Story time

[DGP]

We have been booked in to one of the big chains of hotels not far from the airport in Grand Prairie...the guys have been down here doing paper work on the ship for a couple of days ...they want me to give this ship a real good look over as a lot of coin will be changing hands...no sweat...this aint my first rodeo. I meet up with the crew who have been doing a 300 hr on this ship...I want to know the history from day one.

[DGP]

This ship has 400 hrs on it...2008 vintage...its 2013...should be a cream puff...well lets see. I flip on the battery and try a couple of lights ...nav ..okay...anti collision ...sweat f all...call in maintenance...the crew gets to work! after electricuting himself which I warned him he gets to work on the problem which turns out to be a 3 hr fix.

[DGP]

So...4 days later we get everything fixed and paperwork signed and our first leg is over 300 miles to the east...Vicksburg Mississippi...good news is we have a 30 knot tail wind blowing! We load up and give Grand Prairie Tower a call...we get clearance for an east bound departure and will be switching freqs after lift off to call another airport that is not far from this one...this will continue until we are 30 miles east of Dallas...lots of radio work. Sure glad we are a 2 pilot crew. We have climbed to 3500 ft and are going with flight following...this makes life a whole lot easier.

[DGP]

The radio work is non stop....changing freqs and getting transponder codes...I am flying and getting the codes. Dennis is talking to towers and changing freqs. Also there is lots of heavy traffic heading into DFW...mostly over top of us now...finally we get clear of all this sh%t and the radio starts to get a bit quieter. We also are being cleared thru military zones which are all over the place down here which is very nice...also warnings of traffic. This ship has tecas which has been giving traffic warnings non stop...lovely!

[DGP]

We are going thru a Military zone and see a line of B52's on the ramp...nice. The weather is great and so is the wind . We are making great time. I can see the Mississippi river coming up and give the tower a shout in Vicksburg. It is Saturday morning and we our the only traffic around...a far cry  from Dallas . we land on the ramp...sun shining very quiet...nice...we will refuel and file our next leg....another 300 miles...Tuskegee airstrip! 

[DGP]

Well after refueling and enjoying the view...this runway is right on the shoreline of the Mississippi river...lots of bird life but we have a long haul so off we go...climb back up to 3500 ft and get on flight following again. We are on the back side of a major rain storm that had gone thru Texas and we can see some really black clouds out in front of us. We get a call on the radio to warn us that some tornadoes just went thru about 100 miles ahead of us. We call back and let buddy know we can see the weather ahead but the sun is shining where we are . He says we may be in luck for our destianation as the storm had just passed thru Moton airport...We had planned on spending the night in Savannah Georgia as we had stopped there 2 months ago and our Coast Guard buddy from Nassau was looking to party with us. Looks like we will have to change our plans. We gas up in Moton and head for Anderson South Carolina!

[DGP]

We hit the sky N/E bound...sky is clear as a bell in this direction...not so much if we headed east for Savannah. We plan on going thru Atlanta's airspace on this leg. The land around here is mostly low rolling hills covered with pine trees...not much to look at other than a few big rivers. We are coming up on Atlanta and give area control a call. They say that due to the traffic they want us to stay out of their zone and will give us vectors to fly. I have a look at our fuel and tell Dennis I hope we don't have to do much zigging around which proves to be good and we are passed them and continue on our way. We finally call final for Anderson and land with around 200 lbs of fuel left. The folks at Anderson could not have been more helpful... they gives us a car for free...tell us the best places to stay and give us a map of the area with all the hot spots...we are on are way having been refuel already. They tells us to leave the keys on the desk in the morning as we will be leaving early...off we go to the road house restaurant for supper!

[DGP]

Well our first day out of Dallas and we did 900 miles. Supper was great in Anderson at the Roadhouse Dinner. We did some flight planning and our next fuel stop will be in Kinston....300 miles n/e....we get up very early and drive about 30 minutes back to the airport...not much traffic at this time and on a Sunday morning.We drop the car keys off....DI the ship and hit the sky just as the sun is coming up. Winds are calm and its a beautiful sunny clear day...great! Without a tail wind 300 miles is about as far as we can go so we don't want a head wind. About an hour later we start to get a great tailwind again as we had yesterday...beautiful. we call final for Kinston and as we touch down the fuel truck is pulling up... bonus!

[DGP]

We are on the ground for 20 minutes...gassed up and running again. Next stop will be Ocean City Airport...MD. We blast off and head N/E again...we will be flying thru another military zone in Virginia Beach..plenty of these in the US of A...we get clearance and fly over a huge Naval yard full of grey ships...cool. We are on the Atlantic coast now...lots of water on the right side and more military zones to get cleared thru....

[DGP]

Not much traffic around on a Sunday morning. Weather is great...we call final for Ocean City and touch down as the fuel truck is again pulling up. We find out that there is a fly in breakfast here every Sunday morning and we just missed it by 30 minutes...lovely...dinner will be had from the vending machines. We climb back in the ship after about an hour on the ground. This will be our last leg for the day...flying thru New York City! We blast off to the north following the shoreline. Lots of big money on this shoreline! We get in touch with JFK control and get some friendly folks on the radio. The lady in control tells us that we will have a couple of F-16's passing in front of use within a minute...they are out of a Naval base and heading to a gun range off shore. Dennis says he will do the radio work....