Katrina's Legacy

Arriving in Panama City a night earlier than planned meant having the opportunity to experience Bike Week (and we're not talkin' bicycles here) and having to switch hotels midway through my visit. Bikers had taken over the Days Inn on Panama City Beach where I had a pre-paid room reserved for Sunday night, so I couldn't just add Saturday night to my reservation. It was the Grand Finale of Bike Week on Panama City Beach, an event that rivals similar outrageous parties famous in Daytona Beach and Myrtle Beach. If you've ever been to either place, just know that Panama City Beach fits right in to that tacky image. Sorry to offend any readers who have a fondness for the "Redneck Riviera," but even some of the locals told me they thought the best thing that could happen to PCB was a major hurricane.
Monday morning couldn't come too soon. I was looking forward to my next stop in New Orleans. My flight over the coastal waters of the Gulf was spectacular and a brisk tailwind shortened the trip considerably. A low overcast in southern Louisiana required an instrument approach to Runway 18R at Lakefront Airport. The glidepath brings you down over the water right to the edge of Lake Ponchartrain. Pretty cool.
It only takes a minute to realize the airport was one of Katrina's casualties. Sides of buildings are missing, the old control tower is abandoned with all of its glass blown out, and businesses are operating out of double-wide trailers. But the spirit of the people there couldn't be more positive. They're trying to get beyond it, but they remember. The horror, the loss of life, and a city that might never be restored.
Henry Adams is the cabbie who drove me to the hotel. He and his family evacuated but lost everything. His 25 year old neighbor stayed behind. As Henry told it, the wall of water rushing in from a breached levee was so strong that it turned the neighbor's house upside down. His neighbor had desperately sought higher ground by climbing into the attic. But as Henry said, "he didn't have a chance."
All along our route into the city I saw one neighborhood after another. All abandoned. All boarded up. No signs of any life. Henry told me the blue tarps on some of the houses were put there by rescuers who had to chop through the roof.
If you look at New Orleans' commercial and tourist districts, you might not realize what lies just outside the city gates. It's almost life as it was before Katrina. Except for the tacky T-shirts that are for sale everywhere reminding us of Katrina's legacy.

Ahead of Schedule

The first thing I did when I woke up Saturday morning was to check weather forecasts for the first few days of my planned route of flight. I saw that a stationary front hanging over the Carolinas was about to re-energize and kick up high winds and possible storms beginning early Sunday morning. That's not good weather for flying, period. I made a few phone calls to find out if my airplane would be available a day early - fortunately it was - and I rearranged my schedule to depart Mt. Pleasant early Saturday night.

The airplane I'm flying is a rental aircraft operated by Coastal Aviation at the Mt. Pleasant airport (LRO). They are, by far, the most accomodating and professional group of people I have encountered in my 15 years of flying. They knew I was leaving on a very long and challenging trip and they made sure the airplane was serviced and ready to fly. Having flown dozens of other airplanes operated by various flight companies I've learned to expect less than prompt attention to minor maintenance issues uncovered in general aviation aircraft. But Coastal really takes good care of their fleet. And some fleet it is - they have five 172SP's, two of which are equipped with the new state-of-the-art Garmin G1000 glass cockpit. The airplane I'm flying has more conventional instrumentation - vacuum powered and pitot static guages along with the KLN94 GPS.

It was just after 6pm when I taxied out to runway 17 at LRO, performed my final engine and instrument checks, and began my great adventure one day earlier than planned. The IFR flight plan I filed requested direct GPS point-to-point routing from LRO to Panama City (PFN), a distance of 341 nautical miles. Factoring winds, my estimated time enroute was to be 3:09.

I lifted off from Mt. Pleasant in ideal conditions - a few scattered clouds with light southeasterly winds. Climbing through 700 feet I contacted Charleston Approach to request my IFR clearance. And I was quite pleased to hear that I was cleared direct to Panama City as filed.

It was a very uneventful three hours and nine minutes heading west-southwest at 6000 feet. The airplane has an automatic pilot that will hold altitude and heading. Once that was set I could relax a bit and let the joy and exhilaration of this life experience begin to wash over me. So long in coming but now it was finally here. And what a great beginning - sailing through a few scattered clouds with gentle winds and the sun setting on the horizon ahead of me. That portrait is now hanging in my library of memories from life's greatest moments.

Nightfall had preceded my arrival in Panama City. It's the best time of the day to be making an approach into a city airport. Visibility was good, so it was easy to line up for a visual approach to Runway 32 at PFN. I landed within two minutes of the projected time enroute at 9:15pm. I taxied to one of the general aviation fixed-base operators (SheltAir) where N5296Z would spend the next couple of nights. I unloaded my bags and took a taxicab to the nearby Marriott Courtyard where I took a quick shower, put on some clean clothes, and walked around the corner to Chili's for a few cold Dos Equis and some chicken fajitas.

Romancing a Dream

I remember as a boy riding my Huffy bicycle to the little airport in Hamilton, Ohio simply to sit in the grass and watch the planes take off and land. I could sit and sit for hours on end totally lost in my fantasy world of aviation. There was something magical about flying. And in my ten year old mind the men who could do it were the luckiest people on earth. Some day, I dreamed, I'd be up there, too.
The thrill of that "some day" for me came about 15 years ago when I soloed enroute to my private pilot license. Hundreds of flight hours and advanced piloting ratings later, I'm about to take off on a solo transcontinental cross country flying adventure that has been my dream for more than a decade.
This blog will be the daily chronicle of my adventure. I will begin Sunday, May 6 departing from Mount Pleasant Regional Airport near Charleston SC and fly west to Panama City, FL. My itinerary includes overnight stops in New Orleans, San Marcos TX, Las Cruces NM, Williams AZ, Santa Barbara CA, Sonoma CA, Reno NV, Salt Lake City UT, Cheyenne WY, Rapid City SD, Des Moines IA, Hamilton OH, Cleveland OH, Utica NY, Rockland ME, Nantucket MA, Washington DC, Nags Head NC, Charlotte NC and back to Mt Pleasant.
For the interested aviators reading this, I'll be flying a 2002 C172SP (N5296Z), a fuel-injected, single-engine, four-seat airplane that cruises at 115 knots (125 mph). It's outfitted with all Bendix-King nav's and comm's, including a KLN 94 GPS. I'll have oxygen on board for use at or above 10,000 feet, necessary when flying routes across the Rockies.
Am I excited? I can't begin to describe how rich the anticipation has been every day leading up to departure. The weather is looking wet for the first few days, but what's an IFR rating for? It'll be an adventure for sure, and one that I'm eager to share each step of the way.