North Carolina Trip

My friend and neighbor, Joe, told me he had a business friend who was a pilot. He was in the market for a new plane and was interested in the Velocity. I offered to give him a ride to check it out. Wade and Nicole came down last week to take a ride and look over the plane. He was concerned that it wouldn't be big enough because he is 6'4". As you can see, he fit fine.

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I took him up for a ride. We did slow flight, steep banks, high speed cruise and circled the neighborhood for a look at where Joe and I live. He really enjoyed it and was impressed with the room, speed and handling.

Circling the 'hood. Leaves are almost gone.

Base to final

Final over the last of the Fall color

Short final for 29 Chester County

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Nicole stayed on the ground with their baby, but gives her approval to the plane as well.

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By midweek, I was getting calls and emails regarding Velocity issues, then about Velocities that were up for sale. Wade found one at an airport near Greensboro, NC and was going to drive 7 hours each way to check it out. I offered to fly him down instead - it planned out to only 1:48 from my airport near Philadelphia. We decided to fly down yesterday to check it out.

The weather on Sunday turned out to be just magnificent. We had incredible visibility and smooth air as we headed south toward North Carolina at 9:15 a.m. Here is a beautiful shot of our view as we cruised along at 180 knots and 6,500 feet.

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Here are some shots as we cruise southbound.

Beautiful patterns of farm fields

Nice river shot

Plenty of room even for two really big guys

Winglet view

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The planned route takes us west around the restricted airspace of D.C. and Baltimore, then south along some ridges and over a mountain range. This will be new for me. The MEA is 4,100 feet and we will be at 6,500 so it should still be smooth.

Here come the mountains in the distance. We are covering ground fast at this speed and they come up fast.

Leaving the flatlands - mountains ahead.

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Flying through the mountains was just beautiful. I took tons of pictures and really enjoyed it. Here are just a few of the shots.

Approaching the mountains

First... the ridges.

Getting bigger.

What a view! Even has a winglet in it!

That's just cool.

Definitely doesn't look like home.

Great shot of the mountain framed by the winglet

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Here are some shots of the panel.

I love my screens.

Mountains look cool on the synthetic vision screen

River leading to the mountains

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We land at KBUY exactly on time at 11:00 and the owner waves us over to park near his plane. It is a 260 hp FG XL painted orange and white. The owner concedes that the paint, which was done outdoors, will need to be redone. It is generally straight, and is flying, but will need work to get it where Wade would want it. It is a fixer upper and he's not sure if that's what he's looking for. 

Final for KBUY

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We stayed for about 90 minutes checking out the plane and then it was time to head out. The plan was to be back in Pennsylvania for a late lunch at 2:00.

It's amazing that we could fly hundreds of miles to the South, do our thing and be back for lunch. This would have been 14 hours in the car.

N929X fueled and ready to go

Climbout

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We were getting true airspeeds of 195 and ground speeds well over 200 knots.

195 knots true airspeed!

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Here is a quick video clip as we cruised along.

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Here are a couple more nice shots as we cruised along home. We made great speed and it was very smooth until we got within 30 miles of home. We had been in a 200 knot cruise descent for 10 minutes and hit some heavy turbulence for about 5 minutes.

Before you know it, we were in the pattern.

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Here is the Flightaware record of our flight.

We landed after exactly 1:50, just on schedule and headed over to the airport restaurant for lunch. Wade had a great time and is really sold on what a terrific traveling machine the Velocity is.

I do love my plane. What a great day!

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