Summer decided to remind us that it still has some fight left in it this weekend. The cool, crisp weather from the previous week was forgotten as temperatures hit near 90 and Saturday and were forecast again on Sunday. Oh well. Good news though - morning temps were still in the low 60s. So, at our normal 0800 meeting time, Steve and I arrived at JQF with Aggie pulled out front waiting for us to give her some exercise.
This was Steve's trip to plan. When he arrived, he announced that Robbi didn't want him gone all morning, so we were going to take a short hop today. Fine with me - I had plenty to do today, including 3 hours with Spencer at Lacrosse practice and a trip to the office late. Steve suggested Morganton (KMRN), a place west of Hickory and at the base of the NC Appalachians. We hadn't been there in a while. The last few times we'd landed there, it wasn't planned. We've diverted there when we found the weather in the mountains inhospitable, including one very memorable attempt to fly to Bristol Tennessee. Morganton also has a fond place in our hearts b/c it was a significant destination for both of us during our training. Steve's first solo cross-country was to KMRN. My first dual cross-country was there.
Anyway, we pre-flighted Aggie, gave her some oil and hopped aboard. As has been the case lately, she started right up for us. Before we knew it, we were holding short of Runway 2 going through our run up. Steve planned this trip, so he was in the left seat for the outward leg. We were cleared for departure and started our takeoff roll. Aggie was ready to get going, so we were airborne 1,200 feet down the runway. Positive climb rate, gear up, flaps retracted, manifold pressure to 25, RPMs to 2,500 and a left turn en route and we were headed to KMRN.
Concord handed us off before we even made the left turn. We contacted Charlotte and settled in for our en route climb. As we passed through 3,400, Steve asked if we'd been cleared into the Charlotte Class B ('Bravo') airspace.
The national airspace is divided into various classes, Class B being the most restrictive we play in. Class B surrounds the nations busiest airports. The airspace is shaped like an upside down wedding cake, so we could actually fly under the airspace in Concord. However, at 3,600 feet, you are in Charlotte's Bravo. You must be cleared into the Bravo by ATC or you can have some issues. Most of the time Charlotte is pretty good about giving you the clearance if you are on a course that will take you into the airspace, but the last 2 or 3 flights, the controllers have been a bit off and have failed to give the clearance.
Sure enough, this morning the controller missed the fact that we were headed directly into his controlled airspace. At 3,500 feet I asked for Bravo clearance. The controller was a bit befuddled by the request - apparently he thought he'd issued the clearance. Anyway, clearance granted (you always repeat back the Bravo clearance to make sure the FAA tapes record you telling the controller that you believe you've received the clearance.
Anyway, the climb out was gorgeous. We decided to only go to 4,500 feet given the short trip. We trimmed for cruise and were on our way. Charlotte was in a hurry to hand us off and gave us to Atlanta Center before we were past Lake Norman. The skies were beautiful. A small amount of haze, but 30 miles of visibility. We called Morganton in sight 20 miles out and prepared for landing on Runway 21. We were on a 10 mile left base when Atlanta terminated flight following.
We checked in on the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) and heard nothing but crickets. Hard to believe there was nobody in the air on this beautiful day! Steve put down his best landing of the last 6 months. MRN is small - how small? Well, it doesn't have taxiways that run the length of the runway so we had to turn around and back-taxi on the runway to get back to the turn-off for the FBO. As we approached the FBO, to our surprise a lineman appeared to park us and he came equipped with a red carpet! Once the propeller stopped turning, we told him we weren't looking for anything but a cup of coffee. His response, "let me put a fresh pot on to brew." Wow! (Note: My first attempt at uploading an image to Blogger - not where I wanted the image. The picture is us on final to Rwy 21).
We've experienced this FBO before. A couple of years ago we few out and spoke with the then-new owner. He had invested in remodeling the FBO and was hoping to tap into the training market and maybe attract a jet or two during the fall leaf season. I don't know how he's doing, but the FBO still looks like the remodel was done yesterday. The new floors still shine and the counter area is filled with pilot supplies and interesting trinkets.
Steve and I chatted the lineman up while we sipped his fresh coffee, then we sent walking the ramp to see what interesting planes were based there. This is often an effort in futility, but today there were a few interesting planes, including a similar vintage Arrow to Aggie, but with much upgraded avionics (if only I could afford 1/2 of the equipment this bird had!). The two most interesting planes were a C172XP amphibious plane. Sitting there on wheels beneath the floats, the 172's door was at least 5 feet off of the ground. The most interesting thing to me about the plane was all of the rigging and cables needed to operate the water rudders and landing gear. The spaghetti-like cables and pulleys rather surprised me given the harsh conditions an amphibious plane may be subjected to. The other interesting plane was a Navion.
The Navion, originally manufactured by Ryan Aviation is an strange bird. It was substantially over-engineered as it was designed for the expected explosion of the general aviation market after WWII. Unfortunately, the explosion was more a burp and never materialized. Ryan designed the plane with a rudder/aileron interconnect system which coordinates your turns for you. Typically, when you apply aileron, you have to apply coordinated rudder to eliminate adverse yaw. Ryan tried to take some of the stick and rudder skill requirements out of flying. What really struck me about the aircraft was how high it sat and how big the landing gear were. The tires were just huge! Steve took a look inside and noted that the interior was larger than most 4 seaters. In fact, it was actually a 5 seater. Unfortunately, it looked like this one had been flown in a number of months, but it did still appear airworthy.
It was time to go. We boarded Aggie with me in the left seat and after a couple of tries to get her to start (my fault), we were back taxiing for a departure on Runway 3. Because the winds were calm and a Runway 21 departure would require navigating the mountains, we took off in the direction opposite of our arrival. A smooth take-off roll and we were on our way home. We got to 5,500 feet about the time passed over KHKY. As we leveled off, we trimmed for cruise at 153 kts ground speed. Once over Hickory, we could see lake Norman 35 miles away. Charlotte let us stay at our altitude all the way to the lake when we were asked to start our descent. We were handed off to Concord and set up for a left base to Runway 2. The approach was uneventful and I set Aggie down smoothly on the Runway (not quite a smoothly as Steve though) and a taxi to the ramp. 1.7 hours of incredibly enjoyable flying and we were done for the week.
