Valkaria Flyers, LLC

 It doesn't seem like all that long ago that I posted a story about buying into an LLC that owned a plane. Today, I sold that share to an ambitious college student with a strong passion to learn to fly. During my time with the LLC, I entered about 240 hours of flight time in my logbook with flights covering many destinations in Florida, and a few outside the state.

Why did I sell? I've reached a point in my time building where I need to get instrument time, talking to ATC the entire flight, doing holds and approaches, and flying in the clouds. Unfortunately, this plane is incapable of flying instrument flight plans due to its lack of an instrument rated GPS. I considered flying around using VOR radios, but here in Florida, many have been removed from service as part of the Minimum Operating Network initiative.

What's next? I will go back to my original plan of finding a plane to rent and finding pilot(s) to share the expense with. Susan found a Facebook group that is dedicated to time building in Florida and I have a few contacts to explore.

My immediate goal is to reach 800 hours in the next month or two, then see if I can attract the attention of several of the charter companies that hire low-time pilots.

Flight Time–Valkaria

Today I flew the Cherokee back home from Merritt Island. Susan drove me to the airport. Sebastian Communications completed the install of the audio panel, and I was the one flying it home.

Once in the plane, I turned on the master switch to see what was different. I tuned the traffic frequency on one radio and the weather on the other. I could hear the traffic, but not the weather. I entered the weather frequency on the other radio and heard it fine. I thought, "Great, the newly installed audio panel doesn't work." I pressed the Test button on the non-working radio, and I could hear static, so the audio panel was indeed working, but the radio was not. I texted my partners to let them know the situation. I also texted Grady to let him know I was on my way. He hadn't seen the plane yet, and I wanted to give him an overview of what he was getting himself into.

Back on the ground in Valkaria, I asked Grady if he wanted to go for a flight. I knew that was a silly question because there was no doubt in my mind that he most certainly did. I stopped at the hangar to pick him up, then we flew around the local area, down towards Vero Beach, then up the shoreline. Then we came back to the airport, topped off the tanks, and put the plane back in the hangar.

My partner Anthony arrived shortly afterwards to look into the radio situation. He replaced the bad radio with another, and the other one worked. Then he replaced that one with yet another, and it worked too, although the volume control inserted noise into the signal. Finally, he inserted the original radio, and it worked fine now! Apparently, it wasn't seated well during the upgrade.

This has most likely been my final flight in the Cherokee. If so, I will look back on some great flights, with various troubles and failures thrown in. Thanks for the hours and the memories, N7207W.

The flight tracks are below.

 

Flight Time: 1.7 hours
Total Time: 739 hours

Flight Time–Merritt Island

Today I flew the Cherokee to Merritt Island to get the audio panel installed. After the normal preflight, I took off and flew to Merritt Island, flying around the Melbourne Class D airspace. After landing, I parked the plane outside Sebastian Communication. It was then that I realized that I left the audio panel and mounting bracket in the hangar. I briefly considered my options for getting the missing parts, then it occurred to me that I had access to a 'time machine'. I simply needed to fly back to Valkaria, get the parts, and fly back. So that's what I did.

When I arrived back in Merritt Island the second time, I went inside and let them know that I had arrived. They said they were ready to begin work, so we towed the plane to their workshop and moved it inside. I called Susan to see where she was, and she was already at the airport, ready to drive me back home.

The flight tracks are shown below.

Valkaria to Merritt Island

Merritt Island to Valkaria

Valkaria to Merritt Island

Flight Time: 1.8 hours
Total Time: 737 hours

Flight Time–Pompano Beach

Today, we planned to fly to Pompano Beach... again. The weather forecast looked better than it did a few days ago when we last tried to fly this route.

Susan, Andrew, and I left home earlier than normal to get a jump on the weather. We were in the air by 9:30. I climbed to 5,500 feet and contacted Palm Beach Approach for flight following. The flight down was uneventful. Approach handed us off to Miami Approach and I started to descend into Pompano Beach. I kept an eye on the Boca Raton Class D airspace to make sure that I didn't enter it. Approach handed us off to Pompano Beach Tower, where we were told to announce passing the landfill. I continued basically a straight in approach for Runway 15. I informed Tower as I passed the landfill and was given clearance to land on Runway 15.

After landing, the plan was to taxi back and depart back to Valkaria. Tower told me to exit the runway on Taxiway F, then asked where I was parking. I told Tower that I wanted to taxi for a northwest departure. I was cleared to taxi back to Runway 15 along Taxiway G.

Before taking off, I noted that there was a plane in the pattern. I was cleared to take off behind this plane. I planned to do a downwind departure. I climbed in the pattern altitude and followed the plane in front of me on the downwind leg. I expected the plane in front of us to turn base, then I'd begin my climb to 6,500 feet. However, the plane in front of us continued to fly downwind well past the spot where I'd expect him to turn. I thought this odd, but I didn't want to climb and lose sight of the plane under the nose. And that's when Tower interjected. Tower asked me why I wasn't climbing, and I said that I was waiting for the plane in front of me to turn to base. He then said, "What are you waiting for? Climb already!" I was surprised by his attitude. Personally, as the pilot in charge of the flight, I am responsible for when I climb and for maintaining visual separation from traffic. Besides, there's no rule saying that I can't fly at 800 feet until I leave the Class D airspace. I feel like the controller was trying to dictate to me how I fly in his airspace. I have no problem with the concept of doing as the controller says, but I do have a problem with him telling me when to climb, considering that he does not see what I see.

I soon left the Class D airspace behind and gladly changed frequencies to Miami Approach. The tower interaction is yet another example of unclear communication and a controller getting frustrated at a pilot for not doing what the controller expects. It makes me wonder if it's more common than I think, or if it's just a Florida thing.

The flight back to Valkaria was uneventful. We landed at 11:45, topped off the tanks, cleaned the bugs off the wings, and called it a day.

The flight tracks are shown below.

Flight to Pompano Beach, then to Valkaria

Flight Time: 2.7 hours
Total Time: 735 hours

Flight Time-Local

Andrew is home from college, and we wanted to fly somewhere together. We decided to fly to Pompano Beach. After I finished the planning, Susan, Andrew, and I drove to Valkaria. We departed around 11:00 AM. I climbed to 5,500 feet but soon decided to climb to 6,500 feet to have the required clearance above the clouds. The longer we flew, the higher the clouds tops and the smaller the gaps between them became. I started to wonder if I'd be able to find a hole to get back down through. After some consideration, I decided to divert.

For those unfamiliar, Lake Okeechobee rarely has cumulous clouds over it. It is a good place to go if you find yourself over building clouds and need a hole to descend through. For my diversion, I turned to the southeast, towards the lake. I was easily able to descend below the cloud bases, but now we had a different issue to deal with. Visibility was dropping quickly due to fires in the area. We reached the point where continuing to the south was no longer an option, so I turned around and followed the lake shore to the northwest.

I wasn't in a hurry to return home, so I thought about flying over Fort Pearce and up the coast. After a short time on this route, I changed my mind. We were getting bounced around to the point that I actually did want to get back on the ground. We were back on the ground around 12:30.

The flight track is shown below.

Valkaria, towards Pompano Beach, to Valkaria

Flight Time: 1.7 hours
Total Time: 732 hours