Flight Time–Arcadia

Today, Andrew and I planned a flight to Arcadia, Florida (X06). Arcadia is interesting because 1) I’ve never been there, and 2) it has a fly-in campground.

We departed Valkaria around noon and flew to Arcadia. The flight was just over an hour. The wind at Arcadia was expected to be from the East, so we landed on runway 6. On the ground, we noticed that the windsock was indicating winds from the West. That explains why I needed more braking than expected.

Flight track to Arcadia (X06)

After landing, we taxied to the ramp and parked. We entered the FBO and asked about the camping (although not planning to camp today). We were told to make ourselves at home, so we walked over to the pavilion in the campground and fixed our lunch.

Parked at Arcadia (X06)

After lunch, we returned to the plane to prepare for departure. The plan was to fly to Lakeland, then back to Valkaria. We checked the time and decided to fly directly back to Valkaria instead.

We pulled the plane from the parking spot and prepared to leave. We soon realized that the intercom was not working. This problem occurred before. We tried various combination of headphones, headphone jacks, and switch settings, but nothing worked. Eventually, we convinced ourselves that we were able to broadcast, so we started up the plane and returned to Valkaria.

Nearing Valkaria, we found many planes in the pattern. It was 4:25 and SpaceX had a rocket launch scheduled for 4:55. I decided to fly past Valkaria and headed North towards Titusville. I climbed to 4,500 feet and began flying giant racetracks in the sky as we waited for the launch. Andrew shot a video as the rocket launched and headed Northeast. I made another loop around the racetrack to setup for the booster’s return to Landing Zone 1.

After the rocket fun, we returned to Valkaria.

Flight track to Valkaria (X59)

Flight Time: 3.9 hours
Total Time: 559 hours