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June 17, 2007
After a thorough preflight, we decided that N222TZ was ready for its first trip away from its home in Sebastian, Florida. For the flight from Sebastian to Key West, we were anticipating clear weather. As you can see, we were not disappointed...there was not a cloud in the sky. |
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This felt much different to us from our test
flights.
We were actually going somewhere, and we were looking forward to lunch in Key West. Philip took a lot of great pictures on the flight, including those on this page. |
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The route of flight took us down the Florida
coast and the Intra-Coastal Waterway.
Many bridges connect the barrier islands to the mainland. |
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Here is an view of the Florida Everglades.
You can almost see the alligators (well, not quite). But it sure is pretty from the air! |
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As we left the tip of Florida we followed the
island chain of the Florida Keys, along the highway that connects the
islands.
This view was just north of Marathon Island. |
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Many islands have practically nothing on
them.
This picture was taken shortly prior to our landing in Key West. We spent about 2 hours in the town of Key West, and had lunch at Camille's. We had planned an early return, hoping to avoid any afternoon turbulence. |
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Taking off from Key West for the return trip,
there were scattered clouds, but nothing that warned of the weather
problems that were soon to develop.
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The forecast and satellite imagery we obtained prior to departure indicated only a few widely scattered thunderstorms that could be easily seen and avoided. |
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As we began to see rapid vertical development
in the clouds, it became clear that we were going to be dealing with
some significant convective activity.
A call to Flight Watch confirmed that a line of thunderstorms was rapidly developing over the southern tip of Florida. We immediately made a 180 turn and headed for the nearest airport, which proved to be Tamiami Executive, just southwest of Miami. |
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Within minutes of our arrival at Tamiami, we
were looking at this. Minutes later, we had heavy rain, lightning,
and hail!
In the executive terminal, we checked the weather again to find a solid wall of storms and a new SIGMET (significant meteorological information affecting the safety of aircraft) for the entire southern half of Florida. |
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After dinner in Miami, another check of the
weather indicated that the convective cells were moving to the East and
breaking up, and there were routes that were now free of storms.
We were not anticipating a test of the aircraft's instrument capability during this trip, but this development allowed us to check out the full capabilities of the avionics. Notice the MX-20 moving map display. Things have sure changed since the days of the NDB (non-directional beacon). |
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We were rewarded for our delay by a
spectacular sunset in between cloud layers.
This picture was taken off the coast just after passing Vero Beach. |
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We arrived in Sebastian just before dark.
Total time en route was 4.1 hours. Fuel burn was an average of
10.5 gallons per hour. At the completion of this flight, the aircraft
has a total time of 49.7 hours.
The autopilot needs some work before it can be trusted. The engine was running a little hot on cylinder #6 in climb, but is normal in cruise. Otherwise the flight was nominal in all respects, and we are looking forward to our next trip. |