Lancaster County November Flight

Today (Saturday November 26th, 2011) I was able to take the Chief up for a nice local flight over Lancaster County. It was a beautiful late November morning -- winds were still, few high clouds, good visibility -- the sky beckoned.

I pulled the airplane out, backed it up to a tie-down post, then used the Lycoming O-145 Ops manual recommended cold start technique: four shots of prime, six full rotations of the prop, check chocks and tie down, mags hot, throw prop -- chugga-chugga.. it started!

After a few seconds of cold stumbling she started running smooth and RPM climbed. I pulled it back to 600 RPM, untied the tail, pulled the chocks, climbed in, and taxied to runway 28. The runup showed 25 RPM drop on each mag, 50 RPM drop with carb heat -- great! Roll out to center, apply full power and climb out.

Yellow line shows Takeoff run -- airborne in 700' or so...

Early Morning mists

 Some days the air is smooth as liquid butter, and this was one of those days. I climbed to 1200' (800' AGL or so) and leveled off, with no particular destination in mind. There were a few patches of mist clinging to the valleys, but here above the air was clear.

Lancaster County from 1000'

I flew south towards Willow Street to stay clear of Lancaster airport airspace and approaches and also to avoid congested areas near Lancaster City. Once southwest of Willow Street I headed towards the river. I had the Garmin 496 GPS on board and while my indicated airspeed was 80 MPH, ground speed was 63.5. There was a definite southerly flow aloft but it was dead calm at the surface.

The Susquehanna here is wide and shallow, yet we've had some much rain this fall the water is as high as it normally is in spring. I flew along the northern shore past Washington Boro and along River Road.

Washington Boro on the north bank of the Susquehanna River (looking northwest in this picture)

I did a low pass over McGuinness field (8N7), just on the western edge of Columbia. I'll call them and confirm it's OK to land but the low pass revealed a nice wide runway with a carrier deck departure view off the far end of 26 about 100' above the river.

Columbia, Pennsylvania (McGuinness Field is just under the left strut)

I headed north and a bit west over the small ridge that runs parallel to Route 30. I flew over Mount Joy, did a couple of orbits, then headed for a small field just east of our place. I've never seen an airplane there and it's not on the charts but would work for me as long as the air wasn't too warm.


I was running low on time so flew back towards Millersville, then over West Lampeter before joining the pattern at Smoketown. The landing on the turf was passable but I taxied back and took of for one more pattern to make  proper landing. The second landing was better, and shorter.

Landing on Grass (Yellow line shows touchdown target and stopping point - 560' total)

 

The Lampeter-Strasburg School Campus

It was a great day to fly, and I am glad I was able to got up for an hour and 15 minutes before the day's errands.

L-S and Village Road, West Lampeter, PA

West Lampeter Fairgrounds

Farmland south of Lancaster

Millersville, Pennsylvania

Willow Valley Resort

The Crest at Elm Tree Apartments (where we live)

Shopping plaza in Mount Joy just south of our apartment

Mount Joy, PA (Looking north)

Lancaster City