Garret and I are running out of destinations to check out within a 100 mile range. Last Saturday, we decided to check out a new restaurant called Runway 29 at Hagerstown, Maryland. It is 90 miles away and advertised great food and that you could taxi right up to the door of the restaurant. That sounded very promising. The weather was foggy but forecast to clear up by 11:30, so we headed out to the airport. As promised, the fog lifted and we headed out. Here is a shot of us mid- flight, southbound at 180 knots.
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Here are some pictures as we head southbound. It was just beautiful.
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| Gorgeous cirrus overhead and great vis ahead |
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| Garret's view to the West |
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| Hanover, PA |
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| York, Pa |
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| Closer..... |
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| Velocity cam view of a neighborhood |
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As we were getting closer, we got repeated high voltage warnings, culminating in an alternator failure. Luckily, I have double redundant backup systems, so it was more of an annoyance than an in flight emergency. We continued on to the destination.
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| Copilot's view of the screens |
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| Gettysburg Airport. Right next to the battlefield. |
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| Uh- oh. The alternator has failed. |
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We contact the tower at Hagerstown and are given a nice straight in approach. We make a nice landing and taxi over to the restaurant at the Rider Jet Center. It is new and very impressive. They seem to be all about customer service. It is clean, new AND they have cheap fuel.
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| This place looks great. Very modern, with a covered area to load/unload. |
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| The red carpet treatment |
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| Everybody gets a greeting and a red carpet when they pull up. |
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We are hungry, as in very hungry, so we go right in to the restaurant, which is as nice as the reviews promised.
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| Entrance to restaurant. This is an airport restaurant? Wow. |
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| Very nice inside. |
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| View of the Velocity from our table. |
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The menu is great and the prices are surprisingly reasonable. The service was very good and the food was wonderful. I had a "Cheese Steak" made from actual steak and Garret had the Runway Burger, which looked awesome. I give the food a 10 out of 10.
We discussed the malfunction while we ate. The voltage had gone up from 13.7 volts to almost 16 before I shut down the alternator. The aux fuel pump had also been surging.
We called several other Velocity friends and they agreed that the voltage regulator on my Denso auto alternator had crapped out. We decided that the 925 amp battery and backup batteries would more than last the 30 minute flight home with no problem and sat back to enjoy our meal.
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| Great menu, great food, low prices. I love it. |
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| Garret's burger. |
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| My gourmet cheese steak on fresh roll. I'm a happy pilot. |
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| They even have a nice bar, which we can't enjoy for obvious reasons. |
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After lunch, we check out the rest of the FBO. This is a terrific facility with a great restaurant, pilot shop, pilot lounges, flight planning room and even luxurious bathrooms. I highly recommend the place.
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After lunch, and checking the place out, we head back out to the plane, fuel up on the cheap fuel and head out. We leave the alternator shut off to avoid damaging the avionics. Everything works fine on the backup systems.
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| Heading out to the ramp. |
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| A view of the screens on departure |
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| Northbound approaching the mountains |
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| Past the mountains and northward. |
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| Nice canard view |
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| Great views on course. |
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Here are some more shots of the trip back. We again cruise at 180 knots, to the 90 mile trip will take only 30 minutes. Incredible!
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| Shot of the screens and the view ahead |
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| View out the pilot's side |
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| Check out that airspeed! |
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| Short final for 29 Chester County and home |
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It was another great trip. I found a replacement alternator at NAPA and will install it tomorrow. The weather looks great, so I hope I can get up in the air.
Thanks to Garret for another great job as flight planner and copilot.
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