Simviation Forums

Tonight I flew the good old Navajo from 42A to 14M, about 200 miles. As we were loading it up at 42A, I had a moment to look up at the stars. There wasn't a cloud within a million miles, and the milky way could be seen plain as can be. As I was watching a plane fly over, a satellite came across from North to South, plainly visible all the way from horizon to horizon. The flight was rock-steady, and the weather stayed just as good all the way. A firm but not too firm landing at 14M ensured that the short runway would be enough to safely stop on, and we made the turnoff.

Winter night flights are definitly the most beautiful flights to fly.

Also, I would say that Memphis Center is the most courtious and professional Center I've ever talked to, unlike some of those up North. (just kidding)

jonathan

Sounds like a very soothing flight with a little bit of relaxation and time to think.. :-) what I wouldn't give to have been there too...

Wow, sounds like you had a lot of fun!

Yea, winter night flights are great, but poor me I'm going to have to solo in the middle of February (during the day of course)  :'(.

Anyone been watching the weather channel? If so you just might have noticed the small storm over the south-east. The same storm I had the pleasure misfortune of flying through today. We depart 14M in rain and low clouds, climbing IMC to 8000. Can't go over, because the tops are WAY up there. So here we are, with 'George' out on vacation, hand flying for 1:15 in solid IMC with moderate rain (good for getting the bugs off the windshield). Mmm, that'll sharpen the skills. Then we hit the front. Since the storm system was/is moving north-east, the winds were in our favor. According to the Loran, there was a 52 knot wind (I forget the heading) at one point, which gave us a max ground speed of 232 knots. After that it slowed down to 'only' 220 knots.

As we get closer to 42A, we start our descent a little late, but not too bad. Then it really hits the fan. At 3100, we're still solid cloud. 42A has no kind of approach, so we let down a little more, making two attempts to see the runway. Nope. "Memphis Center, Navajo *****" etc etc.

Off we head to West Memphis (AWM), since they're the only ones with a approach that goes low enough to get under this weather. And we have a car there, which is always a bonus. The controller routes us out to a 20-mile final to give a King Air some room to breathe. After intercepting the localizer (I'm still flying at this point; thats coming up on 2 hours of hands-on IMC if you're counting), we get to fly for an hour (or so it seemed) to the glideslope intercept. Gear down, elevator down. I managed to keep the needles crossed all the way down, which was followed by a nice landing, and a not-so-nice 3 hour drive home.

BTW, you know how after you've been on a boat for a while, when you get off you still feel like you're rocking around? Well, after 2 hours of turbulence, I'm still 'bouncing around' here in my desk chair!  :-/ :-/ :-/

I'm thinking that if you thought you saw a satellite in orbit, it was probably the ISS........usually now, its the only object large enough to be seen by the naked eye...

I was thinking that too, but it was on a polar orbit. According to NASA, there are lots of satellites that are visible on a clear night, so it was probably one of their polar studying birds.

Sounds like you had a nasty trip there.