Flight Time–Brooksville

Today, Andrew and I flew to Brooksville. Brooksville is an airport just north of the Tampa Class B airspace. We flew in the 1956 Cessna 172.

To prepare for this flight, I went to the hangar yesterday and met the owner. I asked all the questions I could think of and took a page of notes. I was pretty confident that I knew all of the quirks of the antique Cessna.

At the hangar today, we did the preflight in the hangar, then pulled N7286A out into the sunshine. We climbed in, started the engine, and were on our way.

During the run-up, we discovered a problem. The left magneto was running very rough. I increased the RPM and decreased the mixture and let it run for about a minute. Then I re-ran the magneto check and both magnetos worked properly.

I contacted Ground and was told to taxi to Runway 27R. We took off and headed west until we were clear of the Melbourne Class D airspace, then proceeded on course.

The flight west was slow due to headwinds, but we eventually arrived near Brooksville. I contacted Tower and was cleared to land on Runway 27.

After landing, Tower told me to exit on Taxiway A3, but to hold short of Taxiway A. Tower was busy directing a twin from one side of the airport to the other. As the twin approached us on Taxiway A, Tower told us to do a 180 and back taxi on the runway to Taxiway A2. Strange, but not a problem. Just shows that you never know what you’ll get at a towered airport.

We taxied to Taxiway A2 then to the end of Runway 27. Tower cleared us to take off and fly a left downwind departure. Once in the air, we turned east and followed the same route back towards Orlando.

Departing Brooksville

The flight back was faster because we now had a tailwind. Instead of going back to Melbourne, we landed at Valkaria to top off the tanks. With full tanks, we returned to Melbourne. Other than the magneto issue, the trip was very much as expected.

The flight tracks are below.

Melbourne to Brooksville to Valkaria to Melbourne

Flight Time: 3.5 hours
Total Time: 816 hours