1. Apr 2007: Martha's Vineyard
I had a treat today in the form of a passenger. Kurt decided to accompany me on a breakfast trip to Martha's Vineyard. This was after the last couple of weekends had been either rained or snowed out or else the winds were gusting upwards of 40 knots. Luckily today turned out to be a nice day, albeit cold. The Skyhawk was in need of deicing before we could leave Hanscom. So, dripping glycoI, I filed for the Hanscom Six instrument departure and we were off.
ATC turned us toward Boston. Views were great and surprisingly, we were cleared direct to MVY at 5,000, our requested altitude. The ride was smooth as glass and we were getting a ground speed of 130+ knots. Some eastbound jet traffic bound for Logan passed beneath us as we made out way south.
There was some burning going on down near Asswompset pond which made for a smoke plume that stretched all of the way to the coast at Plymouth. Over Mattapoisett, we were cleared to descend into the Vineyard at our descretion. I decided to get down to 2,000 feet as soon as possible to allow Kurt to get some nice photos of Wood's Hole and Naushon Island. The visual approach to Vineyardhaven was uneventful and I pulled off a real squeaker of a landing on runway 24.
Suprisingly, we were only the second aircraft in so far this morning. A light twin came in earlier. It was off to the Plane Sense Restaurant for some high cholesterol fare. There was a table available right away so no waiting....just wait a couple of weeks when the season really starts. There have been Sundays when I couldn't even land at KMVY due to the overflow of aircraft parking!
Heading out to the aircraft after breakfast, we got the line attendant to take a photo of us and the 172SP since there weren't too many aircraft coming in at that time. He said that yesterday was far different. They were parking planes all the way down onto the grass off of the tarmac.
After engine start, clerance delivery could not abtain a copy of the return clerance. A quick call to Burlington Flight Service took care of that. Soon we were off and airborne again. We were routed to FREDO intersection via the MVY 017 radial which was a distance of a little over 35 miles. The view was nice as we passed just west of OTIS ANG station, over the Cape Cod Canal and Plymouth harbor. Traffic was starting to pick up as we [roceeded northward and Boston approach started to give us radar vectors around some conflicting traffic. As luck would have it, as we got closer to KBED, they decided to bring us around to the west, then east to approach Runway 29 from the northeast. Quite an interesting little diversion but Kurt was able to get some nice photos of the Sudbury river and wetlands.
ATC turned us toward Boston. Views were great and surprisingly, we were cleared direct to MVY at 5,000, our requested altitude. The ride was smooth as glass and we were getting a ground speed of 130+ knots. Some eastbound jet traffic bound for Logan passed beneath us as we made out way south.
There was some burning going on down near Asswompset pond which made for a smoke plume that stretched all of the way to the coast at Plymouth. Over Mattapoisett, we were cleared to descend into the Vineyard at our descretion. I decided to get down to 2,000 feet as soon as possible to allow Kurt to get some nice photos of Wood's Hole and Naushon Island. The visual approach to Vineyardhaven was uneventful and I pulled off a real squeaker of a landing on runway 24. Suprisingly, we were only the second aircraft in so far this morning. A light twin came in earlier. It was off to the Plane Sense Restaurant for some high cholesterol fare. There was a table available right away so no waiting....just wait a couple of weeks when the season really starts. There have been Sundays when I couldn't even land at KMVY due to the overflow of aircraft parking!
Heading out to the aircraft after breakfast, we got the line attendant to take a photo of us and the 172SP since there weren't too many aircraft coming in at that time. He said that yesterday was far different. They were parking planes all the way down onto the grass off of the tarmac.
After engine start, clerance delivery could not abtain a copy of the return clerance. A quick call to Burlington Flight Service took care of that. Soon we were off and airborne again. We were routed to FREDO intersection via the MVY 017 radial which was a distance of a little over 35 miles. The view was nice as we passed just west of OTIS ANG station, over the Cape Cod Canal and Plymouth harbor. Traffic was starting to pick up as we [roceeded northward and Boston approach started to give us radar vectors around some conflicting traffic. As luck would have it, as we got closer to KBED, they decided to bring us around to the west, then east to approach Runway 29 from the northeast. Quite an interesting little diversion but Kurt was able to get some nice photos of the Sudbury river and wetlands.
Finally, we landed back at Hanscom. Boston and Maine Airways was just getting their Jetstream 3100 ready for their scheduled flight to Trenton, NJ. Thought I'd take a picture; it's neat to see the old Pan Am logo back in action.
Labels: 172, Martha's Vineyard
posted by Robert at 2:31 PM
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