Flight Time–Local

After the fog burned off, today looked like a good day to get some flight time. SpaceX planned to launch more Starlink satellites at 1:53 PM, so I decided to build a flight around that.

On the way to the airport, Susan and I got a big surprise. Flying northbound over the river, we spotted a Goodyear Blimp. It was presumably headed for Daytona for the big race this weekend.

Goodyear Blimp

We arrived at the airport, prepped the plane, and were in the air by 1:15. We flew north along the interstate past Titusville, then turned back south. I slowed down and turned back to the north at 1:50. Right on schedule, the rocket launched. Susan caught a few pictures of it ascending.

SpaceX launch

SpaceX launch

SpaceX launch

After the launch, we considered what to do next. I thought it would be fun to fly along the coast, past Daytona Beach, to see if we could spot the Goodyear Blimp again. I flew towards New Smyrna Beach and contacted Daytona Approach. The reception was very poor, so I verified the frequency on the chart and tried again. Again, I couldn't tell if Approach was responding to me. I tried both radios, then decided that it wasn't going to work out. I made a sharp 90-degree turn to avoid the Daytona Beach Class C airspace and then headed back south. There's just something special about flying an old aircraft with old equipment. You really can't count on anything working properly.

According to my logbook, I needed 2.3 hours to reach 680 hours, so I decided to extend the flight a little bit to get that amount of time. We flew west of Melbourne nearly to Sebastian, then returned to Valkaria. After landing, we topped off the tanks and cleaned the plane. I checked the Hobbs meter for the latest value and realized that I only got 2.2 hours today. DOH!

The tracks for the flight are below.

Valkaria to Valkaria

Flight Time: 2.2 hours
Total Time: 679 hours