Angel Flight Mission #7

I signed up last minute to fly some coolers of blood from Sequim, WA. (W28) to Boeing Field. It was a perfectly clear day, so I invited one of the 182 partners along to act as safety pilot while I got some right seat hood time in preparation for my CFII check ride.

"Whiskey" 10

It had been a few weeks since we made a family flight so we were looking for either a destination that we hadn't been to or some place new to fly to. We thought about going to Roche Harbor, but then remebered that we had just driven to Langley the week before and met one of the residents that flys out of W10. It turns out that there is a local coffee company (Mukilteo Coffee Roasters) that has a cafe and restaurant within walking distance of the airport. The airport comittee has also provided bicycles for use by visiting pilots to commute the two and a half miles into town.

For this trip we were just interested in the Cafe, since the kids aren't quite ready for a bicycle ride into town. I checked the winds at nearby Paine Field and made note of the warm temperatures for density altitude considerations. The winds were out of the North at 10-15 KTS and with the warm temps, I knew that it would be a bumpy ride on final into the airport. Plus the runway is surrounded by 50' trees, so once below the tree tops the transition can be a bit tricky. As predicted the bumps started to increase once in the pattern and then a couple of wing dips as we approached tree top level. All in all an uneventfull approach/landing but not the type of conditions that you would take passengers who are new to small planes.

Finding the cafe is easy, just follow the fancy signs. The coffee and food are worth the trip and on a nice day, there is a nice deck to sit out and enjoy the Pacific NW weather and a fine latte.

Interestingly, I had landed at this airport when I was a student pilot with only 10 hours. Looking at my logbook, my instructor took me here on my ninth flight on August 28, 2003. Almost six years to the day I returned to one of the first airports that I had landed at early in my pilot journey.

A Case of the "Blues"

The Blue Angels were in town this week for their annual appearance at Sea Fair and there are various TFRs in place to cover the official show and practice sessions. I had a colleague in town who had just earned his private pilot certificate a few weeks prior and we had been planning to take a flight at some point during the week, but with the hot temperatures that Seattle was experiencing, it wouldn't have been fun being in an airplane when its 90+ degrees. The temps started to cool by the end of the week so we decided on a flight Friday morning. As luck would have it, the temps got low enough overnight to allow a marine layer to roll in and this forced us to cancel our early morning flight due to low ceilings. As the morning passed on, the clouds began to lift but with the TFRs kicking in later in the day, we'd only have a small window to get airborne and return before the airspace closed. I diligently checked the TFRs on DUATS and called FSS just to make sure there were no surprises.

We got to the airport about 11:30 and were airborne shortly after. We made a quick loop around the Puget Sound area and then landed back at Boeing Field with 30 minutes to spare before the airspace closure. We tied the plane down and hung around until the start of the Blue's practice session.