 28 and got in line behind a Cessna 172. There were several planes in the pattern, so we had to wait a while for the pilot ahead of us to get a gap to take off. After five or ten minutes, we took off.

Our plan was to fly south to Stuart, land, then fly back to Valkaria. As we flew south along the shoreline, I found a large gap in the clouds and started climbing. At 3,500 feet, I realized that we’d have to keep climbing, so I continued up to 4,500, then 5,500 feet. It was obvious that the clouds to the south were already rising too high, so we changed plans and diverted west towards Okeechobee and climbed to 6,500 feet. We made a slow turn over the town, then started back towards Valkaria. The clouds continued to rise, and I climbed to 7,500 feet to stay above most of them. We flew along a route with the lowest clouds, which led us to the coast just south of Vero Beach. I saw a large gap in the clouds and began a descent to 2,500 feet.

Flying along at 7,500 feet

During the flight, Foreflight performed very well, showing us nearby traffic and reliably running the entire time. As I descended around the Vero Beach Class D airspace, Foreflight showed intersecting traffic a few offshore, inbound to land. We saw the small jet on the extended centerline heading our way and crossed its path with a mile to spare.

We continued north up the coast and were surprised to find no one in the Valkaria traffic pattern. I entered the pattern, landed, then taxied back for a few more trips around the pattern. On the third and final approach, I aimed for and landed on the numbers, giving myself plenty of room to take the first taxiway off the runway.

With this flight, I’m confident that Foreflight will operate properly on my iPad mini. When I got home, I extended my subscription for another year.

The flight track is shown below.

Flight track

Flight Time: 1.9 hours
Total Time: 627 hours

Flight Time–Outer Banks

Thursday, August 15

Recently, we were invited to spend the weekend in the Outer Banks of North Carolina by Susan's sister.  The timing was right so that we could include Andrew in our plans. That is a very long drive from Melbourne, so of course, I looked into flying instead.

About a week before the flight, I noticed that a tropical storm had shown up on the National Hurricane Center's seven-day outlook. Obviously, a hurricane along the route would put an end to all flight planning. As the week progressed, the storm grew into Hurricane Ernesto, but its path was predicted to move to the northeast, far from our intended route. Another possible issue was my partners, but they were fine with me taking the plane for the long weekend.

On Wednesday evening, we gathered all of our things and weighed them. We knew the plane could haul the three of us plus fuel plus about 125 pounds. Somehow, our things only added up to half that, so we were good to go.

On Thursday morning, we started our adventure. We left the house early, stopped for breakfast at McDonald's, then drove to the airport. We loaded the plane and were in the air before 9:00 AM. It just so happened that SpaceX was planning a launch, and we were lucky enough to see it launch and return to the landing zone.

SpaceX Starlink launch

As we approached Daytona Beach, the weather started to get bad, as the forecast had predicted. I diverted to the west to avoid it, but that resulted in me getting closer to Orlando's Class B airspace and restricted airspace. Daytona Approach told me to turn to the east, so I found a gap between the clouds and headed for the beach. The weather along the coast was acceptable as we continued along towards Jacksonville. At this point, we were approaching several restricted airspaces, so I asked Jacksonville Approach about them. They told me that as long as I was talking to him, I was cleared to proceed. That put a smile on my face.

The flight over Georgia went smoothly, but we did have to maneuver around clouds. By the time we reached Savannah, however, the sky was clear. We continued north towards our first fuel stop in Allendale County, South Carolina.

Allendale has a very nice, small airport with reasonably cheap gas. We were the only ones there when we arrived, so we went directly to the fuel pump. It felt very good to get out of the plane after over three hours of flight.

With the tanks fuel, we pushed the plane to a parking spot, then went inside to relax and use the facilities. The kitchen had drinks and snacks for sale, and I saw some fresh peaches in the refrigerator. I made a mental note to buy some on the way back on Sunday.

Allendale County Airport FBO

After an hour break, we were back in the air. Our flight took us east towards the coast. As we approached Myrtle Beach, Myrtle Beach Approach directed us inland for traffic. I asked if we could fly over the beach, and he eventually granted my request and let me fly at my discretion.

Myrtle Beach Airport

Our trip continued northeast past Wilmington and New Bern, North Carolina. At this point, our flight plan was complicated by the many restricted areas ahead. To my surprise and astonishment, Cherry Point Approach told me that all the airspaces were cold and that I was clear direct to Manteo. This reduced the workload for the remainder of the flight. Now I was able to enjoy the scenery, as we crossed over the inlets and marshland.

As we approached Manteo, I prepared for landing by listening to the automated weather. I was surprised to discover that they have an undocumented parttime tower. At 10 miles out, I contacted tower and was cleared number 2 for landing. We landed around 4:25 PM. Manteo tower guided me to the ramp, then turned me over to the UNICOM for parking instructions. I was told to park anywhere I liked, except for behind the fuel truck.

Manteo Airport FBO

Once parked, we unpacked and covered the plane. We went inside and got the rundown about fuel prices, overnight parking fees, and car rentals. The staff was very laid back and not at all concerned about making us pay for anything at this time. We called an Uber and waited for it to arrive.

Andrew outside the Manteo Airport FBO

The Uber arrived shortly and drove us to our hotel. Susan's sister was planning to arrive on Friday night, so we booked a hotel for two nights in Manteo. The driver dropped us at the hotel, where we checked in, dropped our stuff off in our room, then started thinking about dinner. We decided to take a short walk into town. Susan found a place that sounded good - Hungry Pelican - so that's where we went.

After dinner, we explored the town. The town is very old and quaint. As we walked along, we passed the Pioneer Theater. I was so impressed that I had to stop and have a look inside. The owner was there and gave us a little history lesson and let us peek inside the actual theater, which was about to show Frozen. Later, we passed by a tour group. The guide was describing the death of the famous pirate, Blackbeard. We capped off the evening by stopping for ice cream and watching the sunset from the bridge to Roanoke Island Festival Park. On our walk back to the hotel, Andrew snapped a photo of the Pioneer Theater.

Pioneer Theater, Manteo

Friday, August 16

The plan for Friday was to explore the Outer Banks by air. The first stop is the must-see spot for all pilots - the Wright Brothers Memorial. We visited the memorial last fall, but my pilot dream has always been to fly there and land at First Flight Airport. So that's what we did first. After breakfast, we caught an Uber to the airport and prepared for flight. The flight from Manteo took 10 minutes. It literally took us longer to taxi for takeoff and taxi to parking then it did to fly.

Parked at First Flight Airport, Kill Devil Hills

After parking, we signed the guest book in the small pilot building, then walked up the hill to the monument. Since we were here last fall, we didn't stay long. We quickly walked back down the hill and visited the gift shop. Susan was looking for a gift for a friend.

Wright Brothers Memorial

Back at the plane, we continued our tour of the Outer Banks. We departed First Flight and followed the coastline south towards Ocracoke Island. The visibility was not very good, but we had a nice tailwind. I set the power to a low setting and cruised along slowly at 90 knots indicated.

First Flight Airport and Wright Brothers Memorial

Along the route, we passed over the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. We turned east as we passed Cape Point. We reached the end of the road in Hatteras. This is as far south as I'd ever been. To continue by car, you'd need to take a ferry to Ocracoke Island. I hear that ferry can take an hour. In the plane, we crossed that distance in a few minutes.

Cape Point on Hatteras Island

We continued past the town of Ocracoke and set up to land at the Ocracoke Island Airport. The landing was memorable for two reasons. First, the airport is only a few feet above sea level. There was water in the ditch on the right side of the runway. And second, that water attracted a flock of sea gulls, that, upon our arrival, decided to take off all together. I landed and applied the brakes as birds flew over and around the plane. We managed to avoid a bird strike and parked on the ramp.

Ocracoke

It was nearly time for lunch, and we were ready to eat. We walked about a half mile to the edge of town, then caught the free tram. The driver suggested a Mexican food truck - Eduardo's Taco Stand - so we asked to be dropped off there. The place was pretty busy. We found a picnic table with an umbrella and ate our burrito bowls and fish tacos.

Hatteras ferry dock, with the airport in the distance

After lunch, we continued Susan's search for a gift for a friend. Everywhere we stopped, the store owner suggested another store that might have what she was looking for. After stopping at a few stores, I was ready for an ice cream break, so we stopped at the Ocracoke Fudge & Ice Cream Shop. Then we continued our search. Eventually we determined that the last best chance to find something was at a place we passed while coming into town. We caught the next tram at the Ocracoke Island Discovery Center, across from the ferry dock, and rode it back out of town. We stopped one more time, at the Pirates Chest, and were overwhelmed by the amount of stuff they had. Sure enough, they even had the gift that Susan had been searching for.

With gift goal achieved, we returned to the airport. Before getting in the plane, Andrew and Susan wanted to see the beach, so we detoured that way. It was windy, but the waves from Hurricane Ernesto, which was many miles offshore, didn't seem all that big to me.

Back in the plane, we departed Ocracoke Island Airport and headed back towards Manteo. We stopped briefly at the Billy Mitchell Airport near Hatteras so that I could add a pin in my Visited Airports map. The approach was interesting because it was right over the beach and close to houses. After taxiing back to takeoff, we saw a bunny along the edge of the cut grass. While taking off, we saw a small deer cross the far end of the runway. This deer was not alone. The second deer remained clear of the runway. Since I was doing a short field takeoff, I was high above them when I reached where they were standing.

Bodie Island Lighthouse

Up the coast a few miles, we flew over Rodanthe. Andrew thought it was odd that people built their houses over the water. I suggested that maybe they were built inland, but the water eroded the land out from under them. Soon afterwards, we passed by the Bodie Island Lighthouse. And then we were back at Manteo.

On the ground, Susan checked in with her sister. Her sister was getting close and said that she would pick us up from the airport. The airport was closing, so we waited outside. Soon, a familiar green Chevrolet Colorado pulled up to us and offered us a ride. We got in and rode past the hotel to the rental house in Nags Head. After dinner, they took us back to the hotel in Manteo.

Saturday, August 17

On Saturday, we took a break from flying. We ate breakfast, then went for another walk into town. We wanted to see the pirate ship on Discovery Island, but it was not free, and we didn't have time to do the tour. So, we returned to the hotel, checked out, and caught an Uber to the rental house. We discussed the possibility of going for a sightseeing flight but decided to go for a walk past Jockey's Ridge and to the pier. The waves along this stretch of beach were larger than normal, but still didn't look all that impressive. Eventually, we reached the pier. By this time, Susan's sister was ready to go shopping and said that she'd pick us up. We asked her to meet us at the Surfin' Spoon Frozen Yogurt Bar.

Once our ride arrived, we went shopping for T-shirts and groceries. Back at the rental house, we made dinner while her sister's family went out to dinner. That evening, we started looking at the weather forecasts for Sunday; they were not what I was hoping to see. We spent the night, but the forecasts made for a somewhat restless night.

Sunday, August 18

We awoke early so we could get an early start. The forecast was no better. We could expect rain and low ceilings in North Carolina. The coast of South Carolina also looked bad. And Florida was expecting afternoon thunderstorms after 4:00 PM. My one hope was to get past the rain by flying due west from Manteo and finding the clear weather on the other side. If we could get that, then we'd have a chance of beating the storms in Florida. My stomach was feeling queasy as I tried to eat breakfast.

We caught another Uber back to the airport and prepared for flight. Before walking out to the plane, a man walked into the FBO and headed upstairs. I asked if he was the Tower controller, and he said yes.  I asked him if he could set us up for flight following. He said he would.

Once in the plane, we called up Tower and sure enough, he gave us a squawk code and the frequency for Cherry Point Approach. We took off and started flying our route to the southwest. The visibility was very poor. It was like we were inside a VFR bubble and everything outside the bubble was IFR. We continued on this course until we arrived at a line of clouds. I started a climb to the northwest to get over the clouds, which put us closer to the clouds above us. Soon, we were in a narrow layer with clouds above and below. I seriously considered doing a 180 degree turn and returning to Manteo. Before making the decision to turn around, I saw that the sky in front of us was starting to turn blue. I continued another minute. Sure enough, we had past the worst of it and things were literally looking brighter.

The flight from here to our fuel stop went well, other than the strong headwinds. We were planning to stop at a different airport on the way back, but as we approached it, we checked the weather, and it wasn't looking too good. We decided to revisit our old friend Allendale County. I was looking forward to buying a peach, but there were none in the refrigerator this time.

Back in the air for our final leg of the flight, we headed towards Savannah in clear skies. When we turned the corner at Jacksonville, we lost the headwind and gained about 10 knots of ground speed. As we approached Daytona Beach, I had to make another decision. The clouds were building, and I couldn't tell how far over the coast they extended. I decided to turn more inland and climbed to 8,500 feet to stay comfortably above them. At that altitude, I could now see the shoreline beyond the line of clouds, so I turned to fly the remainder of the flight over the beach. Once past Daytona Beach, the clouds were less cumulous, and we had a smooth, stress-free flight back to Valkaria. With the plane fueled and back in the hangar, the thunder started clapping in the near distance. We didn't beat the storms by much.

The flight tracks are shown below. Notice that the first leg starts in Palm Coast. That is because I was flying with Garmin Pilot, but it was not updating the map as we flew north. I ended up exiting Garmin Pilot and switching to Foreflight, which provided these flight tracks.

Valkaria to Allendale County

Allendale County to Manteo

Manteo to First Flight

First Flight to Ocracoke

Ocracoke to Manteo, via Hatteras

Manteo to Allendale County

Allendale County to Valkaria

Flight Time: 16.4 hours
Total Time: 625 hours

Flight Time–UCF Flyover

For the past week, I've wanted to go flying after work, but Hurricane Debby had other plans. The weather was impacted for the entire week, as the storm passed by far to the west and then north of Melbourne. Today, we decided to go to the airport and see if we could get a short flight in before the weather got worse in the afternoon. I also wanted to try out the Garmin Pilot app, since my Foreflight subscription is going to expire next month.

We departed Valkaria around 10:00 AM, amongst several other planes. The clouds were low, and I wasn't sure if we'd even leave the traffic pattern. I took off from Runway 28 and turned crosswind and downwind. While flying east, I decided to continue to the coast and fly south. As we approached Sebastian, I decided that the clouds were low enough to climb over, so I did a climbing 180 degree turn and headed back to the north. We continued to the north and found that the clouds were much less dense to the northwest.

At this point, I decided to go fly over the University of Central Florida. I've been planning to do this someday, and today seemed like as good a time as any. We were above the scattered clouds, so I found a long gap in the clouds and descended through it until we were underneath. We then followed US 50 west towards Orlando. We were now below the Orlando Class B airspace, so I was busy keeping my eyes open for traffic and was careful to maintain my altitude below 1,300 feet. We passed by the Bithlo Towers and turned north towards campus. As I flew along, Andrew took lots of pictures.

The University of Central Florida (UCF)

We continued along the west side of campus, then turned east back towards the coast. Again, I had to be very aware of the Bithlo Towers.

The University of Central Florida (UCF)

As we turned south, I found that the clouds were much taller than they were when we departed. I continued to climb beyond 6,500 feet to avoid getting too close to the towering columns. Once we passed by Melbourne, I was able to start descending. Once past Valkaria, I found another large gap in the clouds and descended through it. I entered the traffic pattern and landed on Runway 28.

My experience with Garmin Pilot was not great. I was unable to set the view the way that I wanted. When I was flying east after departure, the map did not update. I was so frustrated that I exited the app and loaded Foreflight. As expected, Foreflight crashed within one minute. This has been an issue since day one. I turned off the Bluetooth connection to the GDL-39 and restarted Foreflight. It worked fine for the remainder of the flight. I really don't know what to do about Foreflight. I can try to upgrade to a newer iPad Mini, or I can switch to Garmin Pilot. I'll have to give Garmin Pilot a few more tries before I give up on it because a new iPad Mini is more than I want to spend, and it may not solve the problem with the Bluetooth connection.

The flight track is shown below.

Flight Time: 2.2 hours
Total Time: 609 hours

Flight Time–Punta Gorda

Planning a flight during the summer in Florida can be challenging. A typical day starts off very nice and clear, but around lunchtime, the cumulous clouds start building and by early afternoon, there’s usually one of more thunderstorms nearby. If you’re lucky, these don’t last long, and it clears up again by late afternoon. With this in mind, I planned an early morning flight to Punta Gorda, which is located on the Gulf Coast, near Fort Myers.

Andrew and I ate a small snack for breakfast and were at the airport by 8:00 am. We did the normal preflight and were in the air by 8:40. We climbed to 4,500 feet and enjoyed the clear, smooth air. The only clouds were high cirrus and a few distant cumulous. The flight took just over an hour. At ten miles out, I contacted Tower and was told to report entering the downwind for Runway 15. I flew the pattern and landed, then exited the runway on Taxiway Charlie.

Approach to Runway 15 at Punta Gorda

During planning, Andrew noted that Allegiant Airlines flies from Punta Gorda. We were very surprised to see so many Allegiant planes parked at the gate.

Line of Allegiant Airlines planes

After stopping on Taxiway Charlie, I contacted Ground. Ground cleared us to taxi to the Air Center. We didn’t really know what to expect because both Google Maps and Bing Maps show the location of the Air Center as an empty field, but on approach, it was clear that there was a nice facility waiting to be explored.

After the long taxi, we were marshalled into a parking space a few spots from a private jet. After shutting down, another private jet parked a few spots down from us.

Air Center at Punta Gorda - air side

The Air Center is practically new and is very nice. At the front desk, I gave my information and accepted getting gas in lieu of paying the $15 parking fee. Andrew and I looked around, bought some snacks from the vending machine, and chilled for a little while on the couch.

Air Center at Punta Gorda - street side

While we were waiting and enjoying our snacks, the crew from the recently arrived private jet came in. I couldn’t help myself and asked who he was flying for. This led into an interesting conversation about the amazing performance of the Embraer Phenom 300, his flying career in the Air Force, and the catching of a 19-pound catfish on a recent fishing excursion in Alabama, complete with video evidence.

After talking for about 15 minutes, we decided to get moving before the skies got too cloudy. We did our preflight and started taxing just after 11:00. We departed Runway 15 and turned to the west to get a view of the city.

Departing Punta Gorda

Punta Gorda, and Port Charlotte beyond

We circled over Punta Gorda while climbing to 5,500 feet and turned back towards the airport. Just east of the airport, we flew past a large cloud that was growing directly over a small fire in the fields below. The cloud was an odd combination of white and orange and had blueish smoke around its base.

Large, smoky cloud over a fire

As we continued east, the sky was now filling with small, but growing cumulous clouds. Most were still below us, but some were higher and required some maneuvering to get around. In the distance, we could see the makings of a thunderstorm sitting somewhere between Sebastian and Vero Beach. We did not want to get too close, so we altered our path to the north and made a wide arc around it.

By this time, the clouds were now getting pretty big and the gaps between them were getting smaller. When the next large gap presented itself, I started descending to get below the cloud bases. Off to the east, it was clearly raining pretty hard.

Thunderstorm over Sebastian

As we approached Valkaria, it sounded like the pattern was full of planes. Our traffic display showed too many triangles to count. I decided to overfly the airport at 2,500 feet and continued to the beach. This little extension of the flight allowed enough time for several planes to depart the area and now there were only two remaining in the pattern. I entered the pattern and landed on Runway 14. We topped off the tanks and returned to the hangar, all while we heard thunder rumbling in the distance to our south.

When we got home, Andrew noticed an article about a computer glitch that had caused the grounding of flights across the country. That explains the large number of Allegiant planes at Punta Gorda.

The flight tracks are shown below.

Valkaria to Punta Gorda

Punta Gorda to Valkaria

Flight Time: 3.3 hours
Total Time: 607 hours