My original two pax cancelled this morning (hung over), but the third co-worker who is staying here decided he'd throw in a few bucks and come along. I chopped an hour off my original block, partly due to limited funds and partly because the wx looked to get gnarly at about the time I'd be coming back on the original plan.
Flew to Jack Edwards (KJKA), but didn't go over to LuLu's for lunch... we just stretched our legs and had some water and a ciggie. Pretty big fancy place for an uncontrolled Class E field... main runway is 7000x100!
Today's mount: another rented 70s-vintage 'hawk, this one an L model... with a "tuned" exhaust (?!) I didn't like the looks of that pipe, but it remained with us for the entire flight.
Another curious item: a mechanical stopwatch mounted to the center of the left yoke.
One of several impressive birds ( a Commander) on the ramp at KJKA... there were also Lears and a PC12. Got waved into my parking spot too- LOL- but I was told the landing, ramp service and parking were on the house. Cool.
Heading back west... it was hot- Africa hot- about 90F on the ramp, with sea-level DA at 1800 ft. Vis was not too bad, but particularly eastbound over this shore area, I was fighting the feeling that we were rolling left when in fact we were not (confirmed by AI, DG, turn coordinator, and compass). There was just no sea horizon to speak of, and the elongated islands were misleading with their angles.
Heading back, it was easier, with some solid cumuli bases showing.
An old fort west of Gulf Shores (Alabama)... no idea what it's called or any other info. Anybody feeling the urge to play historian?
Passing Dauphin Island... veered north to follow the bridge to the mainland because there were more and more rogue clouds below 3000, and the main bases were not much higher. Mobile Approach was rather busy with IFR flights but were happy to help us out with some FF. Got one traffic call, but never saw it. They must have been just below the clouds, and not talking to Approach.
The accents were interesting... I understand "Redneck" well enough, but these guys made Larry the Cable Guy sound like Sir Alec Guiness.
The view north from the same spot. I was going to pass "home plate", Ocean Springs to take a cruise along the beach past Gulfport, but by the time we got to our starting point the clouds from the NW were massing at less than 3000, with more of those stray "rogues" and increasing turbulence. I didn't fancy dealing with that as well as transitioning two Class Deltas back-to-back (Gulfport and Keesler AFB). Plus I was worried about the increasing gusts... it seemed as good a time as any to put it on the ground.
Which I did eventually, after one go-around after being swatted like a bug on short final... this pilot, landing as we were heading to the car, did only marginally better than I did. the wind was just devilish there today.
