Today we were rolling down runway 22 at 0715 departing home base Luray in the fog heading to Philadelphia PA. As we quickly climbed out of the thin deck of fog we were greeted by the bright early morning sunrise as we turned northeast on our flight plan to Philly. The air was smooth as glass and it appeared as if we were sitting still and the earth was moving beneath us. We had a slight tail wind and ATC cleared us to Northeast Philly as filed.
We arrived at Northeast Philly a little ahead of schedule and our passenger Elaine and her friend Judie were there waiting for us. After our greetings and exchange of hugs (and a bathroom visit) we all loaded up for our 3 hour flight down to Greensboro NC. After receiving our IFR clearance we departed Northeast Philly on runway 33 and was on our way. The air again was smooth as glass as ATC had us climb up to 5000 feet. Once ATC had vectored us around Philadelphia International we climbed up to our assigned altitude of 6000 feet and joined our flight route down to Greensboro. As we progressed farther south we were poking thru some scattered cumulus clouds (which were beautiful) and they gave us a few slight bumps, but still a very nice ride. We encountered a few minor cells that produced some light showers, but not even enough to get the bugs off of our windshield. On our flight down to Greensboro we enjoyed some great conversation with Elaine and Judie which really made the 3 hours we were in the air FLY by !
When we arrived at Greensboro we were cleared by approach for a visual to runway 23L and then tower cleared us to land. After unloading we took a few pictures with Elaine and Judie at the Airplane, then as we walked into the FBO we were greeted by Jon Wells, Jon would be continuing Elaine and Judie on to Asheville NC in his 182. After all of our goodbyes and more hugs and pictures and waiting for some fuel to be added to 49Bravo, we departed Greensboro headed for home. We were cleared direct as filed and our ride again was very smooth except for the occasional poking of clouds that were scattered around. There were several areas of small cells forming in different places but none got in our way going home. We requested and made a GPS approach to runway 4 into Luray to get down thru the scattered clouds, then once on approach and under the clouds we canceled our IFR and continued a visual, landing on runway 4 with a very slight tailwind.
After tucking 49Bravo snugly back into her hanger we enjoyed a nice cup of hanger coffee and some great conversation along with Daniel, one of our airport staff. Daniel helps to keep us going by always seeing to our refueling needs. Then, as most always, we started out on one of the most dangerous parts of our day……. the ride home !
Total flight time for today was 6.4 hours covering 721 nautical miles over 5 States.
Thanks for viewing and Have a Great Day !
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