A Very High East Coast Tour

I was at work one day in early August when I got a call from one of my airport buddies with an offer I couldn't refuse. I bit of schedule magic later, I was able to get a day off for a very cool opportunity...

...the chance to ride right seat in the HondaJet for a volunteer flight!

The panel in the jet was really impressive; it's completely glass and mostly controlled with the touch pads in the lower middle of the picture. A lot of the systems are automated and adjust themselves as needed as you go. Frank (the pilot) fired up the jet, ran through all the systems, and picked up our IFR clearance from Potomac. A few minutes later, we were off!

We initially climbed up through one of my sectors, and while I didn't want to butt in and grab the mic from Frank while he was running checklists, it was pretty cool to hear some of my coworkers on frequency. It didn't take very long to get up into the flight levels and start making our way south toward our first stop: CSG, Columbus, GA.

This was our view for most of the flight to Georgia. We spent most of the flight above 30,000 feet; it was pretty sweet to be so high up.

We did eventually have to come back down, though. We spent a few minutes zipping through the clouds as we descended on the approach.

The panel is great for situational awareness when you're flying instrument approaches. You can pull up the approach plate on the far left side and still have your GPS map handy in the middle.

We popped out of the clouds and got the airport in sight when we were still a few miles out...

...and Frank made a very nice landing, then taxied us in to the FBO.

I learned that one of the cool things about the jet was the single-point fueling, which is way better than having to fuel multiple tanks. I also learned that if you try to refuel it too fast, the fuel backs up in the line and shoots out into the face of the person doing the fueling. Frank supervised things to make sure they didn't have to learn that the hard way.   :)

It cracked me up that the FBO actually set out a red carpet for us. We didn't have to wait very long for our passenger and his service dog to arrive. We got them and their bags loaded up, picked up our clearance to Bedford, Massachusetts (BED), and were back in the air.

There were already a couple storms starting to pop up as we departed; we passed the tops of these around 21,000 feet.

We really didn't have to worry about buildups when we finally got up to FL430, though! That may be the highest I've ever been, including airline flights. The ride was pretty good up there, and we spent a couple hours cruising up the East Coast.

New York Center started stepping us back down as we approached Long Island. It got bumpier as we descended, but at least we got to enjoy the smooth ride for a little while.

There were some pretty clouds out over the water as we descended.

We got the airport in sight and landed just fine. Taxiing to the ramp was another matter, though; it took a couple minutes of weaving our way between other bigger jets before someone at the FBO came out to marshal us in.

We did eventually get settled in, said goodbye to our passengers, and topped off the plane for the trip back to VA.

Goodbye, Massachusetts...time to head home!

I don't know that I'd ever get sick of a view like this.   :)

...but with that view came some nasty headwinds. We wound up in the jetstream at one point and the headwind crept up over 100kts.

As we flew south, the clouds started to fill in...

...and we wound up between layers for a little while.

We eventually popped back out of the clouds as we continued south.

Almost home! This is right near the Pennsylvania/Maryland border. You could see the storms moving in out to the west.

We canceled IFR when we were a little bit west of Dulles, and Frank asked if I'd like to fly for a little while. He didn't have to ask me twice! I spent a few minutes hand-flying the jet, throttles and all (!), and tried my best to stay mostly on altitude and heading. It was really cool to fly such a neat plane.

Frank let me fly it until we were fairly close to the field, then took it back for the approach and landing. Gary met us at the hangar and used the tug to push us inside before we even got out of our seats. Fancy!

Ta da! Back in the hangar after a fun day of volunteer flying. I'm really grateful I had the chance to do this...it was such a cool experience!