On a balmy beautiful day in early November, I got to take the owners of our Pilates studio and their daughter out to Block Island. We had been talking about it on and off for a while, but Laura was a bit nervous about flying, but she eventually decided to give it a try.
The weather was cooperative, not too breezy or bumpy. We did a thorough walk around the airplane for pre-flight and I explained all the moving parts and then some of the instruments in the cockpit and the safety briefings of headsets, seat belts, sterile cockpit and watching for other planes. Then we got in and fired up and were soon climbing out to the east along the shoreline. I pointed out some of the landmarks along the way, including the Thimble Islands in Branford and the shoreline home there with the Stonehenge replica and go-cart race track in the yard.
Tara did some of the flying and did a great job keeping steady and straight as we flew down the shoreline to Westerly, RI, before we cut southeast towards Block. Descending towards the island, there was actually very little traffic, which was very surprising for such a beautiful fall day. Within a few minutes, we had landed, taxied in and shut down and then walked to Bethany’s Airport Diner for a quick lunch.
The flight back was just as easy, this time with a better view for Tara and Sophie on the right side of the plane. Bridgeport came again quickly and we were soon on the ground back to the parking spot. While all three enjoyed the flight, there was some motion sickness coming on, so it may be a while before they look to fly again.
(I don’t know why, but I’m having the problem loading photos again...once I get that figured out, I’ve got some good shots that Laura took before and during the flight.)
At the end of November, I did another kitten rescue flight, meeting Dan and his family at Old Bridge in NJ and taking crates of kittens up to Pittsfield, MA. It was another gorgeous fall day, with the last of the foliage browning on the leaves below, but a very smooth ride.
As I climbed out of Old Bridge, I steered a little west of a direct path in order to stay out of the Class B airspace for Newark and New York. Despite that, I still had some traffic at my altitude, inbound to Newark, including a couple of passenger jets, and one corporate jet heading southwest from Teterboro airport. I enjoyed a snack while we headed northeast and every once in a while I would chat with the cats, or look for the little paws darting between the carrier bars trying to get at me.
Having been there only recently, finding Pittsfield was even easier this time and the drop-off of the kittens and their paperwork was a quick event. Winging home with a little tailwind, it was a very easy hop back to Bridgeport before the dark set in.
For Christmas, Michiko got a new headset. Even the Bose headset she normally flies with, which is light, pinches her head a bit on long flights and is heavier than she’d like So I got her the new Bose Proflight Series 2. It’s designed to essentially be two molded earbuds with a small headpiece for the boom mike, and it’s super light and active noise cancelling. We did a short trial flight on Christmas Eve and while she’ll have to make some small adjustments to get it perfect, she really liked the lightness and lack of clamping on her head, although she admits it’s not quite as quiet as her older bigger Bose headset. That’s not too surprising as the Proflight is designed for quieter airplanes, such as corporate jets and turbo-props. (Post script: the longest she’s worn them in these Covid days, is a 90 min leg and they really worked well for her!)
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