Flight Time–St. Augustine

The plan for today was to fly to the town of Thomasville, Georgia. The flight time would be two and a half hours. I expected to be back on the ground in Valkaria by 8:00 PM, with plenty of time to refuel the plane and relax in Georgia. That plan didn't happen. I then shortened the flight to Suwannee County, in Live Oak, Florida, which was less than two hours each way. That plan also didn't happen. Things don't always go as originally planned.

My mom drove down from DeLand to join me on the flight today. She got a late start and therefore arrived in Melbourne later than anticipated. This led to the first change to the flight plan. By the time we got to the airport, I was starting to consider changing the plan again. As I did the pre-flight tasks, I started to think that Live Oak was also a little bit too far away, so I changed the flight plan again. I finally settled for St. Augustine.

We departed Valkaria at 3:30 PM. I contacted Orlando Approach over Melbourne and climbed to 6,500 feet. Whatever issue ATC was having during the last flight was now fixed, as I was able to maintain constant coverage all the way to St. Augustine. Along the route, I was handed off to Daytona Approach, then Jacksonville Approach. Jacksonville Approach told me to keep my squawk code and handed me off to St. Augustine Tower. Tower told me to report midfield downwind for Runway 13. As I flew the downwind leg, a small jet took off, and there was a Cessna and another small jet holding short when I landed. I didn't realize that St. Augustine had so much small jet activity.

After landing, I contacted St. Augustine Ground and asked for taxi back for a south departure. I was given instructions to taxi back to Runway 13 via Taxiway B. There was a small jet still holding short of Runway 13, so I taxied as slowly as possible to avoid getting too close to those jet exhaust nozzles that were pointed our way. After a Cessna landed and cleared the runway, Tower cleared the jet for take-off. I pulled up to the line and finished my pre-take-off checks. Tower handed the jet off to Jacksonville Departure and I called in to let them know I was ready to go. Given that a jet had just taken off, I wondered if Tower would mention anything about wake turbulence. I expected to be told to wait a minute, but Tower just gave me clearance to take off. I read back my clearance, then asked if I could turn slightly east to avoid wake turbulence and was granted my request.

Once in the air and clear of the path of the jet, I turned south along the river. We flew right past downtown and could clearly see the fort and the lighthouse. I contacted Jacksonville Approach and asked for flight following back to Valkaria at 5,500 feet. On the trip back, I flew along the coastline so Mom could have more to look at. At one point, a Virgin Air jet heading for Orlando crossed our path, about 1,000 feet above us.

Near Daytona, we approached a higher level of clouds, so I asked to climb to 6,500 feet. Soon after, we were handed off to Orlando Approach. The first thing Approach said was to descend to 5,500 feet. I asked if I could delay my descent due to clouds. Approach asked me when I'd like to descend, and I said that I'd like to begin descending at Titusville. Approach told me to advise before beginning my descent. Approaching Titusville, a large gap in the broken layer of clouds appeared, so I asked to descend to 4,500 feet. Upon reaching 4,500 feet, it was clear that I needed to go even lower, so I requested 3,500 feet.

As we approached Melbourne, I cancelled flight following and continued descending into Valkaria. We were back on the ground at 6:05 PM.

April was a very busy month of flying for me. All said, I put 28.6 hours in my logbook this month.

The flight tracks are below.

Flight Time: 2.9 hours
Total Time: 731 hours