Flight Time–Bartow

With my recent night currency, I wanted to go fly at night, so I planned a flight to Bartow. Official sunset was at 7:30 PM today, so I figured I could fly to Bartow, relax in the FBO for a half hour, then return to Valkaria after civil twilight ended.

Susan and I drove to the airport and were in the air just before 6:00 PM. We arrived in Bartow at 6:40. We parked the plane on the ramp and walked to the FBO. I was surprised the find that the door to the FBO was locked - most FBOs allow after-hours access to pilots from the ramp side. I peered through the glass and saw a guy mopping the floor. He saw me and came over to open the door. He told us that the FBO was closed, but he let us use the restrooms.

Bartow FBO

Before walking back outside, I took a quick look around inside and discovered a small museum. The airport was once a U.S. Army Air Corps base. They used to train pilots to fly P-51 Mustangs here. Three astronauts passed through this base, including Buzz Aldrin.

P-51 Mustang model in the FBO

It was after 7:00 by the time we went back outside, and the sun was getting close to setting. We walked around the ramp to pass the time. On the walk, we passed by the control tower. It surely looks the same today as it did back in its glory days.

Bartow Tower

Rather than wait for civil twilight to arrive, we decided to depart just before sunset. The sun was dropping below the horizon as I lined up to take off. As we climbed to the west, the sun slowly rose back above the horizon. We continued to the west to Lakeland, then turned north to fly directly over the airport. As we flew north, the sun slowly dropped below the horizon, giving us our second sunset of the day.

Civil twilight ended at 8:00 and I noted the time on the Hobbs meter. From this point forward, we were on a night flight and building night flight time. Before leaving home, I noted that I needed 2.7 hours to reach the 700-hour milestone. I was still short of this point when we arrived over Melbourne, so I turned north and flew up to Cape Canaveral, then turned around. On the way south, I turned on the pilot-controlled lights before entering the pattern for Runway 32, then extended the downwind leg south past Sebastian before turning around for a long, straight in approach.

Now that I've past the 700-hour point, I feel like 800 hours is within reach. I just need to keep flying and keep extending my flights into the darkness to build night hours.

The flight tracks are shown below.

Valkaria to Bartow

Bartow to Valkaria

Flight Time: 2.9 hours
Total Time: 700 hours