Saturday, April 6, 2013

Turning the Corner

Date Aircraft Route of Flight Time (hrs) Total (hrs)
6 Apr 2013 N21481 5G0 (LeRoy, NY) - FZY (Fulton, NY) - 5G0 3.1 1133.6

With weather finally turning the corner toward spring, it was a good day to venture skyward, get back to my roots (i.e., look out the window and take some pictures), and exercise Warrior 481 before she goes down for annual next week.


I flew through Rochester's airspace under the watchful radar eye of what sounded like a trainee approach controller.  I crossed over the top of Marketplace Mall, the former site of Hylan Field.

I had lunch at Puddle Jumpers at the Oswego County Airport (FZY).  My lunch (a mushroom Swiss burger) was quite good and the homemade, complimentary dessert was much appreciated.  It is great to see someone making an honest effort to keep the airport restaurant going - I am certain that it is not easy.

In addition to the bumpy ride, the wind was variable and traffic was frequently switching back and forth between runways 6 and 33.  But at least everyone was paying attention to what the wind was doing.

  :-)


Back in the air, I turned a corner of a different sort; the southeast corner of Lake Ontario.  With the nose pointed toward Canada, I continued northward.


Flying slightly offshore brought some relief from the thermal-induced bumps.


I reached the St Lawrence River near Clayton, NY.  Although the dead landscape of New York in April is rarely appealing, the waterways are always interesting to see from the air.


Blind Bay, located on the south bank of the St Lawrence.


The Rock Island Lighthouse stands vigil in the river just outside Blind Bay.


This part of the world is known as the Thousand Islands for obvious reasons.


See that land over there?  That's Canada.  At this point, I noticed a significant amount of French being spoken on 123.00.


Alexandria Bay, the destination for one of my favorite past day trips.



Farther east is Dark Island, home to Singer Castle.  I think this would be a fun destination for a family trip one of these days.


A freighter makes its way westward through the seaway on a journey that could extend to the westernmost reaches of the Great Lakes.


Of course, my proximity to Canada could mean only one thing.


Labatts?  No, not while flying.  Ice.  Lots of ice.


Fortunately, it was breaking up rapidly under the warm springtime sun.


On the return trip, the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Plant made for a perfect ground reference.  Not that I really needed a ground reference; it was my fourth flight with Foreflight/Stratus on my iPad.  As other reviewers have already noted, Stratus "just works".  It's stupid-simple to set up, starts working right away, and the box pulls in ADS-B and GPS signals just fine from the middle of the backseat where I put it to prevent overheating on the glareshield.  Nice.

But today was really all about looking out the window.


The City of Oswego and the Oswego River.


The Oswego breakwater viewed from 8500'.

Closer to home, I worked with another trainee approach controller before making landfall.

Sometimes, there does not need to be a particular destination or mission.  Sometimes, just exercising an airman's privileges and looking out the window are deeply satisfying.  Days like this are why I'm glad I own (outright, finally) an airplane.

5 comments:

  1. Pictures are beautiful, as always. Nothing beats tooling along just enjoying the view. Poor ground pounders don't have a clue what they are missing.

    I caught that at the end....."I own (outright, finally) an airplane" CONGRATS!! I hope to one day make that same claim in the next couple of years.

    I spent the day looking up when I heard a plane overhead as I washed all the cars (3) and the motorhome. We finished our day on the range trying to fix my golf swing, and Mary learn how to. Round two today at the range then finally I hope to get some flight time this afternoon with 08Romeo!

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  2. Thanks, Gary. I may not have been posting much lately, but I have not been idle. :-) And when the annual is done, it will be back to IFR training.

    You spent yesterday doing what I should have been doing. My dark blue car looks like a pair of acid washed jeans from the late 80's - it really needs a bath. Best wishes for nailing that golf swing (for both of you) and for some air time.

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  3. "Beautiful as always."

    Gary literally wrote the exact words that were in my head. Great shots!

    You really should schedule your annuals in January... :-p

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    1. Thanks, Steve. The problem with January annuals is successfully ferrying the plane to the shop! I've been on an April schedule since I bought the airplane. It's almost done.

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    2. Given where you live, that certainly makes sense. Hope she's back in the air with minimal AMUs soon!

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