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