Winter Flying with Garrett

 So it's been a long winter. I've been crazy busy at work and the weather doesn't often provide good flying weather on the few days I get off. I have managed to get a few days recently and my pilot friend Garret is always up for an adventure flight at the last minute.

A few weeks ago his girlfriend, Kathryn, was visiting and we talked her into going up for her first ride in a light plane. There was a lot riding on this, as Garret is hoping to build or buy his own Velocity soon, having traveled all over the country in mine


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Kathryn is right at home and a good flier

Nice scenery

Great visibility and clouds at 7,000

Here are some views from our demo flight. I have learned that less is more on a demo flight, so we take Kathryn above the clouds, tour the neighborhood, do some banks and head back.

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We had a great flight and she had a great time. Success!

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Our next outing was to pick up Garret's brother at South Jersey Regional airport in NJ and go out for a $100 hamburger. As you can see below, we had clear skies. What you can't see is the annoying turbulence, which made for a bumpy ride and kept our speeds down to 160 knots.

Headed east to pick up our passenger in New Jersey

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It is incredibly congested in the air and on the ground near Trenton. We have a hard time picking out the airport and dodge all kinds of airspace and traffic.

We land, pick up Garret's brother and head to Sky Manor Airport for lunch.

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On the ground at Sky Manor a few minutes later, we taxi back toward the restaurant. It is only feet from the runway.

Very nice aviation scene on taxi

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We tied down and headed into the airport....after a few pilots came out to check out the plane. You always have to leave extra time because the plane always draws a crowd.

A fellow pilot kindly took our picture with the restaurant in the background

Inside the restaurant

Here are some shots from inside. Great food, good service and great view of the runway from our table.

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After lunch, we took off and headed back to South Jersey Regional Airport to drop off Garret's brother. Turns out they have an air museum there. It's closed for the winter, but they have an impressive E2C Hawkeye carrier based AWACS plane outside. I'll stop by to check out the museum in the summer.

Garret and his brother

Air Victory Museum

Huge E2C Hawkeye

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It was a great trip with 3 airports in 2 states and a nice lunch, all before 2:00.

Looking forward to the next adventure - and some warmer weather. Less than 130 days to Airventure Oshkosh!

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