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